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t^iz.-L

f^arbarti College l^ibrarg

7ROM THS BEqySST OF

JAMES WALKER, D.D., LL.D.,

(Clara of 1814),

PORMBR PRBSIDBNT OF HARVARD COLLEOS;

** Preference being given to works in the
Intellectual and Moral Sciences."

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THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

MONTHLY MAGAZINE

General Literature and Science.

VOI,. LXV,
APRIL. 1897, TO SEPTEMBER, 1897.

NEW YORK :

THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD,
120 West 60th Street.

1897.

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.A- /

/.- ./■■

The Columbus Press, 120 West 60th St., Niw York.

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CONTENTS.

Aries, The Ancient City of: Its
Churches and Antiquities. {Illus^
trated.) — Emma Endres^ . . 586

Biology, A Glimpse of. — William Se-

ton^ LL,D,y 254

Cardinal Perraud and the Lacordaire
Group, {Pi>rtraits,) — Joseph O'-
Reilly, 381

Catholic Authors, Authentic Sketches

of Living, 130, aSo, 434, 563, 708, 852

Catholic Charities of England, The.—

Alice Worthington Wintkrop^ 14

Catholic Education in India, . . 289

Catholic Flanders, In. {Illustrated,^^

Rev. J, D. O' Donnelly . .825

Catholics and the Revolution. {Illus-
trated.) — Fraucts T. Furey^ . , 495

Celebrities I have Known.—'* Alba,'' . 489

Centenary of the South- West, The. (7/-

lustrated.)-- Edward J. McDermctt, 240

Characteristics of the Normans, Some.

— Charles Gibson, .... 506

Christ Walking on the Water,

{Frontispiece.)

Church and Modem Society, The, . 214

Cloth HaU and H6tel de Ville, Ypres,

{Frontispiece.)

Columbian Reading Union, The, 139, 285,
429, 569, 716, 860
Crypt of St. Peter's, In the, {Illus-

trated), 738

Dante's Theory^of Papal Politics.— -^«;.

George McDermat, C.S.P., . 356

Degrees of Kindred. — Ancilla Regis, . 320
Democracy of Literature, A Citizen of

the.— Richard E, Connell, . . 751
Dogma, The Development of. — Rev.

David Moyes, D.C.L., . 433

Dolores' Easter. — Easton Smith, . 93

Echtemach and the Dancing Pilgrims.

— Rev. Ethelred L, Taunton, . . 206
Editorial Notes, 128, 279, 421, 562, 706, 851
Edmund Burke, the Friend of Human

Liberty.— ^«^. George McDermot,

C.S.P., 473

English Church strongly Roman, The

Y^ij.— David B. Walker, . 766

" Farthest North," by Dr. Nansen. (//-
lustrated.)'~Rev, George McDermot,
C.S.P., 641

Footsteps of the Old Missionaries, In
the. {Illustrated.) — Arthur M.
Clark, C.S.P., 154

Forgotten Literature, A. — Leopold

Katscher, 37

Garden of the Lord, A. {Illustrated.)

— Caroline D. Swan, ... 78

Gublnet.— y. M. Crottie, . 442

Happiness in Purgatory, ... 74

Happy Valley, The : A Reminiscence of
a Tramp in the Austrian Tyrol. {Il-
lustrated.)— Mary Elisabeth Blake, 24

Hero of the Swiss Republic, A. (IlluS'

trated.)— Mary Elizabeth Blake, . 658

Hewit, D.D., Very Rev. Augustine F.,
Memoir and Portrait of. — See Au-
gust number.

Historic Relics of the "Lost Ten

Tribes," 535

Indian Clergy Impossible, Kvl.— Frede-
ric Eberschweiler, S.J», . . .815

Indian Vocations, Native. {Illustrated), 343

Isaac Butt, Personal Reminiscences of.

— William O'Brien, .... 336

Juvenile Offenders.- ^^r. Francis W.

Howard, 115

La Salle's Connection with the Jesuits,
Light on. {Illustrated.) — Joseph
Walter Wilstach, .... 82

Life-saving Station, Life at a. {Illus-
trated.) — Frances Albert Doughty, 514

Life-Work of a great Catholic Apolo-
gist, and its Bearing on a Vital
Question, The.— ^w. M. O'Rior-
dan, Ph.D., D.D., D.C.L., . 597

Mangan, Poet, The Genius of James

Clarence, 528

Manning, A Protestant Defence of. —

Rev. Bertrand L. Conway, C.S.P., . loi

Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet. —

Thomas B. Reilly, .... 802

Monseigneur D'Hulst. {Illustrated), 620

"More to be Desired than Gold."—

Katherine Hughes, . .1

Mother Catharine's Death before the Al-
tar at Benediction of Most Blessed
Sacrament, {Frontispiece.)

Mother Duchesne, R. S. H , an Uncan>
onized American Saint. — 5. L.
Emery, 687

Mother Francis Raphael. {Portrait.)—

L. W. Reilly, 366

Nature Study in our Schools.—/^. Conig-

land Farinholt, .... 674

Our Boys. — Rev. Michael P. Heffeman, f^Tj

Parish of the Sacred Heart, In the. —

Margaret Kenna, . 463, 606

Priest in Fiction, The. — Charles A. L.

Morse, 145

Psychology of the Beaver. — William

Seton, LL.D., 654

Puritan Catholicized, The —Rev. P. J.

O'Callaghan, iii

Resurrection, The, {Frontispiece.)

Richard Whiting, Blessed, the last Abbot
of Glastonbury. {Illustrated.) —
Very Rev. F. Felix, O.S.B., y.G., . 448

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Contents.

Rossetti's Poetry.— CAar/gs A. L. Aforse^ 633
Science as a Detective. — Ernest La-

garde, 795

Shade of Joel Barton, The.— Henry T.

Byrd, 56

Sin of Omission, A Heartless. — Rev. G.

Lee, C.SS.P., . . . . . 679
Socialism and Catholicism.— ^«/. Fran-
cis W. Howard, . . . .721
Southern Acadia, The Soul of. {///us-

/rated,)— Co/umba C. Spa/ding, . 482
St. Anthony's Bread, .... 395
St. Colum-Cille and his Fourteenth

Centenary, {///us/rated.)— M. A.

O'Byrne, . . . .305

St. Francis in Salvation Army Uniform.

^Rev. A, P. Doy/e, .... 760

Story of a Tired Woman, The Hum-
drum.— il/tfriV7« Ames Taggart, . 72S

Talk about New Books, 121, 263, 399, 546,

695, 837

"They knew Him in the Breaking of

Bread," {Frontispiece.)

Time of War, In the. {///ustrated.)—

He/en M. Sweeney, .... 188

" Unless a Man be Bom Again—" . 223

Western Hospital, The Story of a

great. {I//ustrated.)—P, G. Smyth, 776

What the Thinkers Say,

i35i 423» 567. 7i4» 856

Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. (//-

/ustrated.)—Mary A. Mitche//, 173

Worm in an awful Hiatus, A..— John A.

Mooney, 162

POETRY.

Calculating \.oye.—Wi//iam P. Cant-

we//, 253

Christian's Lex Talionis, The.— J/ar-

ce//a A. Fitzgeraid, .... 52

Clock, The.-/^. -r. ^., 380

-Char/es

Food of Elijah, The. — John Jerome

Rooney, 800

Immortality. — Bert Marie/, . , , 447

Easter Morning, {///ustrated.)-
Hanson Toivne,

Life's Meed.-^. Oahey Ha//,

Old Trinity Church- Yard, Vn.— He/en M.

Sweeney,

Return of May, The.— C. T. Rush,
Sacrament, h.—F. X. E.,
Sea-Grasses. — Caro/ine D. Swan, .
St. Monica's Eve.— /% X. E.,
Sunset, At. — L. Marion Jenlts,
Temptation, The. {///us/rated,)— Fran-
cis W. Grey, ....

238

92
172

II
6x8
494
304

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

American and British Authors, . . 415
Catherine de' Medici, About, . . 403

Catherine McAuley and the Sisters of

Mercy, 270

Catholic Truth Society's New Publica-
tions: Cobbett's History of the Refor-
mation ; The Value of Life ; Father
Cuthbert's Curiosity Case ; Wayside
Tales ; Key to Labour Problems ;
Ought We to honor Mary ? Library
of Catholic Tales ; The Drunkard ;
Life of James, Earl of Derwentwater, 409
Chief End of Man, The, . . .407

Christianity and Social Problems, . . 266
Cochem's Explanation of the Holy Mass, 553
Contributions to the Science of Mytho-

l>gT» 275

Disunion and Reunion, .... 845
Eclectic School Readings, . . . 560
Edmund Campion : A Biography, . 418

Equality, 844

Falcon of Lang^ac, The, . . . 700
Federation of Churches and Christian

Workers in New York City, The, . 846
Foundations of Faith, .... 556
Fragments of Roman Satire, . . 839

Harp of Milan 561

Heart Tones, 409

His Divine Majesty; or. The Living God, 556
Immortelles of Catholic Columbian Lit-
erature, 121

Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents,

Jesus Christ during His Ministry, .

Lectures on Literature, .

Letters of St. Alphonsus Maria de
Liguori,

Life of Christ, The,

Lily of the Valley, The, .

Liquor Problem in its Legislative As-
pects, The,

Logic and Metaphysics, .

Long Probation, A, . . .

Lyrics,

Martin Luther, ....

Metropolitans, The,

New Poems,

Organic Life, A Glimpse of, .

Our Martyrs

Pastoral Theology,

Pius the Seventh, 1800-1823, .

Pope Leo XIII., ....

Religion for To-Day, ...

Romance of a Jesuit Mission,

Rose of Yesterday, A, . . .

Sacrifice of the Mass worthily Celebrat
ed. The,

Socialism and Catholicism, .

Society Woman on Two Continents, A,

Summer Talks about Lourdes,

Taming of Polly, The, .

Thoughts for all Times, .

Woman of Thirty, A, . . .

417
401
842

548
702

403

557
122
704

699
121
701
695

557

263
837
546
844

127

553
124
704
549
399
403

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/*\

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PHoe, 25 Cents ; S3 per Tear.

THE OFFICE OF ^HE CATHOLIC WORLDrNEW YORK

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Contents.

" More to be Desired than Gold." Katherine Hughes.

A Sacrament. (Poem,) F, X. E,

Easter Morning. (Poem.) (Illustrated.j

Charles Hanson Towne.
The Catholic Charities of England.

Alice Worthington Winihrop,

The Happy Valley : A Reminiscence of a Tramp in the

Austrian Tyrol. (Illustrated,) Mary Elizabeth Blake,

A Forgotten Literature. Leopold Kaisc her.

The Christian's Lex Talionis. (Poem,)

Marcel la A, Fitzgerald,
The Shade of Joel Barton. Henry T, Byrd,

The TExMPTATION. (Poem,) (Illustrated.) Francis W, Grey,
Happiness in Purgatory.

A Garden of the Lord. (Illustrated,) Caroline D, Swan,
Light on La Salle's Connection with the Jesuits.

(Illustrated.) Joseph Walter Wilstach,

In Old Trinity Church-Yard. (Poem.) Helen M, Sweeney,
Dolores' Easter. Easton Smith,

A Protestant Defence of Manning.

Rev, Dertrand L. Conway , C,S,P,
The Puritan Catholicized. Pe7>, P. J, O'Callaghan,

Juvenile Offenders. Rev, Francis W, Howard,

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"And the Angel answering, said to the women:

Fear not you, for I know that you seek Jesus who was

crucified. He is not here, for he is risen, as he said.

Come, and see the place where the Lord was laid."

—5/. Matthnv xxviii. 5. 6.

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THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

Vol. LXV

No. 385.

''MORE TO

TER comes late in the
•Jorth, but when it comes it
5 greeted rapturously. For
ome days the sky is hidden
ehind a scudding rack of
ismal gray clouds, and the
valleys lie swathed in pur-
ple gloom. Then a radi-
ant sun peeps over the
dark hills and takes her
;tering course across the
e vault. She transforms the
y vapors into pearly cloud-
ipleSy and turns a strong,
'm, laughing face to the
lied earth.
The hardy Northerner bares his head to the tender west-
wind. It gently lifts the flattened temple-locks, and its elfin
fingers toy with them. A new sprightliness is infused into his
sturdy frame, his eye flashes, and he tells his friends in a
softened way : ** Spring is coming over the hills. I can feel
her breath." Soon his snow-shoes are hung out of the way
upon the cabin-wall, and the canoes are freshly gummed.

In this way spring comes to Fort Stephen, lying snuggled
in a little Laurentian valley, which all the year round echoes
the thunder of the white horses' hoofs in their mad, unending
race toward the great bay. It is an old gray fort, consist-

VOL. LXV.— I

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2 ''More to be Desired than Gold'' [April,

ing of several log and stone buildings — a trading-post of the
Hudson's Bay Company. A high fence of posts, sharpened on
top and secured with wooden pins to horizontal pieces of tim-
ber, encloses the fort.

At one time John Eliot and his assistant, Ross MacFarlane,
were the company's servants here. Their straight-backed, ener-
getic, elderly housekeeper was Mrs. Martha Dodge, whom John
Eliot had brought with him to Canada from his old home in
Scotland eight years previously.

One morning, as she served up breakfast in his cozy
sitting-room, she said to him : " Gude mornin', Mr. John ! My
heart's rare glad that spring's come again. The snaw alwass
minds an auld body like me of a windin'-sheet. It's sune to melt,
I prophesy." A warm glow lit up her faded eyes as she spoke.

** I believe it is, Martha ; I believe it is," he answered, rub-
bing his hands briskly, for the room was chilly despite the
young fire and the flooding sunbeams. " MacFarlane has had
his breakfast, I suppose." He crossed the room to the little,
old-fashioned window. " Surely. There's a look of spring
about the hills — blue as the bluebells of lang syne ; eh, Martha?
It is, hey, for Pere Sabourin and the Indians now ! "

"Ay, yess, a' warrant they'll be here as sune as the ice
melts proper. Weel, weel, it makes a pleasant stir. But a' think
a'll hev to mak a stir in this bit fire for ye. It's twice that Dan
hass been at it this mornin', and it's nearly dead this minit."

John moved toward the old fireplace to offer his help, but
paused to watch her. With a few vigorous pokes she tumbled
the small front logs about, and bright sparks of the tamarac
flew upward. She threw a large pine-knot upon the logs, and
in an instant the fitful muttering burst into a great roar, and a
ragged flash of flame darted up licking the wide, dark chimney.
The fire was wonderfully improved. Her master remarked :

" I was going to help you, Martha, but you were managing
it more cleverly than I could. I have never before seen a
woman who could make a fire burn as it should. But, then, as
mother used to say," John continued tenderly, *** there is only
one such Martha in the world.* "

She was stooping to put in order the disarranged wolf-skin
that lay before the hearth. When she rose, slowly, her dim
old eyes shone with soft light.

**Yir sweet mither is dead, Mr. John, but her bonny heart
is warm in ye yet," she said, and busied herself with pouring
out his coffee.

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1897-] ''More to be Desired than Gold:' 3

11.

Spring came, wept and laughed in heartsome delight over
the growing beauty of the valley, and tripped away across the
dark northern hills, as her slow-moving sister, Summer, came
up in warm loveliness from the south.

At the head of the valley is the Horse Race with its boom-
ing uproar, and close below it the lake, out of which the river
again takes its course. The ice had completely left the river
before the Indians came — only a few large cakes, loath to melt,
remained in the lake.

For a fortnight before P6re Sabourin arrived the Indians
had been at the fort. Their birch-bark wigwams lined the
river*s bank for some distance north and south of the opposite
fort. P^re Sabourin was, as usual, John Eliot's honored guest.

The morning after the priest's arrival John Eliot stood at
the window of the store and looked out across the court-yard,
the high palisade, and the flashing ^blue river at the encamp-
ment. The valley was drenched with warm sunshine, but on
Martha's treasured sweet-brier bush gossamery cobwebs still
hung, lightly impearled with dew. From a pinery that stood
to the left of the fort came confused, harmonious bursts of
bird-rapture, poured out to John's entrancement. Thin smoke
wreathed sleepily up from the remains of the Indians' morning
fires and a patch of hot air shimmered about each.

" Happy little beggars ! " he said to himself, as he watched
the small, dark bodies of some Indian children rolling about in
the yellow sand. " How quietly they play ! It is a wonder
their mothers did not bring these little papooses to church. I
suppose they realized that Benoit's house cannot conveniently
hold more than the grown-ups."

On the brow of the opposite hill, partly hidden by a belt of
picturesque fir-trees, Benoit's house stood. The tasteful Benoit
had colored it red with a solution of clay found in the river-
bed, and, lit by the strong sunbeams, it stood out glowing
from the black firs.

Eliot saw Mrs. Dodge's erect, angular figure pass out into
the courtyard. She wore a quaintly-fashioned, respectable black
cashmere gown, and held her Bible in one hand. He watched
her pass through the gate.

" Ross," he said, turning toward his friend, " I think I'll
stroll up to the little church, and hear P^re Sabourin preach.
You will take charge here, eh ? "

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4 ''More to be Desired than Gold:' [April,

" ril run the ranch, old fellow. Say a prayer for yours
truly," he said sleepily, and rolled over in the big chair and
placed his feet more comfortably on the high box in front of
him. He had been only nine months at Fort Stephen, and
found it unspeakably dull ; perhaps because all his former life
had been spent in a lively Ontario town. John Eliot had
greater resources at home, within himself, for he had spent
three pleasant years in the solitary place, hunting, reading, and,
occasionally, thinking seriously. This last fascinating diversion
was something in which Ross MacFarlane did not indulge.

John went out. Yellow Dan, the half-breed servant at the
fort, was busily weeding a patch of turnips in the small
garden. John crossed over and looked on at his grubbing for
a moment.

" What prospects for a good garden this year, Dan ? '* he
asked him kindly.

Dan straightened himself and rested his elbow on the handle
of the hoe and looked wise.

" Not moche. Not plaintee rain ; an' Madame Doge say
frost come h'early this year. But I doan* believe him," he said
jerkily, as he continued his work. " No, I doan*. I laugh de
way dat woman talk about de wedher. Smarte ; yes, smarte !
He tink he know every-ting. Dat's a fac'.**

John turned away smiling and sauntered down to the river.
There was a shabby little foot-bridge built over the shallow
rapids down below the Petite Chute, But John dropped his
canoe into the water, leaped in and paddled to the opposite
side, landing among the dark-eyed little ones. He followed an
old cart-road that ran past Benoit's house, and, as he came up
the hill, the slight breeze carried the sound of Benoit's singing
to him. He softly entered the little cabin, which was for a
short while to be a true House of God, consecrated by Christ's
Real Presence and the humble adoration of simple hearts. For
however cunning the Indian may try to be in his worldly deal-
ings, he presents himself before the Almighty with the heart of
a child. Does not the Great Father read his every thought ?
Then he will adore him unreservedly and in all truth.

The old hunter, with the assistance of Yellow Dan's Indian
wife, had put his home in perfect order, that all things might
be properly befitting to his Divine Guest. The hewn floor and
walls had been freshly cleaned. His bed of skins was rolled
up in. a corner, where it served as a couch for an infant which
a young squaw had brought with her. The altar was a long

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1897.] ''More to be Desired than Gold:" 5

box that Benoit had got at the fort. Year after year he kept
it with scrupulous care for this annual Easter Sacrifice alone.
And Martha Dodge, strict Presbyterian as she was, had given
white linen for it two years before, which the wife of the stub-
bornly irreligious Dan kept in order. Benoit's nephew was
acolyte. The cabin was crowded. A few young braves knelt
outside of the door and by each of the two windows.

John stood leaning against the door-frame and watched the
Indians as they knelt or stood, imitating Benoit in his place to
the right of the altar. The Gospel read, P^re Sabourin re-
moved his chasuble and began the instructions to his beloved
brethren of the forest. The soft white alb showed out the
brown, weather-worn face, the shaggy iron-gray masses of hair
and sinewy brown hands folded meekly before him. The dark
faces of his kneeling brethren turned expectantly toward him.
He spoke in the Algonquin tongue, with which John was quite
familiar, and not one of the priest's concise, expressive sentences
escaped him. Martha, whose sober attire looked as much out
of place amid the red and blue skirts as a blackbird at a blue-
jays* frolic, listened reverently, although the language was
almost unintelligible to her.

III.

"M Nitchanis! " (My Children !)

The words fell tenderly upon the religious silence.

"The Great Master has again sent his servant to visit his
children, that they may not forget the love he sheds always
about them ; and if any among them have forgotten during the
long hunting months to keep his word, they may become again
his loving children, turning their ears from the words of the
Evil Spirit."

He told them what good works his Divine Master would
have his children do.

"And you will do these things, my friends. You will do
them to please the Great Father. When you have grieved the
heart of your friend, you make a good act for him, that he
may smile on you again ; you try to make well once more the
sick dog that you loved in the chase. Yet your friend has not
always been kind to you ; your dog has not always obeyed you !

" But your hearts are warm to them, my brethren ! Yes,
your hearts are warm to them. Are they not warm to the
Great Father also ? And will you not do this much for him —
each day one little act to please him and make up for the

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6 " More to be Desired than Gold'' [April,

many, many evil acts we have done in seasons that are gone
with their evil, to stand against us when the just God judges
us. Once this Great Ruler sent his Son down from his temple
in the skies, and the Son suffered that his red brothers might
be forgiven their sins; that they might have a place in his
Father's happy court. Ah, yes, the All-Father has not places
in his heaven for the white-faces alone. He would have his
red children by him too, and it may be they will be nearer
his great seat. The Man-God suffered to buy this for you.

** See Jesus ! " — the missionary drew his spare, straight frame
to its full height, and stood with a lean arm pointing to an
imaginary view of Calvary. His face was in profile, and the
dark skin and gleaming eye, high straight nose and long hair,
outstanding stiffly, made him look not unlike one of their own
honored sachems. His gesture was full of subdued passion,
and his facial muscles unmoved; but his eyes were lit with
feeling. His voice was low and intense ; the words came fast.

"Jesus* face is covered with blood. He cannot lift the
Cross we have laid on him ; he falls, but men make him rise ;
they pierce him with spears. And this is Jesus, who has never
made their hearts sad ; Jesus, who is suffering to open his
Father's court to them. But they beat him. See! he is cov-
ered with blood; and for us — for us, as for all men." He
paused for breath.

" When our friend is cold to us we do well in his sight,
that he may smile on us again ; when the good dog is sick we
give it healing herb-water ; but tell me, brothers," and the old
missionary reached a passionate, yearning face toward them —
he was an ardent Canadien again — " when we hurt Jesus, do we
make the little good deed to see him smile on us ? Do our
eyes drop tears at the thought of our sweet Jesus in pain ?
Ah, no!" he answered in cadences of intense regret, "we for-
get — sometimes, and still our Jesus wishes to pardon us.

" When the chief factor comes among you, you uncover
your heads and walk behind him, and some of you make a
smooth path for his feet. This is because you love your Kitchi
Aiauewinini, for he is pleasant with his children and gives them
flour and grease and cloth for their furs. But the All-Father,
the Great God, whose voice speaks to you in the thunder, and
through the deep forest, and in the roar of the waters ; who
gave you breath, and filled the lakes with fishes and the forest
with beasts, that you might have food ; this great All-Father
bends down from his seat, which is brighter than the clouds at

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1 897-] ''More to be Desired than Gold:' 7

sunset ; bends down from that glorious place where he keeps
seats for you all, and pleads with his red children to give him
their hearts.

"My brothers, will you say you cannot give them?"

The old priest leaned forward appealingly to them, his hands
outstretched. He made a long pause. Sixty pairs of glittering
dark eyes remained fixed upon his. Across the reverential
silence the warm noonday wind floated and brought on its
breath the whispering of a young pine without, and the low,
sleepy singing of the insect-choir. The birds were still, but up
from the valley came the softened thunder of the waters in
the Race.

The priest's simple, heart-searching words, and the tremu-
lous sweetness of his appeal, moved John Eliot's very soul.
Divine Love revealed itself in a flash. For an instant he felt
an ecstatic glow in his heart. It . passed, and the old John
Eliot, who was religious because it was respectable, and liked
the Bible for its beautiful language mostly, looked about at the
motionless figures of the Indians.

" It's a downright shame a man with such a mind and heart
should be thrown away upon ignorant men and women like
these. They cannot be impressed. Ha ! old Ka Kinouuapiich
there, or Joseph Menjaki, rather — his Christian name is more in
keeping here, I suppose — one might think he was listening de-
voutly. The cunning old rascal ! But he is wondering what he
shall get from me for that marten-skin. 'A gift for the good
white chief himself.' Yes ! and I shall have to make a handsome
return. Mme. Menjaki would like a handsome string of beads
for one thing, and the brightest cloth in the store. Poor old
Ka Kinauuapitchy that's what is troubling your soul just now ! "

While these conceits, at first honestly desirous of good, but
in the end cynically unjust, were flitting across John's mind,
Pfcre Sabourin resumed his discourse. His low, earnest voice,
rich in feeling, overflowed the small cabin-space and floated
outward in lingering waves of sound, that were tenderly lost on
the warm, sun-pierced air. John heard him saying:

"And because we know this, that He gave us life to love
and glorify him — just for this, my children ; not to hunt or fish,
one better than another, or to have finer coverings ; and since
we say we love him, how can we make known our love for this
Great God ? When his voice calls us, not in the thunder or
the waters, but by his strong angel. Death, we must each be
able to say as we stand before his face, * I loved thee. Great

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8 " More to be Desired than Gold:' [April,

Father, and I loved all men because thou madest them my
brothers/ I am an old man, my children ; I shall soon hear
my Father's strong angel calling me, and I say that my heart
is heaviest when I remember the unkindness done to my breth-
ren. For, listen, my children," he bent forward and said in
low, thrilling tones, "he loves each one of us, and he died to
save each one of us, and his loved ones' quarrels grieve his
great Father-Heart.

"When we sadden our brother's heart we say to ourselves,
'Our brother has not always acted well toward us; it is good
he should know that badness must be punished.' And another
day we say to the Lord God of Heaven, who can send us joy
or sorrow, * O God ! we have done wrong in thy eyes, but we
love thee. Have pity on us, your poor children ! ' But God
will say : * Have pity and kindness for your brother-man ; then
I will pity you, and gather you about me in my Heaven,'
where I pray the All-Father that we, his children, may meet.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost."

He turned to the altar.

Ka Kinouuapitch, the ofd chief, rose from his place in front.
The slight stoop of his tall form was more noticeable than
usual. He softly crossed the little room and stopped before
Wapanipich^ his nephew, and his bitter enemy for more than
eight months. Wapanipich^ erect and agile, sprang up. His
chief's keen, dark eyes were looking kindly at him from out
the immobile, old face.

^^Nikanisf (Brother?) The old Indian said it softly, ques-
tioningly.

Wapanipich placed his hand in the dusky, outstretched palm ;
the white man's hand-clasp was the seal of their reconciliation.
Then Wapanipich lowered his eyes, and his head drooped slight-
ly forward ; the look in the old chief's eyes awed him. Ka
Kinouuapitch gently released the young man's hand and returned
to his place.

John caught his breath quickly. The stern old chief un-
bending to seek a reconciliation with one who was his inferior
in rank, and who, moreover, bore no good reputation among his
kindred ! John Eliot was amazed at what he saw. A queer,
choking sensation filled his breast ; as though something within

Note. — Ka Kinouuapitch — The man who bends from carrying with the tump- lines. Wa'
paniptch — White leaf. Kitchi Atauewinini— The Great Man who supplies us, or who fur-
nishes goods (in exchange for furs).

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1 897-] ''More to be Desired than Gold:' 9

had suddenly expanded and was pressing to burst its confines.
The burden of the priest's discourse seemed still to float on
the silence about him : " God loves you ; love God/' Again an
ecstasy of love thrilled him and even his strong form trembled.
He stepped outside and walked, n^y^ glided down the hill. His
heart pulsed fiercely; his mind was a very chaos of new, burn-
ing thoughts that rushed in upon him and set him distracted.
The little dark beings wondered why the good white man
did not smile upon them as he passed, or even look at them
as they held up to him fragrant branches of wild roses. Their
great round eyes stared after him, as he strode by the encamp-
ment and down the old trail toward the Chute.

IV.

He turned down a rugged path he himself had worn, to a
favorite seat among the misshapen granite boulders opposite
the foot of the rapids. He dropped into the rocky seat and
bowed his head upon his hands. He sat with them pressing
firmly against his temples, endeavoring to make a world of love
and beauty out of the fierce chaos of his mind. For an instant
he remained in this position ; then he raised his head slowly.
His eyes fastened themselves on the gorge's spray-wet wall op-
posite him.

It was of primitive formation— i-the oldest of rocks, and its
stony face bore the scars and seams of ages. His mind was
held by it. It was before the Man-Christ came to earth — be-
fore even Adam, gloriously happy in man's pristine innocency,
was placed by his Creator in the Garden. It had been riven
apart in remote times, and the young torrent let through had
gnawed as a cancer at the strong-set rock, and the water-path
grew into this deep gorge.

His glance wandered over the ranges of hills, from the brown
foot-hills to the purple slopes that blended with the rich mid-
summer sky.

" What ailed ye, O ye mountains, that ye skipped like
rams : and ye little hills, like the lambs of the flock ? " This
the soft wind murmured.

"At the presence of the Lord the earth was moved: at the
presence of the God of Jacob."

He flung himself upon his knees.

" My God ! "

It might have been the soft breeze sighing down the ravine ;
the words were scarcely articulated.

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lo ''More to be Desired than Gold'' [April,

" Our God ! " His voice rose glad and high in the solitude.
" Mighty God of Heaven and Earth ! Ah, the sweetness of
thy strength ! " Then his voice died to an anguished wail.
" Lord of men ! have I lived more than thirty years and never
felt thee before ? Where have my years gone ? For in thee
is the Wisdom of ages, and I have not known thee. God — my
God ! teach me ; I am still a child." His voice sank to a whis-
per, and he steadied his shaken frame by leaning over the bare
ledge of rock beside him, a rugged prie-dieu. ** Teach me. Lord
of the Ages, and help me to • show thy greatness to my brother-
man."

He ceased speaking. His figure was motionless. No sound
broke on the noon-day silence ; for the slow thud, thud of the
waters against the base of the cliff, and their hissing turmoil in
the rapids, were strangely blended with the silence, and formed
part of it.

That night a worn old missionary and an eager young man
kept a long vigil in the lonely northern fort.

The following night the Indians celebrated the baptism of
their young babes and the marriages that had taken place that
morning. The leaping flames of their high-piled fires drove
back the fringing darkness and mocked the faint starlight. The
merry clamor of the youthful Indians was brought across on
the fresh night-breeze to John Eliot, as he knelt in his room
and gave thanks for the new, surpassing happiness the morning
had awakened him to, his first reception of the Body of the
Lord God made man.

Presently he went to the low window and, sliding it back in
its casing, looked out. Before the dusky background of the
hills the fires flamed up and disclosed the wigwams of the
merry band. Their loud mirth did not jar upon his devout
mood. He recalled the passage : " Gather up thy heart in His
holiness ; and drive away sadness far from thee. For sadness
hath killed many, and there is no profit in it."

He was awake to a new humanity.

'' Leschers en/ants des bois,'^ he said, quoting the old mission-
ary. ** Truly now my brothers in Christ," he added softly. The
light of Easter had dawned in another heart.

There was joy in heaven that night. Another earnest soul
had solved the problem of life. And rays of Divine Peace
were shed about John Eliot in that northern solitude, which
have since in the great outside world of action made clear his
path.

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A SACRAMENT.

BY F. X. E.

E Dove flew low to see the river lay
Its purple stole upon Emmanuel ;
And scarce athwart frail Eden's symbol fell
> splendor whilst in Love's array
stood, a neophyte, amid the spray.
When lo! divinely dawned the miracle
That proved to be what John had deigned foretell :
The harbinger of Earth's baptismal day!

And as the morrow's faintest glimmer came
A joy forgotten woke the desert drear, —
The Baptist heard afar the eastern sea
Commemorate the rite with this acclaim :
" Arise, O sun, and forth in white appear,
For hast thou not been 'born again in Me?"

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Caster/^rHii^

WHCHHt AROSE
THC VATCHERS saw THC SCftRS THAT JOLP THE A H^W
He SUf EEREP OfJ THE CRPS5. Uf^ His BROW

There still rehaiHcd the vo\itJps that bruised hia s».
7\HpTOLP or ALL His AQorV Ar^p vpc.

ORESURREQTlotJniRAQLE! THE HlQHT
OTTHftTLOWSR/VE WAS CoH^XlEREp WHeHtHEUSHT
Of EASTER/^Rl^lt^^ BROKE.

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So I AAYRISn ir> VICTORY TOPAY,

BrcakiH<o the bars or sorrow all away
LcavjtJs tic sa<;:k<;loth <^r /ay TCARraLT°MB,

To LIVE iHpCEP Ar^P LIKE A LILY BLO^n.

O triuaphit^gofglaptJess ovyERS'mirti
Ay soul nusT kt^ow the: resurrectioH liee
- . ^ WheH Easter /TRHir*<i breaks

^v\;'/7-
-^^^

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14 The Ca tholic Charities of Emgland. [April,

THE CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ENGLAND.

BY ALICE WORTHINGTON WINTHROP.

HOSE Catholics are worthy of all praise/* says
our Holy Father Pope Leo XIII. , in his Labor
Encyclical, " who, understanding what the times
require, have, by various enterprises and ex-
periments, endeavored to better the condition
of the working people." Further on, in the same connection,
he enunciates a truth which experience impresses more and
more forcibly on all students of the problem of poverty.
" Organization," he writes, " must depend on national charac-
ter." Americans should be the first to realize and act on this
principle, for our conditions are different in many respects from
those of European countries, and have to be differently dealt
with. .We have not yet learned to despair of the future of our
poor. We sorrow *' because of the poverty in our land," but
" not as those that are without hope " ; and this hopefulness is
justified by the possibilities of our race, by our faith in the
greatness of our own institutions.

We are more eager to undertake needed reforms, but we
lack the English thoroughness of execution, the English forget-
fulness of self and absorption in the work which it under-
takes — qualities due largely to steadfastness of purpose, and, in
a small degree, to an absence of humor ; but we do not have
to contend with the rigid lines of class distinctions, of vested
interests, of inherited conservatism, which make reform in Eng-
land so arduous.

We have not the difficulties produced by the Poor Laws,
the pauper population, the work-houses; but we have our own
problems, in illiterate immigrants and in shifting commercial
conditions ; while our great cities share with Liverpool, Man-
chester, Birmingham, and London the evils of density of popu-
lation, of the tenement-house, and of the "sweating system."

STATE SOCIALISM NEEDED.

At first sight, the most painful aspect of London poverty is
its hopelessness — the deadening influence of dirt and drunken-
ness, of absolute misery, of probable vice. It is not surprising

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1897.1 The Catholic Charities of England. 15

that many who are struggling to help the London poor assert
that it is useless to attempt to elevate the condition of this
generation. Even Mr. Charles Booth, who is more sanguine
than most philanthropists, advocates the segregation of a certain
percentage of the present population in government institutions
where their labor, inadequate for self-support, will at least help
to pay for their maintenance by the state ; the purpose of such
segregation being to save the remainder — principally the young
— for whom something can be done. " In taking charge of the
lives of the incapable," Mr. Booth says, "State Socialism finds
its proper work, and by doing it completely would relieve us
of a serious danger." This idea will probably account for the
relatively large number of institutions for children which we
find among the Charities of England.

A volume relating to these charities, by the Honorable Mrs.
Fraser, has recently been published by the Catholic Truth So-
ciety, and includes all Catholic institutions in England, and a
few which are non-sectarian, in which Catholics have wisely
made their influence felt. The writer of the present article has
had the privilege of personal study and investigation with re-
gard to some of these charities, under the auspices of Mrs.
Fraser.

Among the many charities for Catholic children are the
"Society of the Holy Childhood," designed to secure baptism
and maintenance for children in pagan lands ; the " Catholic
Children's Rescue and Protection Societies," to effect the re-
lease of children from surroundings dangerous to their faith ;
"Societies to Educate the Children of Poor Catholics," and a
large number of orphanages and homes. The latter are estab-
lished outside of London when practicable. This is the aim
alike of the philanthropist and of the social economist, both
'striving to combat the centripetal force which draws the poor
towards this great centre of civilization and alas ! of misery also.

BENEFITS OF ISOLATION.

One object of the institutions for children is to isolate them
from vicious surroundings, and to teach them to be self-support-
ing. The boys are given an elementary education, and, when
it is possible, they are taught trades, such as printing, wire-
mattress making, shoemaking, tailoring, book-binding, carpenter-
ing, and gardening. It is to be hoped that more of our own
poor will be trained to the last occupation, for there is always
a fair demand for good gardeners. The work is easily learned

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1 6 The Catholic Charities of England, [April,

and it necessarily involves a life in the country or suburbs.
Gymnasiums are attached to some of the institutions, and, at
the West Grinstead Home, a drill-sergeant is connected with
the establishment.

The girls in the orphanages and homes are trained princi-
pally for domestic service, plain sewing, and dressmaking ;
though in some cases they are educated as teachers in elemen-
tary schools or as nursery governesses. Many of these homes
take charge of Catholic children from the work-houses and other
public institutions. The writer visited the Household Training
School, certified for Poor-Law Girls, in Aynhoe Road, London,
and can testify to the admirable instruction which the children
receive. They are admitted at the age of thirteen, and are
taught all branches of household work (including such simple
housekeeping as they are likely to practise if they have homes
of their own), and various branches of needle-work. It would
be well if all children were as happy in their own hom.es as
these are under the wise guidance of the founder of the insti-
tution and the tender care of the matron. The house is admir-
ably furnished and daintily clean, and the little girls show in
their appearance and bearing that they really have a home.
When fully qualified they are provided with situations. They
are encouraged to keep up a regular correspondence with the
matron, and, when it is practicable, to visit the home. Only
those who have seen the sodden, hopeless wretchedness of the
average "work-house child" can understand the transformation
wrought by wise training and Catholic teaching in this institu-
tion.

The "Association for Befriending Young Servants" is not
distinctively a Catholic charity, although it numbers so many
Catholics among its patrons that it deserves to be mentioned
here. Its objects are, " to befriend young girls who are in or
entering domestic service, and who are exposed to peculiar dan-
gers and difficulties from the want of home protection, and to
endeavor to improve their general condition." The society has
free registry offices and lodging-houses for girls out of place,
and every effort is made to encourage self-help. They are given,
when necessary, training for service; and each girl is placed
under the charge of a lady who visits her from time to time in
her situation and undertakes to befriend her.

The " National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children " is somewhat like our own, though its sphere is larger.
It keeps a special watch over baby-farmers.

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1897-1 The Catholic Charities of England. 17

The " Invalid Children's Aid Association " provides medical
advice and careful nursing, also surgical appliances, dressings,
and other comforts ; spinal carriages are lent ; patients who
cannot improve at home are sent to convalescent hospitals, and
some who have made a good recovery but remained crippled
or deformed are trained to earn their living.

Emigration homes and agencies are numerous, and one of
them provides also a training preparatory school for the future
colonist.

The homes for servants receive them when out of place,
allow them to pay, in work, a portion of their board, and aid
them to obtain situations. The refuges for penitent women are
generally under the charge of the Sisters of the Good Shep-
herd, and they provide needle-work, laundry-work, and other
occupations which help to make the institutions self-supporting.
Connected with these are night-refuges for the destitute.

For the aged poor are homes, almshouses, and pensions ;
the former managed, as a rule, by the Little Sisters of the
Poor, who, as with us, collect day by day food, clothes, and
money for their helpless charges. The Poor Sisters of Nazareth
also shelter the aged poor, as well as orphans and destitute
girls ; such of these as are incurably ill or deformed remain with
the sisters for life.

The Aged Poor Society grants pensions to. aged poor
Catholics unable to maintain themselves. There are many
Catholic almshouses supported by private charity. There are
also Catholic institutions for the deaf, dumb, and blind.

The hospitals and convalescent homes are, of course, numer-
ous, and there are several orders of nursing sisters. The Little
Sisters of the i^ssumption nurse the poor gratuitously in their
own homes. There is a hospital society to visit sick Catholics
in hospitals and to give them assistance in their temporal and
spiritual wants during the period of their convalescence after
they leave the institution.

The Association for the Propagation of the Faith, and St.
Joseph's College, support foreign missions. The Catholic Young
Men's Society, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and other asso-
ciations work for the relief of the poor and the spiritual bene-
fit of their living and deceased members. The Society of St.
Elizabeth of Hungary consists of Catholic ladies, serving God
in the persons of the poor. The duties of the society are :

I. To visit at the homes of the poor, maternity cases, young
widows, young single women and other persons, sick or in

VOL. LXV.— 2

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1 8 The Catholic Charities of England. [April,

want, who are not visited by the Society of St. Vincent de
Paul ; 2. To befriend servants in need of assistance, particularly
when out of place ; 3. To collect cast-oflf clothing and linen for
the use of the poor ; 4. To make and repair clothing to be
given, lent, and sold to the poor. Besides these specific duties,
the society undertakes the establishment and management, or
supervision, of homes for women out of work, women's penny
savings-banks, school savings-banks, coal and clothing clubs,
lending libraries, and, in emergencies, provides cheap food for
the poor. The society has the distinction, which we regret to
say is rare among Catholic charities, of supplying detailed
statistics in the various branches of its work.

women's help needed.

In his manual on " The Love and Service of Christ in his
Poor " the Bishop of Salford, speaking of the want of an active
body of working ladies in the church, says:

" Quite as important as a society for men would be the
establishment of a society for women, to visit the poor in their
homes and public institutions. No words can say how valuable
is the influence of devout women ; how noiselessly, quietly, and
deeply it penetrates where the voice of no man will reach and
persuade. We do not hesitate to declare our formed judgment
that thousands of souls, among the young and old, would have
been saved to the church had we carefully followed up and
developed the traditions of the Apostolic Church, which made
so wide a use of the religious activity and influence of devout
Christian women living in the world."

The object of the Catholic Union is to promote, by every
lawful means, the restoration of the temporal power of the
Pope ; and to advance Catholic interests in general. The first
Catholic charitable society was founded in 1731 for the relief
of "our poor Catholic brethren under sickness or persecution,
and to have prayer said for faithful souls departed." The
League of the Holy Cross was instituted to " unite the Catho-
lic clergy and laity in a holy warfare against intemperance."
There are societies to provide for aged and infirm priests, and
to work for poor churches ; and there is the Guild of Our Lady
of Ransom, whose objects are the conversion of England and
of individuals, the salvation of apostates and those in danger
of apostasy and " the forgotten dead."

The objects of the Catholic Letter and Literature Guild are
somewhat like those of our "Shut In "Society. We have not

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i897-] The Ca tholic Charities of England, ^9

the statistics for the past year, but in 1894 there were 250
corresponding members in regular correspondence with 600
girls, and books, papers, etc., were contributed to the' inmates
of work-houses in almost every city in England. This associa-
tion aims to bring working-girls and cultivated women into
friendly intercourse by means of correspondence, to carry
variety and brightness into the lives of invalids, and to supply
hospitals and work-houses with wholesome literature. No money
IS given, but occasional gifts of books, flowers, papers, stamped*
envelopes for reply, etc., are welcome. The Guild receives, as
correspondents, " all girls and invalids in need of loving sympa-
thy and interest, and all the lonely to whom an occasional
friendly letter would be a pleasure and a help."

EDUCATION AND SOCIAL UNION.

So far, the charities considered have been more or less like
our own, modified, of course, by the conditions peculiar to
England ; but we come now to others which do not exist with
us, and which, it is hoped, we may be induced to imitate.

The first of these is the Catholic School Committee, of
which the Duke of Norfolk is chairman. This association acts
for, and represents, in matters which concern elementary educa-
tion, the Catholic dioceses of Great Britain, having one clerical
and two lay members for each diocese. The government, since
the year 1847, has admitted the claim of this association to
speak in behalf of all Catholic schools, and has arranged with
it the terms on which assistance is given to them. The asso-
oiation also increases the efficiency of these schools by edu-
cating and supplying teachers ; and in order to accomplish this
it has founded three training colleges, and assists the pupils to
pay the expense of ecclesiastic inspection in addition to the
government examination.

Second. The Catholic Social Union, of which Cardinal
Vaughan is the president, and Mr. Gates (so well known in
London through his many good works) is the honorary secre-
tary. The object of this association is ** to bridge over social
chasms and to unite Catholics, rich and poor, on a basis of
friendly interest and mutual good will, and thus to save a great
multitude of Catholics from becoming lost to their religion and
to Christianity." Its efforts are directed towards young people,
who meet in the evening, several times a week, for recreation,
social improvement, and instruction under the auspices of the
union, in large rooms or halls provided for the purpose.

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20 The Ca tholic Charities of England. [April,

Third. St. Anselm's Society, for the dissemination of the
best literature. This provides the best books and reviews of
books on' all subjects for Catholic readers, gives information to
different classes of readers, furnishes guaranteed lists of various
kinds of literature, assists in forming parish and other libraries,
institutes home reading circles, supplies applicants with refer-
ences and works on controverted points in church history and
church teaching, and undertakes the publication of such books
as are within its province.

Fourth. The Catholic Truth Society. Its objects are:

1. To disseminate among Catholics small and cheap devo-
tional works.

2. To assist the uneducated poor to a better knowledge of
their religion.

3. To spread among Protestants information about Catholic
truth.

4. To promote the circulation of good, cheap, and popular
Catholic books.

Its publications are classified under the following heads :
Scriptural, Doctrinal, and Controversial, Devotional, Biographi-
cal, Fiction, and Poetry. There is also a series of devotional
and controversial leaflets for distribution at meetings, anti-
Catholic lectures, etc. ; among these are answers, in popular
form and language, to various calumnies against the church.

The society "from time to time extends its scope to works
which no other organization has hitherto undertaken," including
annual Catholic conferences, which have grown to be events of
great interest, as they discuss all matters of importance relating
to the Catholic faith. They are attended by almost all of the
distinguished Catholics, lay and clerical, in England, and serve
to bring together* those who are best qualified to promote the
welfare of the church. The society works also through its
branches, which vary considerably in size and importance, by
which "local interest is aroused, lectures of an instructive or
controversial character are arranged ; publications are distribut-
ed, and other works are undertaken in accordance with local
requirements."

SPIRITUAL HELP FOR THE SAILORS.

A branch for the benefit of seamen, in union with the
Apostleship of Prayer, has been undertaken, with the Honora-
ble Mrs. Fraser as its honorary secretary. It provides litera-
ture for Catholic sailors, and has brought out a prayer-book.

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I897-] The Catholic Charities of England. 21

the Guide to Heaven^ which has been adopted by the Admiralty.
It supplies ships, in the Royal Navy and merchant service^
with Catholic literature, and lends books to coast-guards in
different parts of the country. It has also established a Sea-
men's Club and Home for the poor of London.

The society has prepared a series of lectures with magic-
lantern slides, dealing principally with historical subjects ; and
it places at the doors of churches boxes with its publications,
so that they may be obtained without difficulty and at small
cost, as they range in price from sixpence to three shillings
and sixpence.

The details are given respecting this institution with the
earnest hope that a similar organization may be extended
throughout the Catholic Church in the United States. The.
objects and work of the association were explained to the
present writer by its president, and by its honorary secretary,
Mr. James Britten, whose admirable articles in the Dublin Re*
view, the Months etc., are, no doubt, well known to the readers
of The Catholic World.

A CATHOLIC TOYNBEE HALL.

Six years ago the idea of founding a small university settle-
ment for Catholics on a plan somewhat similar to Toynbee Hall
and Oxford House was proposed at a conference of the Catholic
Truth Society. In the following year, through the instrumen-
tality of Mr. Britten and of the Newman Society of Oxford,
Newman House in Southwark was started, in order to provide
a place for those who wish to live among the poor, and to
cast their lot, even temporarily, with them. The number of
Catholic members of Oxford and Cambridge has hitherto been
too limited to extend this undertaking, but it is believed that
the work of Mr. B. F. C. Costelloe in obtaining for Catholics
permission to enter, without restrictions, the great universities,
will stimulate the establishment of Catholic university settle-
ments in London and other large cities in England.

This idea of living with the poor is of comparatively
modern growth among the laity. It has found its expression,
among women, in two most interesting foundations — St. Philip's
House, Tredegar Square, and Gertrude House, Tower Hill.

Far in the north-east of London, beyond the Regent's
Canal, beyond the Jews' Burying.ground, in the old village of
Stepney, where Mile-End Road loses itself in Bow Road, with
factories and rope-walks and railway coaling depots all around

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?2 The Catholic Charities of England. [April,

it, lies Tredegar Square; and here, in an old dwelling, which
once- had a "gentility** of its own, St. Philip's House was
founded by Lady Margaret Howard, Lady Clare Feilding, Miss
Xowe, and Miss Annesley. It was opened early in 1894, as a
residence " for ladies who wish to devote themselves to work
among the poor in the east of London without being obliged
to leave their homes and ordinary occupations for any length
of time." Two members of the committee live in the house
permanently, and the other three available rooms are occupied
by ladies who stay for a month or more at a time. They visit
the poor and sick in their homes, instruct the ignorant, and
supply the needs of the destitute, though great care is taken
to prevent ill-considered alms- giving. The main object of the
settlement, however, is to serve as a centre to which all who
need.3uch influences as Christian ladies exert will be able to
find their way. There are mothers* meetings, and a girls*
.club which assembles three times a week, and which is the
special hope of the ladies, who "attend every meeting, hold or
assist at the classes, superintend the recreations, play the piano,
etc. Classes have been held for dress-making, needle-work,
French, book-keeping, wood-carving, and musical drill ; and a
savings-bank has been started in connection with the Post-Office
Savings-Bank.*'

It is regretted that lack of space prevents fuller quotations
from the Report of St. Philip*s House, in order to show how
practical and how untiring the good works of these ladies have
been. Within the year Lady Clare Feilding has entered into
" the rest which remaineth for the people of God ** ; but " her
)vorks do follow her,** and she has left behind her, as a heri-
tage to St. Philip's House, the memory of her noble and beau-
tiful life.

SPLENDID HELP FROM THE NOBILITY.

To Americans Tower Hill is associated with great historical
traditions, and the writer, lingering in Trinity Square, where so
many martyrs gave their lives for their faith, forgot for the mo-
ment the misery and squalor of the present in memories of the
past ; nor did she fully realize her surroundings when she found
herself in quiet St. Mark Street, apart from the noisy traffic of
Houndsditch and the Minories. Here is situated Gertrude
House, the home which the Dowager Duchess of Newcastle
has founded for ladies who wish for a certain time to devote
themselves to work among the poor. Two are permanent resi-

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1 897-] The Catholic Charities of England. 23

dents and three others come and go, receiving perhaps even
more than they give in their efforts to relieve the temporal and
spiritual needs of the poor, and to gain a practical knowledge
of the wants of each. In this parish of three thousand Catho-
lic souls about one thousand families have been visited regu-
larly by the ladies of Gertrude House. Here, also, there is no
indiscriminate alms-giving, but the spirit of Christian charity and
sympathy is infused into all the work done. This includes
mothers* meetings, with average attendance of sixty, guilds
for the boys who have made their First Communion, and — in
connection with the Catholic Social Union — girls' clubs, which
meet every night with an average attendance of eighty-five.
Classes are held in plain needle-work, French and dancing, and
once a week special music is provided for dancing. Occasionally,
both here and at St. Philip's House, the girls themselves give
entertainments, to their own great delight. As the report for
last year states, " the girls have gained a marked improvement
of tone and deportment, and their religious duties have been
more carefully attended to." It is to be regretted that space
is inadequate for the many interesting details which might be
given concerning this work. "What a satisfaction there is in
giving these girls pleasure after they have been working hard all
day," said the founder of Gertrude House; "in hearing their
troubles, difficulties, and temptations, and trying to comfort,
help, and advise them. They seem so grateful for a few kind
words. Many of them are very poor, but it only comes out
accidentally in conversation. They never complain or ask for
anything, but will tell you stories that make your heart ache
with a perfectly cheerful face — which would be a good lesson for
those who groan over every petty grievance."

We leave here the subject of the Catholic Charities of Eng-
land, confident that the reader will share the writer's admiration
for the noble men and women by whom these benefactions have
been initiated and maintained.

^^(^

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24 The Happy Valley. [April,

THE HAPPY VALLEY : A REMINISCENCE OF A
TRAMP IN THE AUSTRIAN TYROL

BY MARY ELIZABETH BLAKE.

N these days of enthusiastic belief in the divine
mission of the bicycle it requires courage to
suggest the superiority of any other means of
locomotion, even if it be simpler, more healthful,
and less expensive. The good old habit of
walking has so far fallen into abeyance — if indeed it were ever
vitalized out of that state in the minds of Americans — ^that its
excellence must be proven like some later problem in geometry
to the perception of the new generation. And yet it remains,
as it has ever been, capable of wider experiences for the travel-
ler, subject to fewer reverses, immeasurably freer from care
and solicitude, better adapted to those vagrancies of fancy
which are the delight of the rover, and fitter for all the true
purposes of the wanderer who dqeires to make the most of his
wanderings. To be sure it does not take time by the forelock,
and drag him behind the wheels of its victorious chariot, com-
pelling him to make so many miles an hour under pain of dis-
grace. But is this end-of-the-century haste the best com-
panion for a lover of Nature who desires to woo his mistress
with loyalty and reverence, and who has some other measure of
success than the leagues skimmed in the course of a summer
day? Can one imagine Stevenson pedaling over the by-paths
of those delicious "Travels with a Donkey," or flashing like a
meteor over the trail of "A Silverado Squatter," or "scorch-
ing " along the pleasant lanes of " An Inland Voyage " ? —
Stevenson, who is master of us all in reverence for God's wide
world, the prophet who sings

" Let the blow fall soon or late,

Let what will be o'er me,
Give the face of earth around

And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope, nor love.

Nor a friend to know me ;
All I ask, the heaven above

And the road below me."

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I897-] The Happy Valley. 25

BoTZEN Parish Church (Gothic of the 14TH and 15TH Centuries).

No! philosopher and poet still go afoot. I am aware that
this is high treason to the fad of the period, and that treason
is the one capital crime for which punishment is never remitted.
The wheelman will allow no exceptions to be taken in regard
to his supremacy. It is not enough that his are unquestionably
the best means for hurry ; they must be also the wisest atten-
dant on leisure. Yet after all has been said and done in praise

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26 The Happy Valley. [April,

and glory of the wheel, it remains a fact that this is not the
ideal way of seeing strange fields and seeking new emotions.
The pleasure of untrammfelled senses, alive to every passing
phase of earth and sky; the liberty of choosing at will moun-
tainrtrail, or woodland path, or green lane sweet-breathed with
rose hedges; the unhurried intercourse with man and his
world, which makes chiefest joy of the happy vagabond, is still
the better part. Height and hollow are for him ; cool meadow
and deep forest shadow ; peaceful nook and stormy grandeur ;
bounding foot that carries by assault the mountain fortress,
and halting step that lingers with reverent tread before the
Holy of Holies. What to this is the inelegant hurry that
jostles one strange loveliness against another, while attention is
divided between their embarrassment of charm and the chances
of a punctured tire?

It is true that the pedestrian cannot, like the wheelman, be
made in twelve easy lessons. He must first serve his appren-
ticeship of long and loving labor before he takes his degree as
master. He must have retained his friendship with Nature, and
made her his familiar, until her dark moods speak to him as
her bright, and they respond to each other as artist and instru-
ment. But this is no » harsh task, and then — the broad earth
belongs to him, as to no other human creature. Accidents
which discompose others are no longer let or hindrance.
Shower as well as shine unrolls the panorama of beauty before
him ; cold has its magic, and heat its glamour ; even weariness is
but a happy preparation for rest, and hunger a sauce for ap-
petite. Like Antaeus, his strength is ever renewed by the soil
he touches, and there comes no strange medium between them.

To such an one, coming down from the long solitudes of
the Bernina Pass on the way from the lovely valley of the
Engadine, and climbing the white silence of the Stilfser-
joch under the luminous shadow of the majestic Ortlers, there
comes a sense of exultation that no fatigue can quench, as the
magical beauty of the Lower Tyrol opens before him. If he
be wise — and being a pedestrian we may. give him the benefit
of the doubt — he will stop at least one night at the little inn of
Frau Emma at Neu Spondining, to taste the fare of the only
woman decorated by an emperor for the toothsomeness of her
dishes. . He will allow her to choose his repast : a trout
just snared from the brook before the door, a Backhiihn that
revives the blessed memory of the fried chicken, of Maryland,
a dish of Pfannenkiichen that melt in the mouth like a sweet

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1 897-] The Happy Valley, 27

odor ; a feast such as Lucullus never knew. He will sleep in a
chamber of peace, and swing with the dawn down the long,
sunny valley and the narrow, unutterably twisted, beautiful
^orge of the Etsch, to Meran, sitting amid her palaces in the
fair fields below. If he cares for fashion, here in the Tuxedo
of Austria he will jsee what rank and fashion can do for their
favored resort. This richest watering place in the Southern
Tyrol has a wonderfully picturesque setting and is quite unusu-

Always there is a gentle lisping of Waters in the Air.

ally beautiful and splendid. He will go by rail through the
flat highlands between this and Botzen, partly for some view-
points that can best be focussed from a car-window, partly to
learn how many sharp corners a train can turn in thirty miles,
and partly to see how long an Austrian railroad can take to
make them. There will be plenty of time for observation. He
will feel the charm of Botzen, in the lap of the hills, the
great gray heads of the Schlern and Rosengarten lifted above
their shoulders, and the swift-flowing Talfer laving their feet.
Rippling streams of shining water run over the pavements of
the narrow streets ; the fine old parish church, which has braved
the onslaught of six hundred years, lifts its spire like a film of
lace blown upward into the clear sky ; dark arcades under the
gray houses hide fascinating small shops like those of . Berne ;
the open market-places glow with color ; and the public squares,
set about with lime-trees, are fragrant with blossoming olean-

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28 The Happy Valley. [April,

ders, under which the fashionable caf^s set lunch-tables to be-
guile the unwary. Even the torrid heat which July and August
pour into the valley is tempered by deep awnings stretched far
out from the houses, and a system of sprinkling by small hand-
hose fed from the fountains, which keeps the broad flags con-
stantly moist and cool. Here and there the fine cloister of
some old convefnt gives an effect of remoteness that makes the
modest bustle of the town noisy by comparison ; and at even-
tide the entire population pours into street and garden, wan-
ders up the cool slope of the Ritten, or climbs the rough path
of the Calverienberg, with its pathetic story of the Passion
told by the shrines along the way, and the tragedy of the cru-
cifixion lifted against the twilight sky on the summit. It is
possible that familiarity lessens the eflfect of these representa-
tions ; but they are deeply touching to the stranger who sees
for the first time the lonely shadows flung down the long
mountain side by the three crosses, or lighted by the silent
stars in the night-watches.

So far the traveller has but followed the usual path of
travel which joins Switzerland and Italy by the high passes of
the north-east. Now he can begin to trace delectable routes,
comparatively unknown, full of freshness and charm, which
Austrians and Germans regard among themselves as crowns of
loveliness : long, fair valleys and wild heights, with that bouquet
of delicate lonesomeness which is intangible as it is real. The
railway from Botzen to Innsbruck is lined with openings which
lead by apparently inaccessible mountain paths to remote and
exquisite spots, rich in all the most exacting soul can ask of
nature. Now to the right, now to the left, between peaks that
bar the way ; winding steeply through vineyard and wheat-
field ; passing solitary farms and lonely hamlets that have re-
mained unchanged for centuries ; full of surprises as sudden
turns open glorious views of distant horizons, they wind on
and on through unending beauty. And one such narrow portal
at Waidbruck opens the entrance to the Happy Valley.

The ascent of the Grodnerthal is by a narrow post-road, that
runs, now below, now above the close-pressing heights between
which it is cut, as the mountain precipices rise up or fall away
from it. The nearest village of St. Ulrich is not more than
nine miles away; the farthest, St. Maria, scarce eight miles
beyond. But into this distance is compressed such loveliness as
is not excelled in the whole lovely Tyrol. The road clings to
one side of a narrow gorge between two parallel lines of Alps,

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1 897-] The Happy Valley. 29

with now and again groups of small brown huts set in almost
perpendicular fields, clinging to their sides like the chalets of
Lauterbrunnen and Wengern. Vivid hill flowers, crimson Alpen
roses, deep bluebells a-swing in the wind, golden-hearted
pansies, and wild coreopsis, line the path, which climbs at last
some four or five thousand feet into the pretty village in the
heart of the hills. And always there is a gentle lisping of
waters in the air, like the sea tossing on the beach on a bright

The Gr5dnerthal lies at the Gate of all this splendor.

morning; and a scent of new-mown hay, thridden with faint
pine odors ; and that ineffable peace that belongs only to the
solitude of lofty places. Nothing disturbs this — not clinking
hammers of the lonely road-maker, nor tinkle of far-away cow-
bells from distant herds, nor shrill greeting of village gleaners
on neighboring Alps, nor clatter of wooden sabots on steep,
slaty path, nor rattle of the diligence with its brave horses
storming three abreast down the flying curves. These sounds
only,

" Like ring-doves, make not quiet less."

Peace is the dower of the scene, which can never be parted
from it.

If it be Sunday, there will be joyous troops of young
<:ountry people — Echte Tyrolers — in the fanciful costume of the

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30 The Happy Valley. [April,

country, tramping after Mass to some trysting-place among the
high, sunny meadows, to sing and dance away the few hours of
weekly recreation. They are a bright-eyed, well-built, clear-
skinned race ; the men gorgeous in brilliant red or green sus-
penders over a white shirt, open braided jacket, stout stockings
rolled away from very short breeches to show the bare brown
knees, and peaked green hat set around with wild flowers and
cock's feathers. The women are quieter, after the fashion of
the pea-hen. Still, the short, dark wool skirt is relieved by an
apron of colored satin, and the small, three-cornered shawl,
pinned like a collar over the white cotton blouse, is gaudy with
flaming flower patterns. The hat, in- shape and decoration, is
like that of their escorts ; the posy perhaps a little larger, and
a nosegay at the breast. Some one carries the inevitable
zither, which is to the Tyrol what the bagpipe is to Scotland
or the fiddle to Ireland. Few groups of merry-makers leave a
stronger impression of innocent and conscious jollity than
these sturdy peasants, strong, alert, and happy, in these lack-
lustre days of conventional indifference. It is pity the fitness
and effectiveness of their dress does not commend itself more
to the sad-colored, long-trousered rest of humanity.

I have called the Grodnerthal the Happy Valley ; for if
Rasselas' dream were ever to be fulfilled on earth, it might be
here at St. Ulrich. Hedged within its mountain walls from the
passions of the outer world, it lies amid waving fields of grain,
and rich gardens set on the sunny slopes of two ranges of
lofty hills, like a newer paradise. The post-road runs between
these beautiful green pastures ; and from Waidbruck to St.
Maria there is scarce a house in the country side so rich or so
poor as to be remarked among its neighbors. Flowers are
bright in every door-plot; snowy curtains flutter above scarlet
geraniums in the small, bright-paned windows ; vines clamber
about the little wooden balconies ; and an unusual cleanliness
and propriety mark the fields and highways. Flocks of sheep
and goats mingle with the herds in the meadows, or up the
steep hill pastures ; and some happy sense of inner refinement
causes the people to remove from immediate neighborhood of
the house those immense manure-heaps which make such
obstinate contrast to the pure air of Switzerland and Germany.
The houses themselves are uncompromisingly square, three, four,
or even five stories high, with something of the homely self-
respect that marks their dwellers. One remembers Ruskin*s
arraignment of the modern spirit which moves the selfish rich

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I897-] The Happy Valley. 31

man to hide his treasures within his great mansion, refusing
his poorer brethren sight or knowledge of the glory inside his
gates. These people give of their best to friend or stranger
passing by. There will be a carven lintel, a band of scroll-
work, a gracious figure of saint or Saviour, a quaintly cut
motto above door or window, or some holy text burned in age-
stained wood, like a consecration of the house to virtue. There

If Rasselas' Dream were to be fulfilled, it might be here at St. Ulrich.

is something very touching in the simplicity which thus allows
the wayfarer to share somewhat the sentiment of the people
among whom he moves; and it creates an unconscious bond of
sympathy. It is this, and small experiences like it, that cause
foreigners to claim among all nations the Austrian as most
* gemiithlich.**

We copied a few inscriptions from the wayside houses t
" To the friendly care of the dear Lord Jesus this house is
commended by his servant, Nicolas Verzi *' ; "With praise
and gratitude to God, Johan Sennoner and Barbara his wife
first crossed this threshold on the nineteenth of August, 1748'*;
" Thou little house in Alpen land, God preserve thee in His
hand " ; ** Klein, aber Mein — A little thing, but mine own."
Charming little glimpses of modest and upright souls, blending
some thought of higher motive with the ordinary routine of
life.

To the very summits of the rounded heights which rise one

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32 The Happy Valley. [April,

or two thousand feet above the main street of the village slope
the cultivated farms ; long furrows of corn, acres planted red
with beets or crisply green with salads, mathematical squares
of broad-leafed turnip and cauliflower, or gray-white potato
blossoms. Slender streams drop in bright threads from the
rocks above, to be divided into hundreds of thread-like sluice-
ways irrigating the country, side, like arteries of life. Behind
the irregular ranges of near hills lift the bold peaks and splin-
tered crags of the real Dolomites, in naked grandeur of bare
rock or snow-powdered crest. Farther and higher yet, towering
ghost-like in the pale distance, rises the splendid peak of the
Langkofel, like the tower of some giant cathedral, strange, illu-
sive, shadowy, more vision of a mountain than a tangible mate-
rial presence. Indeed, throughout the entire Tyrol the Dolo-
mites partake of this strange unearthly quality of beauty.
Splintered, jagged, broken into spire and buttress, rampart and
battlement, or in one stern majesty of uplifted precipice filling
the horizon with a mighty wall, there is ever something vague,
unreal, to which the changefulness of color under differing at-
mospheric conditions adds. Times they are wraiths of dead
mountains, pallid and gray, stricken to dust and ashes, the slen*
der pinnacles surmounting their lofty crests rising like spec-
tral things into the gray sky ; times again they absolutely blaze
with color — orange and purple and deep chrome yellow, strange
splashes of crimson and scarlet, like blood-stains of some pre-
historic tragedy dashed against the tawny sides, which seem to
palpitate with light and life under the blazing sun. Never
were such moods and temperaments known before to inanimate
nature ; it is easy to discern why, the spell of the Dolomites
once known, it can never be forgotten.

The Grodnerthal lies at the gate of all this splendor. From
its quiet paths these awful summits can be reached ; and its
sweetness of homely content adds to the savage grandeur of
its mighty sentinels. Those of the inhabitants not occupied in
farming, or in the few trades necessary to the welfare of the
villages, are busied almost exclusively with the carving of wood-
en figures for church decoration. As the faces of the villagers
of Oberammergau are said to reflect something of the serenity
and rugged virtue of the rSles they assume, so this quiet and
holy work appears to have left its imprint on the characters of
the people. The young man enters upon his apprenticeship as
soon as the simple requirements of the school are fulfilled ;
the old man, " Ohne Hast, Ohne Rast," finishes his quiet days

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1897.] The Happy Valley, 33

in the same employment, either in a workshop of his own or
as one of a society of master workmen who unite to form a
school. The endless, loving care with which the successive
steps are followed which change the shapeless block into the
living or dead figure of the Saviour, or the tender Mother, or
the familiar faces of the saints, is novel to one accustomed to
the cut-and-dried methods of ordinary labor, where the day's

Splintered, jagged, broken into Spire and Buttress.

wage is the only end in view. The artisan of the Grodnerthal
works too for money, and no doubt is anxious over rate and
tariff ; but he goes farther — unless looks belie him — and the
sturdiness of Paul or of Peter, the lovingness of John, the infi-
nite patience of the Great Master, or the benign helpfulness of
the Blessed Mother, make their impress on his heart, as their
resemblance grows beneath his skilful fingers. He uses no ma-
chine to dull the sense of personal responsibility ; and some-
thing of the delight of the artist dwells constantly with him. It
is wonderful to see the skill these simple men attain in the anato-
mical and artistic perfection of their carving. They are less hap-
py in coloring ; primitive taste, and the universal love for bright
tints, leading to an excessive use of blue, red, and gold, which
detracts somewhat from the value of their work. Still the re-
sult is often remarkable. There is, among others, a Virgin of
Sorrows just within the entrance to the nave of the small Pfarrer-
kirche at St. Ulrich that, for utter self-forgetfulness in grief,
matches anything we saw in the length and breadth of Austria.

VOL. LXV.— .3

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34 The Happy Valley. [April,

The entire church is rich in decoration which we understood to
be the work of the parishioners.

Up and down the valley, along high-road and by-way, on
public building and private house, in view-point or out-of-the-
way corner, the wayside shrine, from life-size crucifix to tiny
figure of the Virgin with its ever-fresh handful of wild flowers,
makes the eyes glad. The pathetic crudeness of some was
but more touching evidence of sincerity of motive. Only purest
faith and love could be conscious of the spirit dwelling behind
them. It is hard to understand how the most protesting Pro-
testant can help feeling the beauty of such evidence of devo-
tion, such mindfulness of spiritual truths, thus, betokened along
the ordinary paths, so that they may inspire memory. If it be
well to renew patriotism and self-respect by commemorative
arch or public monument blazoning a great deed or a great name
before the eyes of mankind, why not quicken the well-springs
of heroic virtues by keeping their material semblance close to
the common walks of life ? Is it to be imagined that there is
not strength and comfort in those moments of recollection
when, like the poor peasant we saw to-day climbing the rough
mountain path under the weight of her heavy burden, and
pausing for a moment with closed eyes and folded hands, they
receive a benediction before the image of the dying Saviour.

The answer to the question is ready in the earthly content that
fills those clean, bright homes, and the higher joy that overflows
the churches on Sunday and holyday. From far mountain side
and distant valley, over long, hot trails and devious windings of
solitary ways, the people press to the Masses with feet that
have forgotten their week-day tire. I well remember the delight
and novelty of entering by the heavy oaken door of one of
these small chapels in the gray, late afternoon of a stormy
Saturday and finding more than fifty men about the confession-
als, among less than half as many women. It was a bonnie
sight, and so far as we could learn not an unusual one.
Perhaps it somewhat explains the hearty, sympathetic, winning
qualities of a race whose consciences are thus kept at peace
with themselves and the world.

The stalwart independence of the Tyrolese is in grateful
contrast to the subservience one notes among the peasant classes
of the rest of Europe. In whatever station he may be placed,
there is about him a fine self-respect that bespeaks honest man-
hood, and a finer flower of courtesy, which shows itself in the
remotest mountain chalet as in more conventional towns. To

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1897.] The Happy Valley, 35

the American, accustomed either to the insolence or indiffer-
ence of the lower classes in his own country, asserting their
inalienable rights as freemen to ungraciousness, there is more
than usual charm in this dignified politeness. It cheers the
loneliest road with friendliness, and brightens the darkest day.

The Post-road runs between these beautiful green Pastures.

Young men and old doff the hat with the ease of gentlefolk ;
and the pleasant " Gruss Gott ! *' or " Guten Tag ! *' of the wo-
men comes always with the hearty smile that is more welcome
than words. Climbing up the long, lonely trail of the Falzarago
Pass, on the steep, high paths between Gerlos and Krimml, in
the lovely valleys of the Zillcrthal or the Achensee, or the
sunny streets of Innsbruck, it is everywhere the same, and
sends the traveller on his way with unconscious lightness of
heart. Nor should one forget among causes for gratitude the
pretty custom of lighting tiny lamps at night before the way-
side shrines, to shine like guiding stars on the path of the be-
lated wanderer.

It was this delightful combination of thrift and content,
prosperity and kindliness, that warmed Catholic hearts in the
Grodnerthal. To be sure something like it had been noted
before in the Catholic cantons of the Swiss Oberland. But in
the Tyrol there was not even the possible advantage of a re-

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36 The Happy Valley. [April,

public to explain the unusual comfort and happiness. Here
was a peasantry well clothed, well fed, with sufficient interest
in life to make toil of the working day welcome, and rest of
evening glad. Every night the village band made music in the
little square; sound of the zither came from fllower-decked
windows ; old men sat smoking on the long wooden settles be-
fore the house-door ; women, knitting even in the dark, chatted
and laughed over garden palings or in groups along the narrow
lanes ; and the children bubbled over with quiet laughter as
they pranked together. It was the homely comfort of a wise
people whose cares were kept as simple as their pleasures.
The mild eyes would open in quiet wonder over Herrschaften,
who could venture from America for love or longing ol that
older world. Ach Gott ! Yes ; they too knew America ! The
brother's Hans was there, or the cousin's Gretl. Perhaps the
Herrschaften knew them? No? Well, no doubt, it was a large
place. But they too had travelled : once to the great fair at
Botzen, and Fritzl here had even gone to Franzensfest to see
the manoeuvres. That was far ! But truly the Thai was so alto-
gether lovely — what good was there in going out of it?

One hot day, as we swung. Rucksack on back, down the
clean, white road, we came upon the preparation for a rustic
merry-making. There was something infectious in their mirth,
and ^lendid in the free, large, easy-waisted figures of the brown
young girls, stepping vigorously over the five or six miles of
steep ascent on their way to the holiday tryst. They were
ready to sing and dance, and return again over the long way
in the lingering summer twilight. To see them leap a brook,
or jump a wall, or climb the breathless short-cuts across moun*
tain pastures, rosy with health and laughter, and free in their
strong shoes and short skirts as the lads around them, was to
sigh for the physical degeneration of the civilized woman. Re-
finement has much to answer for, in the nerve-ridden, weak-
shouldered, slight-hipped, narrow-breasted race it has evolved,
where it has had fullest scope, for the mothers of the future.
But the Happy Valley is safe ; one could recruit the brawny
heroes of old from the mothers of the Grodnerthal.

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I897-] A Forgotten Literature. 37

A FORGOTTEN LITERATURE.*

BY LEOPOLD KATSCHER.

rHE literature of which we are about to treat is,
in fact, almost unknown. It is unknown even
to investigators and scholars; we may say even
to the sons of the people from whom it sprang,
and to whom it belongs. And y^t it is not only
the most ancient of literatures, but it is eminently calculated,
in itself as well as by its remarkable fortunes, to create general
interest. We speak of Hebrew literature.

Heinrich Heine bestows very unflattering epithets upon the
women of his race for being unacquainted with the golden age
of their national poetry. But he was hardly just, for the sources
from whence Heine himself drew his original information were
purely scientific — consequently beyond the reach of Jewish wo-
men. And a really popular presentation of that literature as a
whole was so far from existing then, or for a long time after,
that the most precious treasures it contains — a Hebrew Pompeii
— have only in this century been disinterred from the dust and
mould of libraries, and therefore it is only during the last fifty
years that a thorough research into Hebrew literature has be-
come possible.

It is remarkable that an oppressed people, without home
and without a country of its own, should boast of an exten-
sive national literature ; but it is yet more remarkable that this
literature should have been preserved and disseminated, that it
should then sink into oblivion and disrepute, till recent times
awakened it out of its torpor and quickened it into new life.
Twenty-seven thousand works are known at this moment, where-
as fifty years ago not half the number came within the ken of
bibliographers, and even still a considerable number are await-
ing resurrection in the great libraries of Italy, England, and
Germany. These circumstances taken into consideration, it is
not astonishing that till quite lately no one has ventured to
undertake a connected history of this literature, with the excep-
tion of Moritz Steinschneider, in a valuable essay in Ersch and
Gruber's Encyclopcedia of the Arts and Sciences, and a Manual

♦ Geschickte der judischen Ltteratur, Von Dr. Gustav Karpeles. Berlin : Oppenheim.
3 vols.

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38 A Forgotten Literature, [Aprils

of Hebrew History and Literature, by David Cassel, who also
began a history of the literature, which he never finished.

Although the connecting link was missing for those to whom
the original sources were inaccessible, and therefore the litera-
ture, as a whole, was out of their reach, the case was otherwise
with the initiated ; for them the innumerable detached mono-
graphs and fragments, which were to be found outside the more
comprehensive labors of Steinschneider and Cassel, were so many
building-stones which only awaited the firm and sure hand which
was to consolidate them into a compact edifice. Among these
contributions the masterly English Study of the Talmud, by
Emanuel Deutsch, which created a remarkable sensation when it
first appeared in the Quarterly Review, stands out conspicuously.

No doubt the work of consolidation was exceedingly diffi-
cult, only to be accomplished by a man who, with a thorough
knowledge of the sources of Hebrew literature, united a wide
acquaintance with European and Oriental literature, and who
possessed as well the industry, perseverance, and energy that
led him to plunge with devotion and self-renundation into the
spirit of long-past times, and who at the same time was so freed
from prejudice, and so imbued with the critical sense, as to find
the parts which fitted into each other, until he had built the
whole into a beautiful, harmonious structure.

The result of many years of patient and unwearied labor is
presented to us by Gustav Karpeles in his work entitled The
History of Hebrew Literature,

In these volumes he throws to the winds traditional opinions
and prejudices, he refuses to be swayed by the strife of parties ;
calmly and deliberately, without bias, he takes up his material^
favorable or unfavorable, and he treats it in a purely critical
spirit from the highest point of view, utterly regardless of the
offence which this mode of treatment may give to one party or
another. " For the sake of no one, to the injury of no one,
without dogmatic or confessional stand-point . . ." — such is
his device ; as will be acknowledged, a very difficult problem in
a history of Hebrew literature, the happy solution of which
cannot be sufficiently estimated.

Yet this work would not possess the high literary merit
which we claim for it were its nature merely critical. It is the
object of the author to convince the reader that there was such
a thing as an organically developed Hebrew national literature,
worthy to hold its own among the great literatures of the world.
For this purpose it was necessary to combine historical presen-

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1897-1 A Forgotten Literature. 39

tation with severe criticism : u e., not only to review the books
in question, but to discover the intellectual currents by which
they could be traced to their original source, and lay them
graphically before the reader. And it is this combination of
criticism with the history of events and ideas, this intimate
fusion which the author has so skilfully achieved, together with
a smooth-flowing yet forcible diction, often rising to the height
of eloquence, which lifts this work far above the level of most
historico-literary attempts, and places it amongst the finest trea-
tises of the kind which we possess.

Hebrew literature is closely interwoven with the civilization
and culture of the ancients, the origin and progress of Chris-
tianity, the scientific activity of mediaeval times ; and while it is
involved in the intellectual tendencies of Past and Present, and
takes part in the struggles and sufferings of both, it becomes
at the same time, and this is its principal value, a complement
to universal literature.

In the two first sections of Dr. Karpeles' book " Biblical "
and " Hebraeo-Hellenistic literature " are treated with great power
and glowing enthusiasm. The elementary book of Hebrew
literature is the Bible, and the literature of the Old Testament,
otherwise called " Biblical," is the earliest, and at the same time
the most important, of the national writings. All nations and
all centuries have occupied themselves with this Biblical litera-
ture. Up to the seventeenth century learning was of a purely
dogmatic character, and Herder was the first to set the example of
treating the aesthetic element side by side with the dogmatic, and
even in defiance of it. Ernst Meier and Theodor N6ldeke alone
have regarded the Bible of the Old Testament purely from the
point of view of the literary historian, and criticised it accordingly.

Notwithstanding the dogmatic character of Biblical "Intro-
ductory Science," the Sacred Book of two religions has been
unscrupulously treated in a childishly arbitrary manner. Biblical
criticism has ever been the arena of the most fanciful exegesis,
the most daring hypotheses, the most senseless assumptions.
No Latin or Greek classic has ever been so recklessly torn to
pieces and split up into fragments, no mediaeval poet has ever
been subjected to such capricious interpretation as the Bible. And
with all this the aesthetic element was naturally thrust more and
more into the background. It is only in quite recent times that
we have begun to ridicule this passion for hypotheses and to pave
the way back to more reasonable investigation. Biblical criticism
had reduced itself ad absurduniy and a reaction was inevitable.

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40 A Forgotten Literature. [April,

The shipwreck of the theory of the dualism of the Penta-
teuch, which from the date of Dr. Astruc's celebrated discovery
in 1753 up to a few years ago was the formulated Credo of all
Biblical criticism., marks the beginning of this reaction. Astruc
had discovered that the Pentateuch was composed of two con-
tinuous traditions — a Jahve and an Elohim tradition — and upon
this theory criticism proceeded to build up quite an edifice.
No period was too late to be assigned to the Pentateuch.
Had the historian Josephus Flavius not existed, and had Jesus
Christ not spoken of " the Law and the Prophets," as well as of
"what is written in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in
the Psalms," there was every chance of the Pentateuch's being
relegated to a post-Christian era. And this system was carried so
far that two such sober critics as Ewald and Hitzig differed not
less than a thousand years in fixing the date of one of the books.

"When the peasant in wild Alpine solitudes," says Karpeles,
" inscribes in the book which tells of Abraham's shepherd-life
the records of his own life, the dates of birth of his family ;
when the child counts ' the brown folio ' among the first im-
pressions of his early years; when a whole nation for centuries
has lived with this one book and only through this book, this
is in itself witness strong enough for the imperishable value of
the great work, in which, side by side with the simplest pastoral
stories and most artless legends, lie the deepest moral teachings
and the grandest poetic pictures ; side by side with the ideal
construction of a socialistic state of the future, the purest and
most human views of the world ; side by side with the sub-
limest strains of nature's poetry, the loveliest erotic lyrics, in
which the most glowing and most pathetic hymns of national
joy and sorrow, the minor tones of a despairing pessimism and
the triumphant odes of a glorious Theodicea combine into a
lofty whole — the great work which has been rightly named
* The Book of Books,' and as such has been revered by man-
kind.

" This book was quite worthy of being the foundation-stone
of a great literature. Everything in the future was subor-
dinated to its higher insight ; it became the rule of life and
the type of all creative energy for the nation whose fortunes
were specially linked to the fortunes of this book."

It is not known how or when the Biblical writings were
formed into a " Canon," but it seems probable that this oc-
curred about 200 to 150 years B. C. and was done by the
Scribes {Soferim\ The first Greek translation, the Septuagint,

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1 897-] A Forgotten Literature. 41

contained the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and all that we in-
clude under the name of the Old Testament.

With this begins the second period of Hebrew literature,
which may be called the Hebraeo-Hellenistic period. The
Hebrew tongue ceases to be the popular language ; it is hence-
forth only used for the purposes of religion and learning. The
Hebrew spirit has for the first time touched the Greek. Shem
and Japheth have embraced as brothers. " Yet while the
philosophy of Hellas penetrated into subject Palestine, threatened
to dethrone the Semitic element and even to bring in a violent
irruption of heathenism, the spirit of the Hebrew prophets un-
folded itself to the amazed philosophers. Judaism entered the
lists with fire and sword ; the popular language, the Aramaic;
upon which the Greek had impressed its seal in the form of
various substantives, steadily resisted the encroachment of Greek
verbs, and at length the truth of Israel, as represented by the
teaching of Jesus, undermined the proud edifice of heathen-
ism." This is the most striking description of that period of
literature which extends to about three centuries, up to 100 or
150 after Christ, but which exerted no permanent influence
upon the development of Jewish literature. The apocryphal
books belong to this period ; being written in Greek, they
were not admitted into the Canon of the Old Testament. The
central point of intellectual life was no longer Palestine, but
Alexandria in Egypt, where some 300,000 Jews lived at that
time. For this reason this literature is also called the "Jewish
Alexandrian." It includes the works of the Neo-Platonists,
conspicuously Philo, with whom begins the allegorical interpre-
tation of Scripture and a Jewish philosophy of religion ;
Aristeas, the pseudo-Phokylides ; also literati such as the drama-
tist, Ezeklios, Jason, Philo the Elder ; Aristobulus, the propagator
of the Aristotelian philosophy; Eupolemos, the historian, and
finally the Jewish Sibyl, who, in order to diffuse the truths of
her religion, borrows the form of the heathen oracles and clothes
her Apocalyptic visions in Greek imagery. With Biblical phrases
and prophetic fire this Sibyl foretold the future of Israel and
of the nations v/hich came into contact with the chosen people.

But side by side with all this movement the word of the
Bible made its way quietly and steadily in Palestine, and its
investigation and interpretation remained the inheritance of the
family of Jacob, which held itself apart from the influence of
Hellenism. This investigation — called Midrasch — gradually sep-
arates into two branches — Halachuy which sets in order and

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42 A Forgotten Literature. [April,

confirms the legal enactments of the Bible^ and Hagaduy which
manipulates its text on edifying, historical, and ethical princi-
ples. Both these streams of tendency carry on the work of the
Law and the Prophets. The Halacha embraces the traditions
handed down by word of mouth, which, as oral law, run paral-
lel with the written letter, as also the discussions to which the
acceptance of these statutes has given rise in academies and
seminaries. The Hagada, on the other hand, contains myths,
legends, fables, apophthegms, parables — it is the poetical branch,
while the other is the legislative, of Talmudic literature, into
whose roomy halls we now enter and which, for almost a thou-
sand years, fills up the important third period of Hebrew
literature. It is needless to say that these periods cannot be
really so accurately measured off as to meet the demands of a
schematic review. At the very fountain-head of this division of
time stands the celebrated Jewish historian, Josephus Flavins, a
passionate Jew and a friend of the Romans at the same time,
who writes the history of his nation in the language of Greece —
a figure as remarkable as the age itself which witnessed the
crumbling to dust of the old mythology of Olympus under the
scornful laughter of a Lucian> saw the Temple of Jerusalem
burst into flames, and the new doctrine of the carpenter's Son
of Nazareth arise !

In contrast to this hybrid figure stand the great leaders of
Talmudic literature in all their glory: Hillel and Schammai,
Jochanan ben Sakkai, Gamaliel, Joshua ben Chanauja, the
famous Akiba ; later on Jehuda the Prince, friend of the philo-
sophic emperor Marcus Aurelius, and editor of the Mishna ; Meir,
the fabulist; Simon ben Jochai, to whom later on the founding
of mysticism — Kabbala — was erroneously attributed ; Chija, Rab ;
Samuel, eminent equally as physician and legist ; Jochanan, sup-
posed editor of the Jerusalem Talmud ; Asche and Abina, the
former of whom was probably the editor of the Babylonian
Talmud, which alone was authoritatively accepted by the Jews.

The Talmud ! The word is so easy to write, it has become
so familiar, and yet it is so difficult to explain. It has been com-
pared to a journal, to the protocols of the sessions of a great
academy of sciences, and to many other works ; but all these
comparisons fall short. The Talmud, in its remarkable and
singular individuality, can scarcely be made fully clear to a
modern mind. Externally, it is the result of a process of
thought eagerly pursued through more than six hundred years ;
a running commentary on the Mischna, by no means methodi-

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1 897-] A Forgotten Literature. 43

cal and systematic^ rather free and unconstrained, as the discus-
sions on the law then were in the schools. A surprising acu-
men, a hair-splitting subtlety characterizes the discussions. Side
by side with the noblest and sublimest thoughts come the most
fantastic formulae and the most peculiar dogmas, the largest
views of the universe and the most petty narrowness ; all this
interspersed with poetic narrations, graceful legends, piquant
stories, and an infinitude of racy apophthegms. The fortunes of
this monument of literature have been as remarkable as its
essential character ; for never was a book so hated and perse-
cuted, so misunderstood and despised, then again so lauded
and honored, and above all so little comprehended, as this un-
fortunate Talmud.

For the Jews and their literature it has certainly been of
incalculable importancfe. We may even assert, without fear of
well-grounded contradiction, that the Talmud has kept up Ju-
daism. It is true that too great an expenditure of intellect
has been absorbed over the Talmud, and that it has given the
Jewish mind a one-sided direction ; but it is no less true that
when the Jew, fallen upon evil times, was shut out from general
scientific activity, when especially he was excluded from all
share in political life, the study of the Talmud kept his spirit
fresh and energetic ; it saved him from the danger of sinking
into fruitless subtilizations or intellectual apathy. "If the Jew
succeeded in living through the bitterest times, in maintaining
his faith in face of ^he fiercest hostilities, and, when the first
ray of light made its way into the remote Ghetto (Jewry), in
taking his share with marvellous elasticity in the intellectual
movements of his age, he owes all this chiefly to the study of
the Talmud." If the stern Halacha may be likened to an iron
bulwark guarding the Jewish law, the genial Hagada appeared
like a labyrinth of luxuriant and sweet-scented rose-gardens
within the ring-fence of the Talmud. The freedom which
breathes through the Hagada lends it its greatest charm. It
was not tied to forms and words like the Halacha. It was
free, as all poetry must be, if it is to give out a clear and full
sound. The whole Bible, with all its tones and colors, was its
possession, and the whole Bible supplied it with an inexhausti-
ble series of themes for the most wonderful and capricious
variations. For more than a thousand years this anonymous
poetry' of 'the people was weaving its web.

It was about the year 700 — therefore soon after the close of
the Talmud — that the compilation of many works and collections

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44 A Forgotten Literature. [April,

out of the rich treasures of the Hagada was begun ; and this
department of Hebrew literature carries us imperceptibly into
its fourth period, its great golden age, lasting from about the
ninth to the fifteenth century, and bearing within it, according
to the law of all human existence and effort, bud, blossom, and
decay. The scene of this period is Hither Asia, Africa, in part
Italy and France, but chiefly Spain, where the Arabs developed
a fertility of culture which is well known to have been invalu-
able in furthering our modern civilization. For the second
time the Jews are swept along in a great national current, and
two hundred years after Mohammed the Jews at Kairwan and
at Bagdad spoke one and the same language, namely, Arabic ;
language again became the intermediator between the Hebrew
literature and a universal one, and the loftier spirits of both
nations influenced each other through its medium. Jews wrote
in Arabic for their brethren, as formerly in Greek; and as be-
fore, so now the culture of the predominating people developed
a similar growth among the Hebrews, in its imitations as well
as in its contrasts. At the threshold of this period stands, as
before, a remarkable figure, the philosopher Saadia, a writer
and theologian of the first order, as well as a grammarian
and a poet. He is followed by Scherira, to whom we owe
the elements of a Talmudic literary history, and his son, Hai
Gaon, a strictly orthodox doctor of law, who again is succeeded
by eminent physicians, jurists, lexicographers, students of the
Talmud and grammarians in abundance. -The circle described
by the national literature becomes wider and larger; it em-
braces theology and philosophy, poetry and law, even astronomy
and chronology, mathematics and medicine.

Even though we may deny the Semitic race any share in
the work of purely philosophical thought, yet there is no ques-
tioning the fact that the Jews were the first to introduce the
Greek philosophy into Europe, where they diffused it and elab^
orated it, before that discipline had been taken up by the Ara-
bians. As their first object was to bring philosophy into har-
mony with their religion, and to defend it against the newly
arisen sect of the " Caracans," they lent quite a special charac-
ter to the Aristotelian doctrine, by which it became to them
a kind of national philosophy. It is indisputable that they
share with the Arabians the honor of having maintained and
spread philosophical knowledge during the centuries of barbarism,
and that for a long period they exercised a civilizing influence
upon the European world.

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I897-] A Forgotten Literature. 45

If the Jews have not been very zealous workers in the field
of the history of the world and have contributed little to the
history of literature, we must not hastily conclude that they are
deficient in historic sense. Rather must this be attributed to the
sufferings and persecutions to which they have been subjected.
Before they had time to record their sorrows, a fresh wave of
trouble swept over them. The history of their literature is in
the middle ages their own personal history, marked by Iraces of
blood and floods of tears. But the genius of Hebrew poetry sits
weeping at the fountain-head of this stream of tears. ** The East
exiled in the midst of the West : from the tears of its nostalgia
gushes forth Hebrew poetry," says Franz Delitsch, who was the
first to bestow loving attention on this long-neglected muse.

Needless to say that Hebrew poetry was marked pre-eminent-
ly by its religious character. Pre-eminently, but not exclusively.
Great thinkers, men endowed with stores of philosophical learn-
ing, gifted poets, have built up this poetry of Judaism conse-
crated to the Divine service. Its burden was the praise of the
Lord and the lamentations of Zion. Never has sorrow for a
lost fatherland assumed more burning colors or deeper tones than
in this poetry. Songs of hope and despair, hymns of vengeance
and national rejoicing, cries of mourning over each individual
persecution and over the desolated city of Zion — all these in ever-
varying series, arising out of their national history and called
into existence by it, were pressed into the service of rulers and
priests in the middle ages. Thus fate lent to this poetry a
directly classical and eminently national character.

But together with this religious poetry there flourished also
a secular lyric strain, which called to its aid rhyme and proso-
dy, cultivated all forms of poetic diction, and drew into its
charmed circle all materials of poetry. Its first representative
was Salomo Gabirol, who was also the first poet of the ** Welt-
schmerz," and a distinguished philosopher. His Source of Life
was translated into Latin in the year 11 50 by Archdeacon Do-
minicus Gundisalvi with the aid of a baptized Jew, John Aven-
daeth, whose name was converted into Avencebrol. This was
later on transformed into Avicebron, and the book was used
as a manual of scholastic philosophy, while not one of the
Scotists or Thomists who upheld or condemned it had the
smallest suspicion that a Jew was hidden under the name of
Avicebron. It was reserved for the investigation of modern
times to solve the mystery and release Gabirol from his foreign
disguise. And lo ! as little as the scholastic philosophers of

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46 A Forgotten Literature. [April,

mediaeval times, can the great pessimist oracle of recent date
shake off the abhorred Jew from his pessimistic skirts. For —
let Schopenhauer strive and resist as he may — Gabirol is his pre-
decessor in the theory of will more than eight hundred years ago !

Next to Gabirol stands Jehuda Halevi, probably the only
Jewish poet who is also acquainted with the history of general
literature. In his poems are reflected, not only the southern
sky but also the green meadows, blue rivers, the stormy sea.
His descriptions of nature are sublime and lovely, his love-songs
chaste and tender. He sings the praises of wine and youth,
happiness and his lady-love, but most of all his people and Sion.

The third of the three greatest poets of the Spanish epoch,
Mose ben Ezra, is more secular. In his flowing verses, here
and there deficient in melody, he glorifies his high patrons,
wine, his faithless love, " luxurious life under canopies of ver-
dure and amidst the singing of birds *'; he laments his separa-
tion from his loved one and his brethren, mourns over the short-
ness of human life and the advance of old age. But his muse
is pitched in a lower tone than that of his fellow-singers, even
when he strikes his lyre to the glory and praise of his own nation.

With these three men Hebrew poetry reached its culminat-
ing point after centuries of uphill work. Then comes the long
period of the Epigones, during which so many poets did good
and beautiful work, but seldom reaching, and never surpassing,
their great prototypes. With the advance of the ages poetry
widens in its tendency. The influences of European literatures
are too .strong to allow Hebrew writers to cling exclusively to
lyric poetry. In the fourteenth century the epic takes its first
start — fables, legends, and shorter narrations already existed in
the Hagada, and the Hebrew translation of the romance " Bar-
laam and Josaphat " suggested the first romantic poetry. But
only a slight fragment of these writings has value enough to re-
sist time ; it was reserved for a few poets of the last one hundred
and fifty years to create more precious and abiding things.

When we survey this after-blossom of Hebrew poetry, with
its erotic romances, satirical poems, bombastic hymns, and hu-
moristic epics, it is difficult to understand why Hebrew litera-
ture has been characterized as theological.. Salomo ben Sakbel
composes a satirical romance in the narrative form, whose hero —
another Don Quixote — passes through the most remarkable ad-
ventures to his goal ; Berachja Hanakdan hebraizes the fables of
iEsop and Lokman — Lafontaine borrowed largely from him ;
Ibrahim Ibn Sahal writes love-songs, for each of which the

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1 897-] A Forgotten Literature. 47

niggardly Arabians gave him ten pieces of gold ; Santob da
Carrion is a highly esteemed Spanish troubadour, who dares to
speak the truth even to the king ; Joseph Ibn Sahara writes a
comic romance ; Jehuda Sabbatai, a satirical epic on the " Strife
between Riches and Wisdom," and a " Gift of the Misogynist."
Another poetizes the " War of Truth," and a third the " Praise
of Women." The Provencal Kalonymos is a satirist of no com-
mon merit, and his entertaining " Touchstone " has been ren-
dered into German. Equally amusing is the Makame-book,
" Prince and Dervish," by Abraham Ibn Chis-dai — a Hebrew
reproduction of the romance " Barlaam and Josaphat." Perhaps
the most characteristic representative of this period of deca.
dence was Imanuel ben Salomo (called Manoello by the Italians),
a forerunner of Boccaccio and a friend of Dante's, a frivolous
but talented poet, who travesties the Divina Commedia in the
Hebrew language. He is the author of the first Hebrew sonnets
and novels. But it is doing him far too much honor to call
him " the mediaeval Heine," or yet a " Jewish Voltaire." Frivol-
ity and infidelity alone make neither a Heine nor a Voltaire;
something different and something more is needed for that, and
this was just what the frivolous Manoello lacked.

Now that we have conducted Hebrew poetry to the limits
of its great period, it only remains for us to mention that this
epoch also in its further course boasts its philosophers, jurists,
ethical writers, and exponents of the Bible. At their head
stands Moses Maimonides, the great systematizer of Jewish dog-
ma, and the most influential mediator between the Arabic-Greek
philosophy of Aristotle and the scholastic philosophy of the
middle ages. He is quite the most important figure in Hebrew
mediaeval literature, and his works have exerted a powerful in-
fluence over the life and the dogmatic faith of Judaism. His
Guide of the Wanderer is an interesting system of the philoso-
phy of religion founded on Aristotelian principles. Before his
time Bechai Ibn Pakuda and Joseph Ibn Zaddik had set up
theosophical researches, in which a fusion of Arabic and Greek
philosophy was foreshadowed. Abraham Ibn Daud, predecessor
ot Maimonides, went surprising lengths in free thought, seeking
in his Highest Faith to bring religion and philosophy into har-
mony, while Abraham Ibn Ezra, an acute but reckless polemic,
inaugurates rationalistic Biblical exegesis. But long before this
orthodox Biblical research had found distinguished representa-
tives in Raschi (Salomo Izchaki) and Samuel Ben Meir, who
lived in France. And the same may be said of some German

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48 A Forgotten Literature. [April,

scholars with regard to the study of Rabbinical Law. These
scholars were also moralists — an important fact to remember
when treating of a persecuted race. When some two hundred
years ago a German professor cast a glance into some of these
writings he bore this honorable testimony to their ethical
character : *' Hardly could such high moral teaching have been
expected from Christians in those times, as this Jew has here
prescribed and bequeathed to his fellow- religionists ! '*

As a matter of course, the greater part of Hebrew literature
in that and the following period was filled up with theological
questions and commentaries on the Talmud, which may be
counted by hundreds. But it would answer no purpose to
enumerate here even the most distinguished of these authors,
as their action belongs almost exclusively to the history of
scholarship, and seldom exercised any decisive influence on the
genetic development of literature.

We have yet to mention the literature of travel, generally
limited to the interests of the race. Here the pioneer is Eldad,
the author of a kind of Hebrew Odyssey, which may be re-
garded as fabulous. More reliance may be placed on Benjamin
of Tudela and Petachja of Ratisbon. Charisi has also enriched
this branch of literature. Indeed, we may count the great
majority of Hebrew authors among writers of travels, for, as
Steinschneider graphically observes, " the hard fate of necessity
was in all times like a stormy wind to Hebrew scholars, carry-
ing the seed of knowledge into all lands, while on the other
hand learning protected and enwrapped the wandering literary
beggar as with a cloak of honor." Thus everything favored the
diffusion of Hebrew literature : the trade and traffic carried on
by the Jews, the maintenance of academies, the love of travel-
ling, compulsory migrations. All these circumstances help to
account for the otherwise almost incredibly rapid and wide dis-
semination of Hebrew literature.

The fourth period — the most brilliant epoch of the litera-
ture we are considering — closes with a fearful crash : the ex-
pulsion of the Jews from Spain, which had become a second
fatherland to the nation, where ministers and princes, professors
and poets had risen from their ranks.

" On the day," says Karpeles, " when 300,000 Jews were driven
out of Spain Christopher Columbus set out on his first voyage
of discovery. This is an act in the great drama of universal
history which speaks much more plainly in such events than
in great moral lessons to which peoples give very little heed."

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1 897-] ^ Forgotten Literature. 49

And now the stage of this literature is changed, France
and Italy, but more especially the servile East, come to the.
front — not to the advantage of literary development, which for
about three centuries is given up to decay and stagnation.
The learning of this period is sufficiently designated by the
title which has been bestowed on it, '* Rabbinical literature,*' for
its main achievement was the evolution and solidification of the
Rabbinical system.

Among the most prominent authors who mark the close of
the preceding phase, or the opening of the new period, the
first deserving mention is Nachmanides, a pious and learned
investigator of the Bible, who with acute intelligence and ethi-
cal candor entered into the great struggle between philosophy
and creed, which now split the Hebrew community into two
opposite camps, and whose shibboleth was the system of Mai-
monides. The Aristotelian philosophy no longer satisfied ;
spirits thirsted for new revelations, and therefore plunged eager-
ly into mysticism, which begins to have an abundant literature
of its own. The " Sohar," the Bible of mysticism, was put
forth under the veil of an ancient rabbi, while its real author
appears to have lived at the time and to have been called
Moses de Leon. We find on the free-thinking side the two
literary families of the Tibbonides and Kimchides, who exhibit
a praiseworthy activity as translators and grammarians — con-
spicuously David Kimchi and Juda Ibn Tibbon, in whose testa-
ment — as we may remark in passing — the memorable thesis,
*' Property is theft,'* is to be found pretty clearly expressed —
which Proudhon might have claimed as an additional confirma-
tion of his teaching on this point. The liberal current was
strengthened by many other adherents.

This new period is ushered in by Isaac Abarbanel, one of
the most able and popular exponents of the Bible, formerly a
minister of the Most Catholic King, afterwards a wandering
scholar v/ho goes into banishment with his sons, one of whom,
Jehuda, is known as the author of the Dialoghi di amore,
Abraham Zacuto, some time professor of astronomy at
Salamanca, may also be named here as an eminent historian of
Hebrew literature who, after the expulsion of the Jews from
Portugal, joined the Eastern migration, which was also swelled
by Israel Nagara, the most gifted poet of the century, whose
hymns enjoy general favor, and later on by Joseph Karo, the
most influential figure of the sixteenth century, who by his
Schulchan Aruch lent considerable service to the codification of

VOL. LXV.— 4

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so A Forgotten Literature. [April,

Jewish dogma, and many others, A large Hebrew community
was already flourishing at Salonichi, where Jacob Ibn Chabib,
the first compiler of the Talmudic Hagada, and afterwards
David Conforte, an esteemed historian, lived and taught. In
Jerusalem Obadja from Bertinoro, a famous commentator of
the Mischna, was at work, with many teachers of the Kabbala.
The stream of migration naturally tended towards Jerusalem at
that period of flourishing Kabbala and false Messiahs ; but
literature did not gain much thereby, unless indeed we regard
Isaiah Hurwitz's Two Tables of the Covenant^ which to this day
is held as an authority, and which is a sort of encyclopaedia of
Hebrew science, founded on mystic views, as a valuable con-
tribution to the national literature, which would be too great
a stretch of complaisance.

The position of the Jews in Italy was more favorable with
regard to literature. The Renaissance came to their aid, and
the revival of classical studies did not fail to stimulate their
intellectual activity. For the third time the Jewish mind comes
into contact with the Greek. Letters burst into new life, and,
so far as their national misery permitted, the Jews did not
linger in the rear. This misery continued undiminished even in
the days when Erasmus of Rotterdam deemed it a "joy to
live *' ; indeed, it assumed more and more frightful dimensions.
Still, it may be held to be a point of light that attention was
turned to Hebrew studies ; that Pico da Mirandola studied the
Kabbala ; that popes and sultans consulted Jewish physicians
by preference, while medical literature also came to the front ;
that the Jews translated philosophical treatises from Hebrew
and Arabic into Latin ; lastly, that Elia del Medigo was called
in as learned umpire in the strife of the University of Padua;
but all this was unavailing to save the nation from ruin. The
Italian Jews of that period stand far above their compatriots in
other countries in the direction of intellect and knowledge, but
in character and morals they take a very low place. The
Polish Jews come henceforth to the front as representatives of
literary activity. Among them rabbinical literature finds its
most zealous and learned disciples, and numerous academies
propagate the study of the Talmud in a new form, the sophis-
tical treatment of the materials found in the Talmud.

But it is in Holland that the Jews present the most attrac-
tive picture. There general culture unites with religious tradi-
tion into a certain harmony and the sun of toleration shines
upon the persecuted race. Its light even falls into the semina-

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I897-] A Forgotten Literature. 51

ries of Amsterdam, and into the heart of a youth who casts
aside the folios of the Talmud and goes forth to proclaim the
gospel of a new philosophy to wondering mankind. His name
is Baruch Spinoza.

There also lived Manasseh ben Israel, who strove for the
emancipation of his people and its literary significance in the
Hebrew and Latin tongues; and others who stood up for the
defence of their nation in the language of the country.

In Germany we find, to our surprise and edification. Chris-
tian scholars devoting their attention to Hebrew literature, so
long neglected and despised ; among them the two Buxtorfs,
Bartolocci, Wolff, Surrenhuys, De Rossi, and others. But with
them begins and disappears again all interest in this literature
on the part of students outside the Jewish race, and it is much
to be lamented that even the most eminent theologians of our
own time rest satisfied with referring to untrustworthy subsidi-
ary authorities instead of seeking the original sources of Hebrew
literature. This superficial proceeding is, of course, very detri-
mental to the value of their studies on the subject.

In the sixth and last period of this literature, which reaches
down to the present time and therefore is not yet closed, Ju-
daism and its literary expression enter upon a new phase which
may perhaps be the turning-point of the development of both.
Is this literature at an end or will this poetry live through an-
other resurrection? Who can venture to answer this query in
advance, when treating of a race whose whole history is one
long problem and whose literature furnishes an eternal question
— a race which for more than a thousand years has, like its
original ancestor, " striven with gods and men " and has come
off victorious?

In the limited space of this article we have only touched
upon a few salient features of a large subject, without attempt-
ing to offer a comprehensive view of the literature under re-
view, or of the copious details and glowing delineations to be
found in the pages of this work by Dr. Karpeles. Any one
who only runs his eye through the index, or turns over the
book here and there to glance at the great number of extracts,
or takes a survey, however hurried, of the brilliant and yet
profound historical and critical disquisitions which abound in
the book, the researches into the ideas which flow from land to
land, from people to people — will be pleased with the admirable
way in which the author has accomplished his task.

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THE CHRISTIAN'S LEX TALIONIS.

BY MARCELLA A. FITZGERALD.

HE skies were starless; on the
dreary shore
The waves, wind driven, broke

with sullen roar,
That echoing upward in resound-
ing thrills
Waked clamorous responses from
the hills
Whose forests flung defiance to the main.
Tempestuous midnight and fast-falling rain,
Sad comrades in my lonely watch of woe
Beside my husband's bed. Now swift, now slow
The beating of his heart, his labored breath,
His faltering words that told his dread of death.
Swayed by the forces of despair and fear
When the last awful hour of life drew near.
And stern remorse in that dread moment threw
Aside the veil that hid his past from view.

" Hark, hark ! " he cried. " He calls ; 'tis he, 'tis he ! "

I only heard the thunders of the sea.

The wildly wailing winds ; and then once more,

" He comes for thee, Loreto ; all is o'er ;

We are discovered ! Lo ! they come this way " :

Then, terror-stricken, moaned, '* Loreto, pray."

I held his head upon my breast and strove
To soothe the anguish of my dying love ;
Whispered of hope and bright days yet to be
In our lone dwelling by the glorious sea,

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|897-] The Christian's Lex Talionis. 53

Safe hidden from his foes* revengeful hate.

" Nay, nay ! " he moaned. " It is too late, too late !

Earth holds no future, dear, for thee with me ;

Death comes apace, death comes to set thee free.

But oh ! in pity pray ; my lips have known

Few aspirations to the Mercy Throne

Where I must face my Judge, where I must tell

'Twas by my hand thy only brother fell.

Forget my crime, Loreto, and forgive

The wretch who fain would bid thy brother live ;

Plead, plead for me unto the Heart Divine,

For bitterest woe and agony is mine."

"Forgive,** love cried; "forgive!** But how forget
That fair young face in ghastly anguish set :
The face that haunted me with pleading eyes,
E*en as my husband*s wildly anguished cries
Smote with keen agony my breaking heart,
As the dread hour drew near when we must part ?

Forget! Nay, cruel Memory showed alway
The tragic closing of my bridal day.
When he I loved became my kindred*s foe ;
And *mid the feasting struck an angry blow.
The smouldering fire in his haughty breast
Fanned to fierce fury by an idle jest :
The hush, the sudden tumult, and our flight
Through the clear beauty of the starry night.
And evermore I heard the ringing sound
Of flying hoof-beats on the echoing ground.
As my loved brother followed on our track
With pleading call, " Loreto, child, come back ! **

How swiftly ^own the shadowy glen he came.

The echoes answering as he called my name.

And nearer hasting sought to bear me home :

Then from their cloudless throne in heaven's high dome

The stars looked down upon a mad affray.

And marked my brother's fall.

Sad bridal day!
Ye reft from me the peace and joy of life,
And bade me live a hunted murderer's wife,
A prey to grief and fear.

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54 The Christian's Lex Talionis. [April,

The Winter's breath
Swept round our mountain eyrie fraught with death ;
Love, youth, and strength of manhood's daring pride
In vain the subtle conqueror defied ;
And now he lay by fever fires consumed,
Worn by remorse, a victim early doomed,
I felt his life was ebbing fast away,
I checked my tears and strove to humbly pray.
Sobs choked my voice ; I turned in abject grief
To Mary, Queen of Sorrows, for relief.
The cry of the poor prodigal was mine,
Craving in anguish of the Maid Divine
Strength for the soul beloved, while life and death
Struggled for mastery.

With bated breath
I listened for his voice, fast sinking lower.
As, with strained glances fixed upon the door.
He murmured hoarsely : " It is he ; my ear
Cannot deceive me ; 'tis his voice I hear,
Calling for thee, Loreto. Open wide
The door, that he may see thee, hapless bride,
Whose sunny youth my crime has overcast ;
Haste, haste ! life's sands are ebbing, oh ! so fast."

There came a sound of footsteps swift and light ;

Surely no mortal wanderer such a night

Would seek the rocky ledges where our home.

Hid 'mid the pines, o'erlooked the ocean's foam.

A voice asked shelter in our Lady's name ;

I drew the bolt aside — the fire's red flame

Shone on my brother's face. Shrieking, I sank

Palsied with dread. Had not the red earth drank

His heart's warm blood, and his young face so fair

Been mangled by the vultures of the air?

But piercing through awe's veiling gloom there came

My brother's accents as he called my name.

Tenderly, pityingly : each loving word

Of fond endearment all my being stirred :

" My poor Loreto ! why this shuddering fear ?

No thought of vengeful hate has brought me here

In search of him whose hand my life-blood shed ;

Nay e'en as one new risen from the dead

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I897-] The Christian's Lex Talionis. 55

I come to seek thee, but come not alone.

The friend who found me when I lay overthrown,

My life's kind savior, led my footsteps here,

Through all this bitter night of storm and fear.

Warned by a sharer of thy alms that he.

Thy husband, lay sore stricken."

" Pray for me,
Loreto ; do not leave me ! " Shrill and high
Rang out his agonized, imploring cry.
I turned to soothe him ; but one bent above
The pain-racked figure with such face of love
And meek devotion as the artists paint
When picturing Assisi's gentle Saint.
The sufferer's agony of pain intense,
The awful couching of the soul's keen sense.
Found fn the Friar's words a healing balm
Of peace and pardon fraught with holy calm.
As, love supported in that final hour.
Cheered by religion's all-consoling power.
Pleading forgiveness for the wrong he wrought.
Pardoned by him whose life he madly sought,
My husband died.

His lonely mountain grave
O'erlooks the sea. The pines around it wave,
And softly breathe in every murmured tone
A solemn requiem for the spirit flown.
There spring's first flowers in rare and radiant bloom
Light with their smiles the wind-stirred, sun-flecked gloom.
And fearlessly the wild bird builds its nest
On the rude cross that marks his place of rest,
In that fair solitude where gentle Peace
Breathes of the land where sorrow finds surcease.

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$6 The Shade of Joel Barton. [April,

THE SHADE OF JOEL BARTON.

BY HENRY T. BYRD.

HEY had dabbled more or less in Buddhism,

Spiritism, and kindred fads, and now that Joel

was dying a conversation they had once had,

half in jest, half in earnest, returned to Ellen

with morbid force.

" You would come to me again from where you are going

— if you could ? You remember what you once said, Joel ? "

she asked, her voice eager and anxious.

" I will come," he began, and emphasized his promise as well
as his feebleness would permit, and would have continued to speak,
only at this juncture the minister was ushered into the room,

Mrs. Ridgely, Ellen's aunt with whom she lived, was much
gratified at the composure exhibited by her niece on the occa-
sion of Joel's departure ; but had she seen into the girl's
heart she would have found cause for alarm, so scarred and
bruised was it. Ellen's acquaintance with Joel Barton, followed
quickly by their engagement, dated less than a year back. He
was a man in whom she had a perfect confidence, albeit she
knew little or nothing of his antecedents. *' I have no relatives
with whom I correspond, except an aunt from whom I have
reason to expect much, and I would like to send her your
photograph. But I have broached on a painful subject ; sup-
pose we drop it for the present," he said to her on the day
she consented to become his wife. From this and from other
utterances he made, but always without explanation, Ellen
gathered that he had a grievance, and being very fond of him,
pitied him accordingly. In the brief course of the fever con-
tracted in the marsh-lands Joel Barton came to the south-
western country to survey, he was asked if he had no friends
with whom he wished to communicate. He was then at Mrs.
Ridgely's house, whither he had been taken to be nursed, at
her request. '* There is no one who would care except my
aunt, Mrs. Amherst ; Mrs. Ridgely has her address, and will
write her," he replied. He spoke without animation, but those
who heard him received the impression that at some period in
his life he had been grievously wronged. And so it came to
pass, when Joel Barton was buried in the little Presbyterian

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1 897-] The Shade of Joel Barton, 57

cemetery at Wauhassee, the chief mourners at his funeral were
Ellen Ridgely and her aunt.

After the funeral, the one change that Ellen made in her
life was, that she no longer visited or willingly received visits.
This was very hard on her aunt, a widow much given to society,
Ellen did not complain, she never spoke of Joel, and such times
as she was not ** mooning" — so Mrs, Ridgely styled her niece's
thoughtful moods — she occupied herself with her drawings,
grasping at her pencil rtiore for the saving of her mind than
for the devotion she had to art. The remembrance of the
promise Joel made, that he would return to her if he could, was
never absent from her thoughts for a long time. She expected
him to come, and watching for him in the shade of the trees in
the garden, or in the cool of the little drawing-room of an
evening, she began to hear his voice. Her nervous system
shattered, she wept and the shedding of tears relieved her, her
reason asserted itself, and she acknowledged that she had been
betrayed by an hallucination.

Her aunt noticed that the girl was failing in health, and, with
a strong belief in the all-healingness of a change of scene, she in-
sisted that they, she and Ellen, take a long-spoken-of trip to
New York, where Ellen could best make use of her talent for art.

" You have had two years study in Europe, you are wasting
yourself here, and really, Ellen, you should not go so often to
the cemetery," said Mrs. Ridgely.

" I have not been there for three days, and I shall not go
there again," replied Ellen ; and as she offered no resistance to
her aunt's New York plan, it was carried out before another
month had elapsed. It was not Ellen's first visit to New York,
for she had already spent a year there in study with Amy
Bellew, a young woman who was making quite a name for her-
self in a certain way as a painter; and it was in an apartment
in the house where this friend dwelt that Ellen and her aunt
took up their abode. The change of scene did at first work
wonders for Ellen. The noise and bustle of the town, the
diversions executed for her by her aunt and Amy Bellew, gave
her no time to brood, and the consequence was her mind and
body were put in a healthful frame.

Above all other things she found that early morning walks
benefited her. At break of day she would slip from the
apartment without disturbing her aunt, and stroll out the
avenue to the park. Necessarily her walks on the avenue took
her by the cathedral, and though her eye delighted in the

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58 The Shade of Joel Barton. [April,

beauty of the great. mart>le pile, she did not pass its threshold.
She visited and had been impressed by many churches abroad,
but remembering Joel Barton's fanatic hatred of Catholicism,
she would not enter this one. But the barrier his shade erected
was to be overthrown by prosaic means* One morning she was
overtaken by a sudden storm of rain, and the open doors of
the cathedral offered a convenient shelter which she made haste
to avail herself of without a thought of Barton's displeasure.

It was All Souls day, a large congregation was present, and
a young man, perceiving from the bewildered looks Ellen cast
about her that she was a stranger, stepped up to her and
offered to show her to a seat. She bent a grateful look on the
self-appointed usher, and followed him up the aisle to a pew
almost the first before the sanctuary. Mass had just begun,
and throughout the course of the Sacrifice something of its
tremendous mystery and beauty of mercy impressed itself on
her uncomprehending but quiescent soul. The ministrant in
sable vestments, the altar and the great candlesticks veiled in
black, told her she was present at an invocation for the dead,
and what little she knew of the church's teaching on the sub-
ject roused itself in her mind ; the large consolation of it
struck her for the first time, and scarcely knowing what she did,
she was on her knees, her face hid in her hands and praying
for the soul of Joel Barton. A bell rung three times, there
was a whispering of feet over the pavement, and looking up
she saw a press of people approach the sanctuary rail and the
priest pass from the altar to meet them. She pondered the
feeling of awe that controlled her, when her eyes became
fastened on a man returning from the rail of communicants.
His eyes, serious with hallowed thoughts, met hers without seeing
her. He was tall, handsome, and manly ; and his hair and beard
were of a fine texture and of a chestnut color. It was his coun-
terpart, or it was Joel Barton ! At that moment she had not a
doubt. It was Joel come back as he had promised her he would.
A mist gathered before her eyes, and the man was lost to her
view in the crowd advancing to and receding from the sanctuary.

" I've been in such a pother about you, Ellen ; what has
kept you so late?" asked her aunt when she reached home,
confused in her mind and fatigued with an access of grief she
had not felt since the day Barton was buried.

"I stopped on my way home for shelter from the rain.
Hasn't it cleared off beautifully ! " Ellen exclaimed to change
the subject, and glanced out the window.

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"Yes, beautifully; but where did you stop?'* interrogated
Mrs. Ridgely, scenting an adventure.

" Oh, in the cathedral ! " returned Ellen with nervous im-
patience, and flung herself into an arm-chair out of reach of the
table on which a maid was laying a steaming breakfast.

Mrs. Ridgely gazed at her and said : " Something appears to
have upset you ; do get off your things and come to breakfast ;
it is an hour or more after the usual time."

It became after this a daily custom with Ellen to visit the
cathedral to pray for the soul of Joel Barton, and the more
time forced her to confess that she was not as unhappy as she
had been, the more incessant became her prayers for the hap-
piness of the man whose body rested out in Wauhassee, Had
she desired to, it would not have been possible to conceal from
her aunt what took her abroad even on the most untoward
mornings. But all the remark Mrs. Ridgely made concerning
what she called Ellen's gaddings was to say that all girls now-
adays had fads. " I do hope she wont turn Papist, though,"
she said to Miss Bellew ; " that would be awful ! "

" Not at all ; I know any number of nice people who arc
Catholics," responded Miss Bellew, and stood back the better to
view the inflamed horizon she depicted.

Mrs. Ridgely was right in her conjectures. The piety and
devotion she witnessed in her daily visits to the cathedral im-
pressed Ellen, and being of a logical turn of mind, the perfect
logicalness of the Catholic belief, which she studied at first
through curiosity, then with an eager desire to know the truth,
impelled her to seek a priest for instruction, and, not without
opposition from her aunt, she was baptized in the early spring.

There now came to Ellen a peace and quietude of spirit
to which she had hitherto been a stranger, and which did not
leave her in the material reverses she and her aunt were called
on to suffer. They were away on a jaunt to the country when
news reached them of the destruction of their home in Wau-
hassee by fire. The house was uninsured, the rent of it was an
item to Mrs. Ridgely, and to rebuild it she would have to sell
some of the shares in the A. I. R. from which the greater
portion of the remainder of her income was derived. Scarcely
had she become reconciled to the loss of her house when a
letter came to her which stated that, owing to the embarrassed
state of the financial affairs of the country, the A. I, R, would
declare no dividend that year,

" We are beggars ! It is a punishment ! If you had not

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6o The Shade of Joel Barton. [April,

become a Papist ! " were the ejaculations of Mrs. Ridgely in
an access of despair and fervor,

"Granting that I have erred, why should you be punished,
dear aunt ? '* Ellen expostulated.

Mrs. Ridgely could not say ; there was the trouble ; that
was evident enough.

Things were not so bad, however, as Mrs. Ridgely represented
them to be. She still had the remnant of an income, and Ellen
had a small and safe one in United States securities. It was
a cross to Mrs. Ridgely to have to leave the " Reni," the
apartment-house in which she lived, but Miss Bellew arranged
this matter to the satisfaction of every one concerned. *' I
have an apartment larger than my uses," said this practical
young woman. " I can let you have two rooms, we can eat
together, and Ellen can share my studio. If she keeps on as
she has begun, it won't be long before she can have as swell a
studio as she pleases."

This last was said apropos of an ambitious head of Joan of
Arc Ellen had painted and succeeded in having exhibited.
The picture received favorable comment, and shortly after her
installation in Miss Bellew's studio it was the means of her
receiving an order for the portrait of the daughter of a woman
of considerable importance. Mrs. Vail-Euston, such was the
lady's name, dwelt in magnificent exclusiveness in a house on
Washington Square, where the portrait was to be painted, the
setting of the picture to be the Vail-Euston library, a long
room with an alcove at one end looking out on the square. It
would be no end of trouble to Miss Ridgely, Mrs. Vail-Euston
acknowledged, but there was no knowing how many orders the
doing of the portrait at that particular place might bring.
"There will be a constant stream of suitable people to see
your art," she declared, and when Ellen demurred to this, she
was assured that the stream would flow silently and not be
allowed to overwhelm her.

Cordelia Vail-Euston was an exceedingly well-bred girl, an
admirable sitter, and the possessor of a pretty face of so se-
verely an Anglican type that Ellen was not at all surprised
when one day she confided to her that she wanted to be an
"Anglo-Catholic" nun. "You must pray for me; I always
pray for your Branch," she said. Surely she would pray for
her, and how constantly for a year and more now she had
prayed for one who knew nothing of branch theories, for one
whose invincible ignorance was her best reason to hope for

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I897-] The Shade of Joel Barton. 6i

his everlasting welfare ! She never forgot him, but the thought
of him no longer opened wounds in her heart. Neither had
she forgotten the vision or the similar ide.itity she had clearly
seen in the cathedral that was now her dearest home and place
of visit. She no longer wished him back on earth, but at the same
time she felt herself a widow, and to her widowhood she would
remain true. No, she would never marry; she was sure of that.

One afternoon, some days after the beginning of the por-
trait, she was on her way home, a little upset and, if the truth
be told, a little ruffled in temper. The stream had been steady
that day, and had borne on its current many young men who
swung censers of high-smelling incense, for, as has been said,
Ellen was a very attractive girl. It was something she could
not very well help. " Mrs. Vail-Euston is too bad,*' she com-
plained to herself ; " how can I do justice to her daughter's
portrait if I am to be constantly interrupted ? — But what a
perfect afternoon ! " she exclaimed to herself, and paused to
look about her where the avenue meets the square.

" I suppose a Londoner would think the colors crude," was
the thought that came into her mind as she gazed on the square
and great marble arch. The thought died as quickly as it was
born, and, uttering a little gasp, she caught for support at an
old-fashioned railing that squirmed its way down a curling
flight of steps.

Proceeding from out the opening in the arch she saw the
shade of Joel Barton, or his similar identity. The sun caught
the ends of his chestnut beard and the wave of his hair under
the Alpine hat he wore. He looked straight before him, his
head thrown back. But to-day there was a laughing candor in
his eyes, whereas on the morning in the cathedral they had a
grave and hallowed look. He passed her, and she turned to
let her eyes follow him. Her name was spoken, her hand was
taken in a firm clasp, and Miss Bellew, who had been out for
a walk and had overtaken her, exclaimed, "Why, Ellen, what
has come over you ? You look like some one hypnotized ! "
She ejaculated, with a feeble attempt at a laugh, that she was
not feeling very well, and again turned her eyes up the avenue.
But he, whoever he was, had disappeared.

" You've been working too hard," said Miss Bellew ; "I've
had it myself. Here's a stage waiting, and when you get home
I'll give you some phosphate, and you'll go to bed ; and after
you've had a cup of tea you'll feel better."

Ellen consented to a cup of tea when she reached home, but

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62 The Shade of Joel Barton. [April,

she would not go to bed or take Miss Bellew's phosphates. It
was ridiculous to say she was ill, she insisted. Nevertheless, to
please her aunt, she permitted herself to be treated as an in-
valid for the remainder of the evening.

She was in the Vail-Euston library on the day following,
an hour before the time appointed for the sitting, in order that
she might have a free moment with the portrait. Her hands
were raised to the back of her head, and she was unpinning the
tissue veil she wore about her hat and face, when she became
conscious that she was not alone. Looking towards the alcove
she saw a form proceeding from out the shadows of the por-
tiere that shrouded it, and she let her hands, grasping her veil,
fall to her side.

It was the similar identity or it was the shade of Joel
Barton that stood before her. Never was there such a like-
ness, and the shade or the similar identity seemed as much sur-
prised and confused as was Ellen herself. Each recognized in
the other some one seen before, and each pair of eyes questioned,
"Who are you?"

It was the similar identity that broke the silence. "I beg
your pardon ; I hope I am not intruding ; the fact is I have
come by request to see Miss Vail-Euston's portrait," it stam-
mered, and paused confused and abashed beyond measure, and
Ellen could not prevent the little sigh of content she uttered
at the ariose 1>one of its voice. It was as if Joel spoke to her,
though she had never seen Joel abashed, not even when he
asked her to be his wife.

She was about to give vent to some inanity about being the
portrait-painter herself, when, to her great repose, she heard
the voice of Mrs. Vail-Euston, immediately followed by her en-
trance. She sailed up to the similar identity without any ap-
pearance of being ruffled and made the following, to Ellen, start-
ling address :

"Joel Barton!" There was an arm-chair behind Ellen and
she felt herself glide down into its depths. "You are very
naughty," pursued Mrs. Vail-Euston; "why have you not been
to see it before? But here is the painter of the portrait," and
she turned to face Ellen, who strove to rise, but only sank fur-
ther back in the capacious poufs of her chair.

Startled at the rudeness of h^T prot^g^e, Mrs. Vail-Euston fixed
her eye-glasses, and said in an insistent tone of voice, " Miss
Ridgely, permit me to make you acquainted with Mr. Joel Barton."

" Oh ! " ejaculated Ellen, and looked up sadly, a mist in her

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1 897-] The Shade of Joel Barton. 63

eyes, at Joel Barton looking down on her with amazement. " I
beg pardon," he said in haste ; " I fear the young lady is not well."

He had thrown her a plank and Ellen seized it eagerly. There
now ensued a confusion of apologies ; Mrs. Vail-Euston apolo-
gizing for having forgotten that dear Miss Ridgely had been so
ill, Ellen apologizing that she had made apologies necessary,
and could she have a glass of water?

She drank the water like one famished, and, making a great
exertion, entered into the discussion over the merits of the por-
trait. The sitting was a most successful one that morning, and
listening to Barton in conversation with Mrs. Vail-Euston, Ellen
felt an access of power and a confidence that some day she
would be worthy of the incense offered her, and she was glad
for Joel Barton's sake. But for which Joel Barton?

Barton looked in again for a few minutes the next day,
and when he was gone the subject of the portrait not being
present, Mrs. Vail-Euston confided to Ellen in how high esteem
she held him. '* If Cordelia would give him the least en-
couragement she could bring him to her feet, and nothing
would please me better," she said. Ellen blushed to find her
heart hardening, and then by way of penance began to idealize
the Cordelia on the canvas, in which proceeding she did not
lower her powers as an artist in the eyes of her protectress.
After this she would catch herself watching if Joel Barton,
whose visits to the library were now made daily, was being im-
pressed by the charms of her subject. She berated herself for
this, and for every reproach thus made the canvas gained in beauty.

At last the day arrivjed when the portrait was finished, and
Ellen stood in the library alone gazing at it with dissatisfied
eyes. She could not but feel that as a picture it was an im-
mense success, but as a portrait it was a deplorable failure.
Cordelia Vail-Euston had a complacent, pretty face, without
much character, and utterly unlike the magnificent creature in
the portrait. Unconsciously Ellen had given it her own soul.

Now and again a door would open down-stairs, and Ellen
would hear the strident notes of women's voices, the clink of
glass and china. Mrs. Vail-Euston was giving a great luncheon,
from which Ellen had been excused, and presently the guests
would be in the room to be favored with a private view, for
heaven and earth had been moved and the portrait was to be
shown at the Academy. Wishing it well over, Ellen turned
from the portrait as a portiere was pushed aside, and Joel Bar-
ton entered the room.

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64 The Shade of Joel Barton. [April,

His face flushed with pleasure ; he began to say, " I am so
glad to find you here alone," when Ellen interrupted : ** You have
come to see the portrait ? "

It was a false note she struck ; she cared nothing just then
for his opinion of her workj and with perfect candor he replied
that he had not. *' Do you know," he went on, " that although
we have been friends for some weeks, I have not had an op-
portunity to speak to you of what has been on my mind ever
since we first met."

Though her eyes inquired what that might be, she persisted
in saying, " You don't like the portrait ? "

He was truthful to an extent some of his friends said was
stupid, and he had not much tact. "It is a beautiful picture,
but it will be discussed ad nauseam presently; and before
they come in," he said in haste, " pray let me speak of what has
become a burden to me. I think I have a photograph of you."

"Thank you," she said promptly, with a little bow.

" Not in that way, please understand me," he cried, and
drew a little packet from an inner pocket of his coat and
handed it to her. " I am sure it is you."

She was about to undo the packet, when the sound of ap-
proaching voices warned them that the guests would be in the
room in a minute.

** I thought they would not be up for half an hour ! " he
exclaimed. "Miss Ridgely, may I not call on you?" .

She hesitated a brief moment, and said, " My aunt will be
pleased to see you on any Thursday," that being the day on
which Mrs. Ridgely made a pretence of holding a reception.

" But I want to see you, not your aunt," he pleaded. He
was audacious, but she read him very honest.

" You may call at my studio to-morrow morning," she said,
knowing that Miss Bellew would be abroad.

He had scarcely thanked her when they were impelled to-
wards the portrait and surrounded by a little mob that exalted,
altisonant and crescendo.

When in the seclusion of her room, Ellen opened the packet
confided to her ; she remembered the photograph very well. It
was the one that Joel had asked for his aunt, Mrs. Judith Am-
herst. Speaking of his aunt on another occasion he had said,
with a dark frown on his face : " I will inherit a large property
from her if I am not cheated out of it by a man who has
already done all he could to hurt me." She remembered this
speech as she held the photograph before her. Could this other

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i897-] The Shade of Joel Barton. 65

Joel Barton be the enemy he dreaded? On the back of the
photograph was a writing in a feminine hand ; placed there
evidently for some one's enlightenment. " This is the picture of
the girl Joel Barton is going to marry. A headstrong piece by
all appearances/' was what it said. And that was the opinion
Joel's aunt had formed of her ! Was it a correct one ? She
hardly knew or cared. But could this other man be the one
who injured poor Joel? A serious injury it must have been,
for even she had not been able to cure him of the gloomy
periods he sometimes indulged in. Could that apparently honest
and truthful man be a villain ? For this she cared.

Joel Barton was at her studio at as early an hour as con-
ventional propriety permitted. "Is it your photograph?" he
asked after their greetings.

" It is," she answered coldly.

He gazed at her, his face blank; then said with a sudden
warmth of apology : " But it was not my fault that it fell into
my hands. When my poor Aunt Judith died and I got her
house, it was in it."

" I find no fault with you for having had my photograph in
your possession. You inherited all your aunt's property?" she
asked with a strange emphasis on the substantive of quantity.

" Yes," he replied with a troubled look. What did she want
to know that for ? " To my great surprise — I haven't got over
it yet — she left me all she died possessed of."

" Poor Joel!" thought Ellen, and turned her face from that
other Joel in fear that his candid eyes would soften her heart.

" But, Miss Ridgely, pardon me if I appear to be inquisitive,"
he continued ; " I have reason for my question. I want to learn
the whereabouts of my brother. If the photo is yours, you
must be the one he was to have married. Can you tell me any-
thing about him ? "

She felt the blood leave her face, and she replied, with a gen-
tleness not all for herself, *'Your brother is dead, Mr. Barton."

" Dead ! " he gasped ; " dead without having forgiven me ! "

It was as if he had struck her, and she shrank back in her chair.
This was the man ! " He had something to forgive ?" she questioned.

"He thought he had. But when did he die?" he asked with
a calmness she mistook for coldness.

" I wrote your aunt ; it is strange she did not inform you,"
said Ellen.

" Poor Aunt Judith had quarrelled with me. I told you how it
surprised me to find myself her heir ; but I understand now why

VOL. LXV.— 5

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66 The Shade of Joel Barton. [April,

Joel was not mentioned in her will. Joel ! Joel ! " he cried, and
there was no mistaking the anguish of his cry.

But Ellen continued to harden her heart. "Your relatives
appear not to have appreciated you," she said.

It was beginning to penetrate his brain that for some reason
she was averse to him, and he said : " Perhaps you may be more
lenient when I tell you that my aunt did not wish me to be-
come a Catholic, ,and I disobeyed her wishes. She forgave me,
though, in the words of her will."

A new hope enlivened her to exclaim : " Is that what offended
your brother ? I know that he was much opposed to the church."

He shook his head and said : " I have no reason to suppose
that he ever learned of it. But you have not told me how and
when he died."

She could not but grant him to know, and when she came
to an end of her telling he said very simply : " Joel must have
been very dear to you."

"He is," she replied, and her voice quavered.

" You must forgive me for opening an old wound ; but
remember, I did not know," he petitioned.

She made no reply and he rose to leave her. He attributed
her coldness to an idea he had that she was fighting down her
emotions, as he battled with his. As he was going he turned, a
timid smile on his lips, and said, "You have forgotten something."

"Yes?"

" To return me my photograph."

" Your photograph ! " There was a world of repellence in
her tone.

" Certainly not, if you do not wish me to have it," he said ;
and again he moved to the door, and again turned to her.

" I may call again ? " he asked.

She hesitated, and the shade of Joel Barton rose between
her and his brother.

" My time is so much occupied," she said ; and the shade
ceased to trouble her vision, and she hastened to add, " My
aunt would be pleased to see you on Thursdays."

He thanked her, and she listened to his footstep descend
the stair with a perverse hope that he would remember some-
thing to make him return. But this did not happen, neither
did he appear on any one of Mrs. Ridgely's Thursdays.

The portrait was exhibited, and it was said that to it Cor-
delia Vail-Euston owed her marriage to young Artisant, which
took place with great iclat in the newspapers and in a church
on the avenue, late in the spring. It brought profitable orders

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1897.] The Shade of Joel Barton. 67

to Ellen, who, because of this and because the A. I. R. again
declared dividends, fulfilled Miss Bellew's prophecy by taking,
when the following winter opened, if not a swell studio, a high-
ly respectable flat. "Do not fret about me," said Miss Bellew,
when Ellen expressed a hope for the young woman's future.
"As long as a certain class want their skies red hot, and their
vegetation tropical, 1*11 not want for bread and butter." That
this class still exists is evidenced by the fact that Miss Bellew
goes about in cabs, and could have one of her own if so minded.

During the year Ellen heard occasionally of Joel Barton.
He 'was in Europe, and through Mrs. Vail-Euston she learned
of a rumor of his being about to marry an English girl. Then
summer came and Mrs. Vail-Euston departed to Bar Harbor,
and she heard nothing more. About this time Miss Bellew
came to see her, and after listening in silence for some moments
to Ellen's feeble attempts at sprightliness, she rose with a
brusque movement, and drew her from her chair to the light.
" Ellen," she said, and Miss Bellew could be severe when she
chose, " you must give up work, and get out into the country.
You are thin, pale, and peaked — very peaked."

Ellen said, as she had said once before, that she was not ill
or overworked. " Then what is it ? " demanded Miss Bellew ;
and added in a softened tone of voice, " You are still fretting
about Joel Barton?"

Ellen burst into tears, and little by little Miss Bellew learned
a truth Ellen by no means admitted to herself, and had no idea
that she admitted to her listener.

" If ever there was a special providence," ejaculated Miss
Bellew when she had learned all she wished to know, " it was
the one brought me here this afternoon ! Now, Ellen, you think
that Joel Barton — the one that's alive — did an injury to his
brother. Now listen ; I know all about it. You remember the
time you were in Europe? Well, one summer at that time I
was at Sharon Springs. There was a Miss Etting at the hotel
where I stopped — as lovely a girl as . ever I met. Her first
name was Alice, and she was a Catholic. Both Joel Bartons
were at the Springs, and never was there a more united pair
than those two brothers till the one that has died " — her voice
softened — " fell in love with Alice."

Ellen flashed a look at the narrator. " I'm telling you for
your own good ; wait till I've finished," pursued Miss Bellew.
«' At the same time the other Joel took it into his head to
look into the affairs of the Catholic Church, and Alice, she in-
structed him. I may as well tell you right now, she had no

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68 The Shade of Joel Barton. [April,

idea of marrying any one ; she wanted to be a Sister of Mercy,
and that's what she is now. Joel, the one who is dead," again
her voice softened, ** took it into his head that his brother
wanted to cut him out, and proposed to Alice offhand, and, as
I hinted, she refused him. Then he quarrelled with his broth-
er, laid all the blame on him, and left for where I did not
know then. He acted like a madman ; the Joel who's living
was a sort of an artist, and he was doing a picture of Alice,
and the other Joel slit it all to pieces with a penknife.**

Ellen's eyes were opened in huge wonder. ** And they quar-
relled about that girl ! " she exclaimed ; ** how much women
Have to answer for ! "

" There was no they about it," retorted Miss Bellew ; " Joel
Barton, the one that's dead" — her voice did not soften — "was
the only one who did any quarrelling. And as for women be-
ing at the bottom of every trouble, that's nonsense ! It was all
a man's wicked passion that was in fault there. Alice Etting
was not to blame, neither was the Joel who's alive, though it's
a pity he was of so inquiring a disposition at that time. And,
Ellen, don't take to berating women ; it'll only react on yourself."

Miss Bellew was aggrieved. She was too shrewd a reader
of human nature to expect immediate gratitude for the shatter-
ing of an idol, even though it were an idol already fallen ; but
she could not welcome ingratitude, and she made the mistake
of thinking Ellen ungrateful.

" Do not think I regret having listened to you," Ellen said.
" I am glad you have spoken, for I should not, to save the
memory of the dead, be unjust to the living. Still," she went
on, and there was a wistful look in her eyes, ** he was very
dear to me, and one wishes to think well of the dead."

Miss Bellew took her hand and whispered, " You are right,
Ellen ; but," she tightened her grasp, " you made an ideal and
you loved the shadow of it. If you had seen him as I saw him
at the Springs you would say that ideal is living ; the Joel
Barton you loved never died."

Miss Bellew never again touched on the subject of the two
Joel Bartons ; but when she next saw Ellen she remarked
that she looked less peaked, and again urged on her the wisdom
of less work and more play. " But what if work be play and
play be work?" queried Ellen. Miss Bellew laughed, and re-
sponded : " Have your own way, my dear ; it's something you're
fond of, I guess." Ellen smiled ; that had been Aunt Judith's
opinion of her.

On her return to the city, in the fall, Mrs. Vail-Euston

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j897«] The Shade of Joel Barton. 69

looked in on Ellen while she was giving a sitting to a Miss
Nash, who was proving to be an unbiddable and wooden subject.

*' Fancy ! *' said Mrs. Vail-Euston to Ellen ; " I have it from
a reliable source that Joel Barton is on his way home on the
Europa, to arrange his affairs preparatory to his marriage with
that English girl — you remember my telling you about her ? "

When Mrs. Vail-Euston had taken her departure Miss Nash
exclaimed : " Fancy ! — it is all fancy ! Ever since Cordelia be-
came Mrs. Artisant, Mrs. Vail-Euston has been pairing off her
friends right and left. Now, I have it from an old crony of
his, Joel Barton is bringing home a monument to put over a
brother of his who was killed out West by the Indians."

To which Ellen cried in haste, '* Keep that position, please ;
don't stir!" and thus gained the touch of vitality she wanted
for Miss Nash's portrait.

Two weeks after the Europa came in Ellen was pondering
over some rough sketches of a picture she intended to paint,
when the Buttons of the Etruscan — the name of the flats in
which she resided — brought her a card on which was engraved
the name of Joel Barton, and immediately after Joel Barton
walked into the room. Taken unawares, she could not help the
sunny face she showed him.

" Thank you for making me welcome," he said when they
had shaken hands ; " I'd have come long ago had I dared. I
went down to your old studio — I knew nothing of your change
of residence — and instead of you found an old friend. Miss
Bellew. She is charming; I had no end of talk with her, and,"
he pursued, candor and truth pushing him on to continue the
train of thought started by his interview with Miss Bellew,
" I've come back for my photograph. It is mine legally, but I
want it to be given me by you. You won't refuse me, will you? "

It would have been wiser in him not to have mentioned his
interview with Miss Bellew. Ellen's face became quite stern in
comparison with what it had been on his entrance. " Certain-
ly," she said ; and thinking of what Amy Bellew might have
said to him, her coldness was not all assumed. "The photo-
graph is yours " ; and she touched a bell and said to a maid
who entered, " Nettie, you will find a photograph of mine on my
dressing-table ; please make a parcel of it and fetch it to me."

She was business-like, but it was dreary work for Joel
Barton.. She expressed a hope that he had had a pleasant pas-
sage across the water, and he replied : " We had a most dis-
agreeable voyage ; every one seemed to have taken cold. I

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70 The Shade of Joel Barton. [April,

thought people never took colds at sea ; and/' he laughed,
" there was one poor fellow completely done up. His wife
came aboard to meet him. ' Ann/ he said, * I've got a fearful
cold. I can only shake hands; I can't kiss you/"

" Poor fellow indeed ! " laughed Ellen ; then with much polite
concern, " I hope you haven't a cold, Mr. Barton." His eyes,
uplifted to hers, fell, and the toe of his boot took to ruffling
the rug under his feet. " But it is two weeks since you ar-
rived ; it would have gotten quite well by this," Ellen hurried
on with the good intention of bettering her speech.

There was a soft knock on the door, and the maid entered
with the photograph neatly done up in white paper. " Thank
you, Nettie," said Ellen, receiving the parcel, and with a little
courtesy the maid withdrew.

Turning the parcel over in her hands, Ellen said, and looked
downwards with an odd steadfastness : " I heard that you went
abroad for a monument to be erected over J — your brother."

'*That was attended to before I went abroad," he replied.
" But he has had a better memorial in the prayers you have
said for him."

She bit her lip to keep back the tears that mounted to her eyes.

" No," he went on, " I did not go abroad for that." Then arose
and stood over her where she sat, her head persistently bent down

" Don't you know why I went abroad ? " he asked.

She could not speak, and only shook her head.

" I went abroad because you sent me," he said.

She darted a look upward ; " I sent you ! " she exclaimed.

" Not formally by words, no ; but the day in the studio, you
cannot have forgotten that. I tried to forget you — I couldn't."

She could no longer bear the strain of having him stand
over her in that manner. " Please be seated," she said ; " I can
listen to you better if you sit down."

" I am inconsiderate," he exclaimed, and returned to the
chair with the rug all kicked up about it.

" I want to tell you something about my brother and my-
self," he went on when he was seated, and she thought that
after all he was a smaller man than she had believed him to
be since Miss Bellew had spoken to her. Still she would hear
him out, for he had a right to defend himself even at the ex-
pense of the dead.

•* From what I can gather you did not as much as know
that Joel had a brother till I mentioned the fact. Is not that
so ? " he asked.

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I897-] The Shade of Joel Barton, 71

Yes, it was so, she said ; and he continued : *' There was trou-
ble at the very beginning: our father died before we were
born, and our mother died at our birth. We were left desti-
tute, and had it not been for our aunt the baby-farm at the
poor-house would have been our destination. Our aunt was a
widow, her husband's name had been Joel, and she had us both
christened Joel, so that if either of us died, she said, there
would still be a Joel in the land of the living. My brother
and I — you know how alike we are in person — were alike in noth-
ing else. Aunt Judith was a wealthy woman ; but, very wisely,
she taught us to depend on our own exertions for a livelihood,
and Joel, who was thoroughly unselfish, studied to please her,
and she was delighted when he became a surveyor. But I dis-
pleased her by giving up the study of medicine for art. Then
something happened which caused my brother to renounce me.
I cannot speak of this. I do not say he was in fault, but it
quite upset me."

He paused, and Ellen said: "You have given up painting?"

He bowed his head, and replied : " The fact is, it was a nui-
sance all round ; it gave Aunt Judith a deal of comfort to knpw
that I had thrown it aside, and had she lived I would have
gone back to medicine."

He paused again, this time for her to speak. But Ellen was
too busily thinking to open her lips. He had spoken no ill of
any one, unless of himself. He was a bigger man than she had
thought him to be.

He waited patiently for a moment and then went on, his
voice softened almost to a whisper : " It would be too much to
say that I cared for you from the moment I saw your photo-
graph. I was interested in you, I suppose, because of the rela-
tion I thought you still bore Joel. But I cared for you from
the time I first saw you at Mrs, Vail-Euston's, and " — he spoke
rapidly and rose from his chair ; " and, Ellen, I have come to
ask if there will ever be a time when you can give me some
of that love you had for my brother?"

She did not mind his standing over her now, and the words
Miss Bellew had spoken came to her mind and she said, almost
as one speaks who thinks aloud, " The Joel Barton I loved
never died."

His eyes looked blankly inquiring into hers ; then they
brightened, and he asked, "Am I he?"

Her hand outstretched to take his was her answer.

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72 The Temptation. [April,

THE TEMPTATION.

BY FRANCIS W. GREY.

[hen was Jesus led

Into the wilderness, to undergo
The dread assaults of his relentless foe,
To whom, when hunger-faint, the Tempter said :
" If thou be,
In very truth, the Son of God Most High,
Then shall these barren stones that round Thee lie
Be bread for Thee.**
And Jesus said :
" Not by bread only shall man's fast be broken.
But by each living word that God hath spoken
Shall he be fed."

Satan taketh Him
Into the Holy City; set Him, there,
Upon a temple-turret, high in air.

And said — in scorn of sinless Cherubim :

" If Thou be
The Son of God, cast Thyself down from hence ;
Tis writ, * His angels shall be Thy defence —

Shall succor Thee.* **

And Jesus said :
" Thou shalt not tempt thy God "; and so hath smitten —
With the calm answer, ** It is also written ** —

The foe we dread.

Satan bore him then
Unto a mountain top that scaled the skies;
Kingdoms and thrones unveiled before His eyes.
The pomp and majesty that dazzle men :

" Lo ! to Thee,*'
He said, " I give all that Thou seest now.
The power, splendor, dignity, if Thou

Wilt worship me.**

And Jesus said :
" The Lord thy God shalt thou adore "; — completed
Thus the mysterious conflict ; and, defeated,

The Tempter fled.

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1 897-] The Temptation. 73

•* It is written ag:ain : Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."— ^V.
Matthew iv. 7.

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74 Happiness in Purgatory. [April,

HAPPINESS IN PURGATORY.

may be said of Purgatory that if it did not ex-
ist it would have to be created, so eminently is
it in accord with the dictates of reason and com-
mon sense. The natural instinct of travellers at
their journey's end is to seek for rest and change
of attire. Some are begrimed with mud, others have caught
the dust of a scorching summer day ; the heat or cold or
damp of the journey has told upon them and their attire. Per-
haps, even, the way has made them weary unto sickness, and
they crave for an interval of absolute repose.

Travellers from earth, covered with the mud and dust
of its long road« could never wish to enter the banquet-room
of eternity in their travel-stained garments. " Take me away ! "
cried Gerontius to his angel. It was a cry of anguish as well
as desire, for Gerontius, blessed soul though he is, could not
face heaven just as earth had left him. He has the true in-
stinct of the traveller at his journey's end. Dust, rust, and the
moth have marked their presence, and even the oddities and
eccentricities of earthly pilgrimage must be obliterated before
the home of eternity can be entered. De mortuis nil nisi bonutn
is interpreted, nothing short of heaven for those who have
crossed the bourne. But, if the heavenly gates are thrown open
to the travellers all weary and footsore, " not having on a nup-
tial garment," no heterogeneous meeting here on earth could
compete with the gathering of disembodied spirits from its
four quarters. It is human ignorance alone which canonizes all
the departed, and insists on a direct passage from time to
heaven. The canonization is not ratified in heaven, because
heaven would not exist if it took place. The Beatific Vision
is incompatible with the shadow of imperfection. To act as if
it were belongs to the same order of things as rending the gar-
ment of Christian unity.

Purgatory makes heaven, in the sense that heaven would not
be possible for men without it. As well might we try to reach
a far-off planet, which is absolutely removed from our sphere,
an unknown quantity, though a fact science does not dispute.
Heaven without Purgatory is a far-off planet which must ever

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1 897-] Happiness IN Purgatory. 75

remain beyond our touch and ken, for it would be easier that
we in our present condition should traverse space than that the
sinner should see God face to face.

The vestibule of heaven, in which souls tarry in order to
make their preparations, and to be prepared for the feast of
eternity, can scarcely be an abode of pure suffering. Heart
and mind, as they exist in the anima separata — that is, under-
standing and love — are at rest. On earth mind and heart are
the source of the greatest pain as well as the greatest joy. The
severest pain of body may be accompanied by happiness and a
mind at rest, whereas remorse makes life unbearable. Hidden
criminals at large have not unfrequently given themselves up to
justice in order to arrive at peace by a public execution, that
being the penalty demanded by their tortured conscience.
Death, however ignominious, rather than remorse — the backbite
of inwit, in the quaint language of oup forefathers. Remorse is
not in the organs of sense, but a purely intellectual operation,
proper to man. It cannot be softened by worldly prosperity or
riches, fame or success. On the other hand, a good conscience
is a well-spring of happiness, be the outward circumstances of a
man's life what they may. Bodily pain would add to the tor-
ture of remorse, just as it might deaden the joy of a good con-
science, per accidenSy as theologians say. Conjointly with the
mind, the heart causes the keenest sufferings and the deepest
joys of human life, joys and sufferings which are acted upon
in the same way indirectly by pain of body. A severe tooth-
ache, for instance, quickens the pangs of remorse, whilst it
deadens joy proceeding either from the intellect or the heart.
It would madden a bride on her wedding morning, without in
reality affecting her happiness. The root of both joy and grief
is in the soul, not in the body. Conscience is the " worm which
never dieth " — that is, hell, the torment created by man himself
for his own punishment. The same applies to Purgatory, as
far as conscience has been sinned against. The soul has
created its own torment, but in Purgatory the fires die out be-
cause they deal with the anima separata, never with the senses.
In each case the nature of the fire, which may not be material
and is exercised on spirits, must remain mysterious to us. At
least we can understand it by analogy. Remorse in the tor-
tured soul of a murderer is sufficient to destroy the prosperous
and pampered life of the body. Intensify it by the measure of
eternity, and it may alone constitute hell. That is probably
what theologians mean when they say that the fire of hell and

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76 Happiness IN Purgatory, [April,

that of Purgatory are identical. What fire is to the body, that
burning sorrow is to the spirit, who sees things in their true light,
and weighs lost opportunities in the balance of the next world.

By sorrow and love earth shows us the material, to speak in
human language, out of which Purgatory is made. The pangs
of remorse deaden the most intense bodily pain, and the power
of love does more than render hard things sweet. Many waters
cannot quench charity^ neither can the floods drown it, says the
voice of love in the Canticles. Whether human or divine, it is as
a burning fire, which consumes all minor cares. I will not deal
with passion, but with love in its noblest form and expression ;
the love, for instance, of a mother, or of a wife, or of an aflfianced
bride. Earth has nothing better in the natural order than dis-
interested affection, a foreshadowing of Purgatory as much as
the torture of remorse. Sin will not be there, neither will
money-making ; love will be the coin of the realm. Non sub-
trahuntur delicice sed mutantur. As the action of purification is
perfected, each human intelligence in Purgatory will be more
and more fixed on God. The soul disengaged from the senses
will learn all the more promptly the lesson of Purgatory, if it
has not been learnt here, the perfect love of God. There is
joy in suffering under these conditions, a joy which makes
pain acceptable. A promessa sposa will be patient with sudden
illness, and racking pain, if they promise to be temporary.
She can afford to be so as long as her heart is fixed on the
wedding day. The sposo^ indeed, may weary of a sick affianced
bride, and court another. This can happen in human things,
but never in Purgatory. The souls there are fixed on the Un-
changeable One, who can never prove them false ; so be the
suffering what it may, they can afford to bide his time, secure
that the reward of their heart's long watching will never pass
away. Their wedding day is far removed from the vicissitudes
of earth, and the fever-tossed brides may suffer in perfect peace.

On earth it is more difficult to unlearn than to learn afresh,
and it must be feared that to the great majority Purgatory is
an unlearning. The idols, the false standards of the world
must be swept away. In the first instant of eternity the soul
has an intuitive perception of her errors. It may be likened to
arrival in a foreign land, of which the language has been badly
learnt at home. English- French will serve as a comparison.
It is very soon proved to be no French at all. The foreigner
immediately says : " I am all wrong. I must begin again." He
had much better have learnt no French — at least his professor

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1 897-] Happiness in Purgatory. yj

will think so — for he has to unlearn more than he learns, his
expressions, his quantities, his pronunciation. Fully aware as he
now is of his shortcomings, the work of imparting real know-
ledge will take time.

We say that knowledge is power. In Purgatory it is love ;
and who can call the process of arriving at it all painful, even
if accompanied by torments? It is the burst of eternal day,
coming gradually to those who ascend the steep mountain-side
of Purgatory.

In it, as in the Father's liouse, there are many mansions.
Whilst the saint may be punished with the pain of loss only,
the sinner may be racked with fiery torments, " saved yet so as
by fire." Whatever the " mansion," the suffering proceeds from
the same cause, varying in degree : remorse for the past, love
of God in the present. That which on earth causes our torture
and our joy is prolonged in Purgatory, with this difference :
Here our minds and hearts are unquiet because they are not
fixed on God : there knowledge and love will be first established
on their true centre, and then perfected.

There is one single and unique instance of purgatory on
earth — not purgatory in the loose sense in which the expression
is often used. Suffering by itself is not synonymous with Pur-
gatory. There must be the absolute certainty of heaven, which
has been given only once. Ameriy Ametiy I say to thee, this day
shalt thou be with me in paradise. The word was spoken by our
Lord himself to one in fearful torture and ignominy. Was the
good thief conscious of pain with that divine promise ringing
in his dying ears? It may well be doubted.

He has spoken the same word to each of the holy souls :
*' Thou shalt be with me in paradise *' ; and they are so moulded
to his will that his hour is theirs. They long to hear this day^
but the security of Our Lord's promise tempers their suffering
and puts it far above all pains and sorrows of earth. Who would
not submit to be crucified, if To-day thou shalt be with me in par-
adise were the reward ? Yet a state of crucifixion and perfect
security is that of the souls whose blessedness exceeds their
torments.

These thoughts may possibly suggest comfort to some who.
confuse suffering with unhappiness. They are not synonymous.
Let us rather think of the holy souls as in the condition of
the good thief. If they are suffering the torments of cruci-
fixion they have heard the word which is to be their joy
through eternity : Thou shalt be with me in paradise /

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78 A Garden of the Lord. [April,

A GARDEN OF THE LORD.

A PASTEL,
BY CAROLINE D. SWAN.

N the warm, lustrous glow of the Southlands a
garden shines, and then sleeps. There white
magnolia petals gleam as they bask in the sun-
shine, absorbing its magic potencies, and the
evening primrose unfolds her quivering life to the
moon. Odors of penetrative sweetness commingle with its
glorious color, in a complicate dream of delight. Scarlet flashes
of bloom and golden glow of jasmine stars, the grace of swing-
ing vines and the crimson breadth of great cacti, with the soft
phosphorescent glow of nasturtiums in hours of darkness, make
a daylight paradise for the humming-birds, while, at evening,
the bats flit over on drowsy wing and pallid night-moths keep
carnival.

Yet here, in this garden of delights, a woman sits and weeps
— a Rachel bereft of comfort. The blessed Lord of the garden
sees her grief — he is all compassion — and sends his angel to
strengthen her. The divine touch upraises her bowed frame ; a
moment of silence, a moment of spirit-calm, then she hearkens.
His voice has a supreme sweetness, as of choirs invisible.

" There was once a garden in Palestine wherein walked the
Risen Lord. Its lilies knew the Crucified One — they rang their
white bells and shed odors like incense — but the holy woman
knew him not. Like thee, she mourned the dead. Grief wrung
her soul. Then the Master turned and said unto her : * Mary ! *
Whereupon she turned herself, and cried * Rabboni, Master ! '

" Even thus he now speaketh to thee. He is not a God of
the dead, but of the living!

" Thy two children live unto Him.

*^ The violets on their Northern graves are alive, and shine,
dark-blue, in their old sweetness. The snows buried them, but
harmed them not. How much more shall the souls of thine
innocent babes shine in His Presence?

" Lift up thy head, lift up thy stricken heart ! Obey my
word and go forth. The children of other mothers await thy
comforting. He is risen, the Divine One ! Arise thou, to new-

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1 897-] A Garden of the Lord. 79

*' Jesus saith to her : Woman, why weepest thou ? whom seekest thou ?
• . She turning, saith to Him : Rabboni ! " — Si. John xx, 15, 16.

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8o A Garden of the Lord. [April,

ness of life ! I sing his praise, where the earth-discords cease."
And the angel departed from her. *

So she went forth to succor the meek upon earth, and the
poor, and babes that suffer from hunger and cold and pain.

II.

Three circling years go by, a trinity of loving thoughts and
words and deeds ; it has been unto the mourner according to
the word of the Lord.

Again she is in the garden. The imperial sunset flaming
down over it deepens its splendors. Her face reveals a certain
mild happiness, a moon-white radiance, as of one sorrowful yet
always rejoicing. With her is a young child — her own — its soft
Jiair like a mist of gold in the ruddy sunlight. For the bless-
ing of each poor mother she has comforted has brought its
reflex blessing back upon her, and the empty heart is full.

This last child she has named Gabriel, from her Gethsemani
vision in this long unvisited but unforgotten garden. Now, she
can but thank the dear Lord for his great compassion and the
mercies that fail not.

None the less, in the deep of her soul she still dreams — in
an undertone, like minor music — of her twin graves in the
North-land. The snows that fall on them fall also upon her;
the thin grass that grows through the short summer and yel-
lows in autumn, waves and fades and yellows in her heart.

Wherefore, again, in the tenderness of twilight comes the
angel.

Then is she aware also of two that are with him — two sweet
cherub-children, once her own. Fleecy white garments wrap
them round ; in their dewy eyes dwells a far-away glimmer.
She knows them as if she knew them not. Around them is
the atmosphere of another country !

She dares not embrace them ; some sense of sin, some sha-
dow of earth has enwrapped her. She fears the intense purity
they bring, sees that their conversation is in heaven, their proper
comradeship with the angels. They have absorbed the peace
of another home. They smile upon her; yet it is a. strange
smile, like the white scattering of rose-leaves.

Still they have been hers ; she rejoices in that, unspeakably.
" The day will come,'* thus the voice of hope sings within her,
"when they will be mine again. I shall be of like whiteness
then ! I shall go to them in the fulness of time."

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I897-] A Garden of the Lord. 8i

Likewise the angel teaches her — his voice has a silvery ten-
derness, as of pity for humanity :

"All life Cometh from God, flowing down like a stream of
light. All life to him returns, a cycle of sweet existence, both
here below and there above. Thence we proceed ; thither we
Jtend, eternally. O Thou, divine Source and Centre, whence all
whiteness of spiritual radiance streams out o'er the universe,
purify this soul and draw it to thee ! *'

And the earth-mother cried "Amen."

Meantime, however, the heaven-children had slowly drawn
near the earth-child, as if they knew him of kin, and he stretched
out his little hands to them. The sin-barrier had slipped from
between them, for the baptismal drops yet bedewed the boy
Gabriel.

Then the angel again spake to the mother : " Thou hast
seen thy heaven-childreft ; be henceforth content ! Nevertheless,
more blessed they who have not seen and yet have believed.
The prayers of the poor have ascended for thee, and have
availed before the throne; wherefore I am sent. Thy charity
has been the joy of thy heaven-children ; thy goodness, the star-
mist of their crowns."

Then the cherub-children, the earth-child, and the angel
linked hands and surrounded the mother, a living ring, in the
presence of God.

VOL. LXV.— 6

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82 La Salle's Connect/on with the Jesuits. [April,

LIGHT ON LA SALLE'S CONNECTION WITH THE

JESUITS.

BY JOSEPH WALTER WILSTACH.

HE present is an appropriate time for recalling
the memory of Robert Cavelier La Salle. Jus-
tice is being done the memory of the great
band of French gentlemen who laid bare the
secrets of the veiled North-west. In the Capi-
tol the illustrious Marquette is perpetuated in grateful marble ;
and the priceless Relations of the Jesuit explorers and martyrs
who opened up the wilderness are rescuing from oblivion the
memory of transactions without parallel in the pages of sober
truth. Though La Salle has no claim from a spiritual stand-
point, he stands in the foremost rank of scientific explorers.
He was immeasurably beyond such worldly adventurers as Cor-

tez and Pizarro, whose learning was
that of the rough soWier, accus-
tomed to write with the sword
rather than with the pen, and whose
science was no greater than that of
being able properly to set a squad-
ron in the field and forecast the
fortunes of a battle. La Salle was
a man of immense attainments, in
the physical sciences especially, and
he was no mere college theorist.
The principles he had learned in
the class-room and the laboratory
he was called upon to apply in
practice on the vast theatre of na-
ture in an unknown continent. The
enthusiasm which animated him in
the pursuit of his tremendously
daring schemes elevated him truly
La Salle was a Man of great ^q the heroic plane.

INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. yioA^vTi invcntion has made the

work of the traveller and scientific explorer comparatively easy ;
but in La Salle's age the wrestler with nature had no such aids

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1897O La Salle's Connection with the Jesuits. 83

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84 La Salle's Connection with the Jesuits. [April,

as our day knows. Travel was slow and hazardous ; scientific
instruments were rude and few and costly ; means of communi-
cation with one's base were non-existent; newspapers were al-
most unknown ; the forests and prairies were trackless, the rivers
bridgeless; maps were unreliable; savage foes lurked wherever
the explorer turned ; famine dogged his footsteps ; jealousy and
mutiny in his own camp made his progress a journey over hot
ploughshares. In La Salle's case these terrors of travel were
intensified by the man's own unfortunate disposition. He was
utterly destitute of those qualities of camaraderie which are in-
dispensable to the leader of an exploring party ; his pride was
insufferable, his ambition boundless. With a taciturn and cyni-
cal habit he combined a domineering, abrupt, and rugged manner.
In a word, he was filled with all the overweening egotism of the
Voltairean type of Frenchman, without a particle of the bonhomie
or gaiety which often softens the repulsive ill-breeding of that
inflated sort of character. This was the rock on which the bark
of his fortunes split ; and his melancholy failure has in it an
impressive lesson for all who can read it aright.

LA SALLE A JESUIT NOVICE.

Up to the present nothing definite was to be ascertained
concerning the relations of La Salle with the Jesuit order. In
Charlevoix's Letters he is spoken of as having been brought up
among the Jesuits, and other writers vaguely hazard the sug-
gestion that he taught for some time in their schools. It was
remarkable that when La Salle came to Canada he avoided
the Jesuits entirely, and cultivated the friendship of the Sulpi-
cians and Recollets. At last we have the key to the mystery.
The story is now given to the world in an authentic and cate-
gorical shape for the first time; and we learn that it was the
same inability to control a violent temper which drove his fol-
lowers to hate and murder that caused his severance from the
Jesuit order.

Father Camille de Rochemontiex, of the same order, has
published a book devoted to the investigation of La Salle's
connection with it. He has devoted years of research to the
task among the archives of the society. La Salle's baptismal
record, preserved in Rouen, the place of his birth, bears date
November 22, 1643. The boy was admitted to the Jesuit novi-
tiate October 5, 1658 ; and his collegiate career from that period
down to his break with the order is thus traced by Father
Rochemontiex :

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I897-] La Salle's Connection with the Jesuits. 85

They penetrated the Trackless Forest.

" During two years he was engaged in cultivating the virtues
of the religious life under Father Mouret, a skilled director, who
occupied important posts in the province of France. The dis-
ciple was neither easy to manage nor to fashion. Of exuber-
ant health, large, vigorous, proud, impressionable, strong-willed,
dominating, hot-headed, it was very difficult for him to sub-
mit, to bend, to master himself; and in spite of his long
experience with souls, his profound knowledge of character, the
P^re Maitre (the master of
novices) asked himself more
than once if he would ever suc-
ceed in disciplining the boiling
imagination of his novice, in
restraining the overflowing ac-
tivity of his temperament, in
correcting the impetuous sallies
of his youth, his extraordinary
desire of independence. He
succeeded, however, or nearly
so, by force of patience and
devotion, thanks also to the
daily battle of the novice
against a nature, rich no PI:re Marquette.

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86 La Salle's Connection with tHE Jesuits. [April,

doubt in God's gifts, but tormented by ardent passions. If the
reform was not complete, it was sufficient to allow Cavelier de
la, Salle to unite himself with the Society of Jesus by the three
religious vows, October lo, 1660, the feast of St. Francis Borgia,
third general of the society. The novice had a particular de-
votion to St. Ignatius Loyola ; he therefore wished, the day
when he took his vows, to add to his baptismal name that of
Ignatius, and afterwards he never called himself, while in the
society, but Robert Ignatius Cavelier.*

AS A SCHOLASTIC.

"At the end of the novitiate, the vows taken, the time for
studies was at hand, and the young religious proceeded to the
royal college of la Fl^che to pursue during two years a course
of logic and physics, taught by Father James Le Brun. The
physical sciences and mathematics were then in high place in this
college, thanks to the two distinguished mathematicians, James
Grandamy, rector of the establishment, and John de Riennes,
professor of mathematics for forty years, who knew how to give
CO these two branches of education an efficacious impulse. The
Frtre Cavelier — he was so designated — was not a model for
work and application in this house of study, although he gave
proof of talent and displayed remarkable aptitude for the phy-
sical sciences.f

" He was to spend three years at la Fl^che and devote the
last year to the study of mathematics ; but such was not the
case, for reasons which we shall presently see.

" In the month of October, 1662, he taught at Alengon the
fifth class, and the following year he returned to la Fl^che to
complete his philosophic course by a year of mathematics. From
October, 1664, to October, 1665, we find him teaching the fourth
course at Tours, and afterwards (1665-1666) professor of the
third course at Blois. Finally, in the month of September, 1666,
he is again sent to la Fl^che to commence his theology.:]:

** As we have seen, he experienced considerable difficulty,
once out of the novitiate, in remaining long in the same place ;
and although the constitutions of the order prescribed three
years in uninterrupted study of philosophy, his superiors con-
sidered it advisable after two years passed at la Fl^che to
assign him to the fifth grade at Alen9on. He could not remain

*Catalogi Soc. Jesu (Arch. Gen. S.J.)

\ lb. We read also in the Catal. 2dus : •' Ingenium optimum, talentum habet ad mathe-
matica" (Arch. Gen. S.J.) XCat. Prov. Erancice {Arch. Gen.)

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1 897-] ^^ Salle's Connection with the Jesuits. 87

longer than one year
at the same employ-
ment, surrounded
by the same fac^s.
The lapse of a few
months where he is
finds him discon-
tented, and desirous
of being where he
is not. One of his
superiors, Father de
la Falu^re, admira- a
bly defines this state ^
of soul by the sin- 5
gle Latin word in- ^
quietus* which is un- '^
derstood but has no n
equivalent in French. ?
Soon the faults of i
the novice, which J
grace from above
and personal effort h
had partly corrected, «
reappeared and be- $
came more and more 5
pronounced, especi- ©
ally at college. The ^
regent works very w
little, he is full of ?
ennuij he lacks re- %
straint and prudence 2?
with his scholars, S
modesty towards his
equals, submission
towards his supe-
riors.

" Change in mode
of life, a supreme
effort of good will,

* Catal. 2dus., an. 1665
(Arch. Gen.) Father Fran-
cis de la Faluere was Rector
of the College of Tours.

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88 La Salle* s Connection with the Jesuits. [April,

the grace of God had produced the first transformation ; soon
unconquered nature assumed the ascendant, bringing with it a
love of independence, pride, insubmission, outbreaks of violence,
all the strong passions of the energetic temperament. Ennui re-
turns, then discouragement. Hoping to find in another house,
outside of his province, the peace he no more possessed, and
probably the perseverance in a vocation violently disturbed by
frequent shocks, he twice asked of the Rev. Father General
authority to go to Portugal to pursue his theological course.

JiE LEAVES THE SOCIETY.

"To the second letter, dated from la Fl^che December i,
1666, the Rev. Father Oliva replied January 18: *I have seen
the letter in which you manifest for the second time a desire
to study in Portugal, to enable you to go sooner on the mis-
sion you wish for. Without taking counsel of any one, I still
hold to my first opinion and judge it inexpedient to yield to
your desire. Remain peacefully in your province, and, your
studies completed, your third year of probation accomplished,
I will be forced to accede to your desire, so full of zeal.**

" Evidently this solution was not pleasing to the young
student, who was unwilling to remain at la Fl^che, who wished
to travel and see other lands. The letter of Rev. Father Oliva
brought matters to a crisis.

" Not having obtained the solicited favor, and failing to
comprehend the wisdom and prudence of his superior's deci-
sion, he was thrown into a state of great irritation, and hence-
forth thought only of casting off the yoke ; he asked to be
released from his religious vows.f Motives of a moral nature
supported the demand.

'* The request, having been examined and approved by the

* Epistola R. P. Oliva, die i8a Januarii : Vtdi episiolam quam ad me imo Decembris de
tuo in Lusitaniam profiscendi consiliOy studwrum causd, pro/aciliori dein ad missionem quam
expetis migratione rursum dedisti. Ego absque cujusquam alterius suasu, in scntentid persto
medy nee judtco expedtre ut itafiat. Quare quiet o tibi in provincid Itcebit esse^ quoad absolu-
tes studiis et tert id probatione peractay desiderium bono zelo plenissimum explere conabtmur.^^
(Arch. Gen. S.J.)

t In this request Cavelier exposes at length the motives determining him to quit the order
where he had lived so many years ; he opens his whole soul to his superior general, he hides
none of his moral infirmities. Rev. Father Oliva replies February 26, 1667, with a truly
paternal affection, which is very touching: " Commiserationem plurimam pepenint quae de
variis infirmitatibus quibus es obnoxius exposuisti mihi 10 Januarii. Quid poro perpensis rite
omnibus, statuendum sentiam, ediscere poteris ex tuo Provinciali, cui pot est at em feci ut te a
votis absolvat et emancipet. Tu vero, carissime frater, ubi cumque et quocumque statu fueris,
memor esto unde excideris, et attendito ad petram unde excisus es, et quamis sejunctus loco,
corde tamen conare semper nobiscum et cum Jesu vivere. Gratia illius sit semper tecum."
(Arch. Gen. S.J.)

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1897.] La Salle's Connection with the Jesuits. 89

counsel of the rector of la Fl^che and the provincial at Paris,
was transmitted to Rome January 28, 1667. The ist of March
the Rev. Father General wrote to Father Bordier, provincial
of France, as follows: 'After seri-
ous consideration of the informa-
tion you have transmitted, we au-
thorize you to dismiss from the
society Robert Ignatius Cavelier,
approved scholastic/* On March
28 Cavelier left la Fl^che and en-
tered the world.f

SIDE LIGHTS ON HIS
CHARACTER.

"We have descended to so
many details upon this epoch
wholly ignored by our historians
in the life of Cavelier, an epoch
embracing a period of nine years
from his entrance of the novitiate
to his leaving the order, where he
had taken perpetual vows. How-
ever, if this study has appeared
somewhat long, it will not be the
less advantageous in throwing light
upon a fact of history wrapt in
obscurity for more than two centu-
ries ; it will enable us to better un-
derstand the character and temper-
ament of the celebrated discov-
erer ; it explains why, in the New

World, he kept aloof from the the Marquette Statue.

Jesuits and was in close relations

first with the Sulpicians, then with the Recollets ; it will explain
his whole life in Canada, his enterprises and his misfortunes,
his excessive need of activity, his passion for travel, his faults,

* Cum litteris Rae Vx 38 Januarii redditae sunt informationes ad dimittendum Robertum
Ig^natium Cavelier, scholasticum approbatum, quibus dihgenter examinatis Rx Vse mandamus,
ut dimittat Robertum." (Epist. R. P. Oliva ad P. Jacobum Bordier, provincialem. Romae,
ler Martii. Arch. Gen. S.J.)

t Dicitur in Catal. 2do : " Exivit Mag. Robertus Ignatius Cavelier e collegio Flexiensi die
28 Martii 1667." (Arch. Gen. S.J.)

Hennepin {Nouvelle dicouverte^ p. 107) says, naivement sans sourciller^ that the superiors
of Cavelier gave him, on his leaving the order, a certificate stating that he had never given
suspicion of a venial sin. It is evident he never read the letter of Cavelier in which he ex-
poses his moral infirmities.

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90 La Salle's Connection with the Jesuits. [April,

imprudence, his lack of moderation, and also the active ardor
of his faith. His robust health and great stature were powerful
succors in his adventurous enterprises, and more still the Nor-
man blood which flowed generous and abundant in his veins ;
like his countrymen, he was intelligent, active, industrious, full
of resources, careful of his interests, and, as some have said,
dissembling,"

** * Thus ended, unfortunately,' says La Salle's companion,
Jontel, * the life of M. de la Salle, at a time when he had
everything to hope for from his labors. He had the spirit and
talent to insure the success of his enterprise ; firmness, courage,
great knowledge of the arts and sciences, making him capable
in everything ; and an indefatigable industry, which made him
superior to all obstacles, would have finally brought a glorious
ending to his great enterprise, if all these admirable traits had
not been balanced by too haughty manners, making him at
times insupportable, and by the severity he used towards those
who were under him, which finally created an implacable hatred
against him and was the cause of his death.' " *

Commenting on this summing up. Father Rochemontiex says :
"This judgment of a friend, who followed La Salle m his
expeditions and possibly knew him better than any one, is
assuredly of great weight ; it explains the words of Charlevoix
to which certain historians have not accorded full justice, be-
cause, in their enthusiasm for the discover, they have tried to
hide from themselves the weakness and faults of human nature :
' Such is the lot of those men whom a mixture of great faults
and great virtues lift out of the common sphere. Their pas-
sions lead them into faults ; and if they do what others could
not, their enterprises are not approved by all ; their success
excites the jealousy of those who are obscure ; they affect some
favorably, some unfavorably ; one kind takes revenge by im-
moderate depreciation, the other by exaggerating their merit.
Hence the different portraits which are drawn and which bear no
resemblance to each other. But as hatred and the desire to
depreciate always go to greater extremes than gratitude and
friendship, and as calumny always finds readier belief with the
public than eulogy and praise, the enemies of the Sieur de la

* Journal 0/ the last Voyage 0/ the late M. de la Salle in the Gulph oj Mexico^ . . .
by M. Jontel. Paris, 1713. This work was written from notes made from 1684 to 1687.
*' Jontel," says Charlevoix, " who saw him at Rouen in 1713, was an honest man, and the only
member of the band of La Salle on whom the celebrated voyager could count."

Ferland, Cours (Thistoire^ t. ii. p. 172, delivers the same opinion as Jontel concerning; La
Salle.

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I897-] La Salle's Connection with the Jesuits. 91

Heroes of Discovery.

Salle have done more to disfigure than his friends to embellish
his portrait/ " *

HIS INNER LIFE.

" These reflections are just ; with them we end what we have
to say concerning the great explorer, in this short r^sum^ of
his life of forty-three years. An original character, far from
common, extremely harsh, he was equally mobile, shifting, lacking
in frankness and uncommuni-
cative. During the past fifty
years, in which French and
American historians have at-
tempted to reach his character,
they have not succeeded, be-
cause possibly they have been
unwilling to study it from its
most salient side, in our opinion.
There are hidden instincts, pow-
erful, tyrannical, which drive
forward in a violent manner
strong and energetic natures in
the arduous pursuit of the un-
known, the vague, even more ^^^'^^ Jouet.

♦ Histoire de la NouvelU-France^ t. i. p. 471.

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92 In Old Trinity Church-Yard. [April,

than the allurements of glory and the ambition to be great.
One would say that such natures feel the necessity of flee-
ing from themselves, of getting outside of themselves, of for-
getting self in movement and activity; repose is displeasing,
fatigues them, exasperates them ; the perpetual tempests
which agitate them break forth in impetuosity, at times in
anger and brutality, against those nearest them, friends, ene-
mies, or those who are neither one nor the other. Let psy-
chological historians, solicitous of truth, study more this side
of Robert Cavelier, and they will write his life as he lived it ;
they will no longer amuse the public with portraits of the
imagination, where there is nothing true but fantasy. To sum-
marize : the two great glories of this discoverer are his finding
of the Ohio and the mouths of the Mississippi; he completed
the discovery of that river commenced by Joliet and Marquette
in 1673."

IN OLD TRINITY CHURCH-YARD,

{Head 0/ Wall Street, New York,)
BY HELEN M. SWEENEY.

IlLONE, unheeding, unheeded, they lie in their narrow
bed,
With only an iron lattice between the quick and the
dead ;
For more than a century's passing they have slept *neath

crumbling stone,
While life flows on without them, untended, unloved, unknown.

For the living, the din of battle, the clash of war and creed ;
For the dead, a grave forgotten, " where the paths of glory

lead."
Without, men toil in blindness, and their work's with sorrow

rife ;
Within, men sleep in quiet, lulled by the waves of life.

*Tis good to have God's acre in the midst of our busy day;
'Tis good to stem the tide of life on its fierce, triumphant way;
For that's the last sweet resting place for the lives that come

and go,
That narrow isle of perfect peace where the streams of silence

flow.

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I897-] Dolores' Easter. 93

DOLORES' EASTER.

BY E ASTON SMITH.

00 R, sad-eyed Angela must have had some premo-
nition of the thorny path that stretched before
her baby's tender feet when she bade the god-
mother bestow upon the tiny brown atom that
lay placidly sucking its wrinkled fists and star-
ing with great, black, knowing eyes at the frescoed walls of
the church the name of Dolores.

Sad indeed were the circumstances of her birth, and sorrow-
ful her life promised to be, as her mother's had been before her ;
for Angela, in defiance of her family's commands, had married
a worthless young fellow, whose handsome face was his only
recommendation, and had been cast off and disinherited. The
loss of her heritage mattered little, for few of the humble
classes of Mexicans have il in their power to give anything, be-
yond the parental blessing for their daughter's wedding portion ;
but it was this very benediction that poor Angela's soul most
desired, and when her husband took her to a new city among
strange people, and then proceeded to maltreat and neglect
her, like the brute he was, her strength failed rapidly and she
died of a broken heart soon after Dolores was baptized.

The helpless infant was left to the kind-hearted but poverty-
stricken woman who had acted as her sponsor. Fortunately,
there is as much charity given and received among the multi-
tudinous poor as is found among the rich — more, I think, else
what would become of all the unfortunate waifs and orphans
who thrive and flourish without ever seeing the inside of an
asylum ?

Dolores lived, but she certainly did not flourish ; delicate
from her birth, it would have required the tenderest care to
have made a healthy child of her, and this her foster-mother
was not able to give. She was a pitiful-looking little object,
with only her great, beautiful eyes to redeem her face from
absolute ugliness, but so appealing was the expression of those
eyes that their owner often became the recipient of unsolicited
alms as she stood shyly watching the sturdy, rosy muchachos

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94 Dolores' Easter. [April,

and muchachas of the neighbors playing their noisy, happy
games. Somehow happiness never came near Dolores even in
her childhood !

Not, however, until she was a girl of fourteen did she un-
derstand what trouble really was, for one may be a stranger to
joy and yet never know the true meaning of sorrow. Then
old Anita, her foster-mother and protectress, died, leaving her
utterly alone and without a rM to call her own. Of her dis-
sipated, unnatural father Dolores knew nothing. He had de-
serted her mother before the child was born, and had never
been seen again by any one in the city who had the doubtful
pleasure of his acquaintance. She was conscious of a most un-
filial, but at the same time a very natural, loathing for the
man, which she regularly confessed to the good padre and vain-
ly sought to overcome ; but, like Banquo's ghost, it was a feel-
ing that would not be downed, and I must say that the wise
old priest found the sin always deserving of absolution.

For a time the neighbors feared that in her wild grief over
the death of the only mother she had ever known Dolores
would put an end to her own life, but the girl was too much
of a Christian and too good a Catholic for that. After weeks
of lonely anguish and semi-starvation, of which no one ever
knew, she left the miserable adobe that had always seemed to
her a comfortable home, and went among her acquaintances
seeking employment. She was too frail-looking and too retiring
in disposition to readily find work ; but at last her efforts were |
rewarded, and she obtained a situation as assistant janitress in
the old jail at Juarez.

Not a very enviable position you will say, and you are right.
The gloomy, forbidding building made poor Dolores shudder
whenever she entered its musty walls ; but beggars, alas ! can-
not be choosers, and the pay was sufficient for her modest
needs.

Her duties consisted in doing the lighter work appointed
her by the wife of the janitor, a grim old woman with a face
and manner as repellent as the jail itself. Dolores engaged a
room near by. Her strength did not permit of long walks, else
she would have liked to be far away where the shadows of the
gloomy edifice could not " slur the sunshine half a mile," and
be a constant reminder to her of the misery that lay hidden
within, and of the anxious hearts — some innocent enough — that
were beating behind its bars.

It was when she had been serving there three years that the

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I897-] Dolores' Easter. 95

romance of Dolores' life occurred, and a pathetic little one it
was ; sad, as is almost every romance that comes into the lives
of the very poor. Heretofore she had seen nothing of the
prisoners, most of whom were confined for trivial offences
against the law : petty larceny, assault, and the like. There
were, it is true, some few awaiting trial for murder ; but Dolores
tried to forget their existence, so horrible was the thought of
it, and she made the sign of the cross many times in Mexican
fashion whenever their names were mentioned. She was deeply
religious by nature, and her foster-mother had instilled so care-
fully lessons of faith and piety into her pure young mind that
anything evil seemed to recoil from it instinctively.

But I am digressing.

Shortly before the commencement of Lent, in the February
of 1893, an entirely novel element, in the shape of four Ameri-
can prisoners, came to break the monotony of jail-life at Juarez,
and to open a new world to Dolores, who had never experienced
a pleasurable or interesting sensation in all her colorless exist-
ence.

The party, and a lively one it was in spite of its gloomy
environment, consisted of a prominent cattle-man, an American
by the name of Ralph, with three of his cowboys. Mr. Ralph
had a ranch on the border-line of New and old Mexico, and
some hundred or more head of his cattle, failing to observe the
proper degrees of latitude, had strayed down into the green
fields and pastures of the other Republic. When at last, some
months after the usual season of round-ups was over, Mr. Ralph,
accompanied by several of his men, went across the line to gather
and reclaim his recreant kine and brand the new-born calves, he
fell into the hands of the Philistines.

A wealthy Mexican, who owned vast herds of cattle and
whose hacienda was noted for its magnificence, had long borne
a grudge against Mr. Ralph for some injustice, real or fancied,
which the latter had done him when he first moved into the
country. Here was an opportunity for revenge. On Mexican
soil it would be eaSy to prove any trumped-up charge against
an American, so while Ralph and his party were settling their
bill at the queer little hotel where they had stopped in prefer-
ence to goingf over to El Paso, because its patron had been a
college-mate of Mr. Ralph's in New York City years before,
they were arrested on a warrant sworn out by the Seftor Garcia
for cattle-stealing! Two of the cowboys, by a liberal use of
their revolvers, made their escape into El Paso ; the others, in-

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96 Dolores' Easter. [April,

eluding Mr. Ralph, regarding the matter as a mere joke, quietly
accompanied the officers of the law.

However, after a preliminary trial before the magistrate, the
affair took on a more serious aspect. Ralph was formally ac-
cused of gathering and branding as his own whatever calves
and yearlings came in his way, and was thrown into prison to
await the time when his case could be tried ; the other men
were also imprisoned as accomplices, and all were refused bail.
It was a grave charge.

Realizing the tardy justice of a Mexican court, and know-
ing that the Seflor Garcia would spend his last peso in order to
gratify his revenge, Mr. Ralph had little hope of immediate re-
lease. His jailers were not unkind — indeed, the rollicking, jo-
vial cowboys soon won the hearts of the laughter-loving
Mexican in charge, as well as of the guards, and they were
allowed all possible liberty, the while every means of escape
was carefully shut off; for, although he sympathized with his
prisoners, the wary alcaid had no idea of losing a good, fat
office by any negligence in the discharge of his duties.

For a fortnight all went well, and then incarceration in the
cold, damp cells, together with the lack of nourishing food, be-
gan to have its effect upon Mr. Ralph. He was stricken down
with pneumonia, and in spite of his vigorous constitution he
succumbed to its fatal power and died in a few days. This
was a vengeance which his enemy had not foreseen, and, it
must be acknowledged, did not for a moment contemplate. He
immediately put forth every effort to secure the release of the
other Americans; two of the men were given their freedom
without any difficulty, but the third, Tom Bates, as he was
familiarly called, had got into trouble with one of the guards,
in which the man was decidedly worsted, and for this fresh
offence he was condemned to wait his trial.

Tom was a happy-go-lucky, dare-devil sort of a chap, always
getting into some scrape, but by far the most popular cowboy
in southern New Mexico. He had already gained the good
graces of all the jail officials, and was permitted to do pretty
much as he pleased. Thus it was he met Dolores.

The sight of the poor little thing, who seemed like a pure, pale
lily in the midst of her uncongenial surroundings, moved his
heart to pity, and before he knew it he was making love, in
vigorous, American fashion, to this shy Mexican maiden, who
had never before had a tender word addressed her except by
old Angela's withered lips. What wonder that she responded,

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1897O Dolores' Easter. 97

and speedily grew to love him as only the impetuous children
of southern climes can love ?

Together they planned a method of escape. With Dolores
to take and bring his letters it was easy of accomplishment.
She was regarded as such an unimportant member of the com-
munity that her comings in and goings out were never even
questioned. Once her lover was safely across the river in El
Paso she would join him, and then they would be married and,
begin life together. And how bright and beautiful life seemed
now to Dolores ! Yet only a month ago she was wondering how
any one could find it worth living — a problem that has puzzled
many a wiser head than hers. That her lover would escape she
did not doubt ; had she not prayed for it every evening at the
Lenten devotion, and did not the dear Lord say " Whatever
you shall ask for in my name"?

She was not quite sure — scrupulous little soul! — that it was
right to help a prisoner get out of jail; it might be cheating
the government ; but heart is stronger than conscience in
some cases, and Dolores knew she was aiding an innocent.
man.

La Semana Santa had come at last, and the entire popula-
tion of Juarez was engaged in the celebration of its solemn fes-
tivals; the guards relaxed their vigilance, and the alcaid spent
in church the time he should have passed in going his custo-
mary rounds of inspection. The night before la Pascua de Resur-
reccion^ as Easter Sunday is beautifully called in the Spanish
tongue, was the fime selected by Bates as most propitious for
his attempt. Dolores could easily smuggle in whatever he
needed to help him, and the wall once scaled, his cowboy friends
and erstwhile fellow-prisoners would be waiting on the other
side with swift horses to carry him across the Rio Grande to
the American side.

Although it appeared easy enough to Tom Bates, it was in
reality a desperate undertaking ; but then, the average cowboy
is used to desperate adventures. The chief danger, from Tom*s
point of view, lay in the brilliancy of the nights; and how he
longed for a drizzling, eastern rain to blot the brightness of
the stars!

At length Easter eve came, and with it Dolores. For sever-
al days she had not been to attend to her customary work.
Holy Week is something of a holiday even among the poor,
and she was required, like the other girls of the congregation,
to take part in the beautiful processions that are such a pic-

VOL. LXV.— 7

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98 Dolores' Easter. [April,

turesque feature of all religious observances in Mexico, Under
her ragged mantilla she had concealed a revolver, which her
lover's sharp eye quickly noticed.
. '' What is that for, Dolores ? ''

" For me,** she replied simply in her musical broken English.
" I shall follow you to the foot of the wall and remain there
until you are safely over, and I may need this for protection if
they find me."

The cowboy laughed, as well he might; it seemed like the
mouse offering to help the lion.

"You are mad, carita^ to think of such a thing. Can you
imagine for an instant that I would let you run any risk ? Go
home, chiquitUy and pray for me as you always do, little white
soul ! To-morrow as you come from your Mass you will learn
how I have succeeded; and now, addios!''

" Come," called out one of the jailers, who was approaching,
keys in hand, to lock up the prisoners for the night. " No
more talk, Dolores, or you too will be locked in. VantosI*'
And Dolores vamosed. But she had no idea of quitting the jail
and leaving her lover to escape unaided ; so she hid herself in
one of the dark corners of the great arched hallway where she
knew she would not be seen, and, crouching on the floor, pa-
tiently waited for the hours to go by. The stones were very
cold and she was hungry, for she had not taken time to eat
supper. She would say her beads, the good padre's Christmas
gift, and ask the Blessed Mother to intercede in behalf of her
lover, and then she would go to sleep ; it still wanted four
hours of piidnight.

As the great bell in the jail-tower tolled its twelve heavy
strokes the sound of stealthy footfalls fell upon Dolores' listen-
ing ears, and, peeping from her hiding-place, she saw the cow-
boy's huge frame disappearing into a narrow passage-way that
led into the yard.

The girl was nearly paralyzed from her long wait in the
cold, but she managed to grope her way after him like a little
black shadow, keeping all the time at a safe distance; for she
knew if he saw her there would be a scene, and both would be
discovered.

Now they are out in the prison grounds, and, gracias d Dios^
the night is cloudy ! Dolores' prayers have been heard ! In a
few seconds Tom is at the appointed place, his low whistle is
answered by a louder one from the other side, and then the
work of scaling the wall begins. Hard and slow work it is, but

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i897-] Dolores Easter, 99

with the assistance of the rope thrown to him he is at last on
the top.

Dolores breathes a prayer of thanksgiving and, forgetting
all caution, she steps out from the shadow of the wall. Just
then there is a cry of "halt" from the sentinel; his gun is
raised, but the bullet whistles off into space and Tom is safe
on the other side. In less time than it takes to tell it, three
horses, urged on by spur and quirt, are galloping madly to-
wards the northern shore of the Rio Grande. But Dolores in
her exultation forgets that she is the target for the sentry's
gun ; and when she remembers, it is too late. The angry guard
fires twice, thrice, in quick succession, and she falls heavily
forward upon the hard stones of the prison walk !

La Pascua de Resureccion dawned beautifully fair, but there
was no dark-eyed, sad-faced seftorita waiting at the church
door to meet the messenger whom Tom Bates had sent to
escort his betrothed across to the American side, where they
would be made man and wife.

Instead Dolores lay in the sunny ward of the sisters* hos-
pital, fighting with all her feeble might against the approaches
of that grim bridegroom, Death ! The doctors had pronounced
her case a hopeless one when called to the jail the night be-
fore, and so she was allowed to be removed to more pleasant
quarters.

But doctors are not infallible. Before a month had elapsed
she was rapidly regaining strength ; happiness is the best elixir
yet discovered, and Dolores, under the tender care of the good
sisters, and rejoicing in the knowledge of her lover's freedom,
found life a thing to be desired and clung to it accordingly.

The excitement at the jail over, Tom Bates's escape had
gradually subsided ; I think, indeed, there was a feeling of
secret joy among the officers that their gay-hearted favorite
had achieved the freedom it was not in their power to grant
him. Dolores' share in the affair had been soon forgotten ; for
a long time she was unconscious and unable to give any ex-
planation of her presence in the prison yard, and in the mean-
time the guardians of the public peace evidently came to the
conclusion that neither her testimony nor her arrest was worth
while, for she was left undisturbed.

Somehow people never considered Dolores.

Although it was not safe for Mr. Bates to appear in person
on the streets of Juarez he made his presence at the hospital
duly felt, and every day brought Dolores a letter and an offer-

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loo Dolores' Easter. [April,

ing of fruit and flowers. Such letters as they were ! Tom's
knowledge of Spanish was limited in the extreme, and his
fiancee could not read English. This, however, should have
been a source of consolation to Mr. Bates, for one is not ex-
pected to be fluent in their handling of an unknown tongue,
whereas his English would certainly have been open to criti-
cism. You see, a life spent in chasing unruly cattle over the
plains, and breaking the spirited broncho to the saddle, is not
conducive to the acquirement of a Chesterfieldian style of com-
position ; but after all it is the sentiment and not the style of
a letter that the true lover considers.

But Tom's gifts were not the only ones that found their
way to Dolores; for his friends, carried away by their admira-
tion of the little Mexican girl's heroism and devotion, "backed
him up," in Western parlance, with the usual cowboy prodi-
gality, and the hospital patients enjoyed a period of such luxury
as they had never before imagined, much less experienced.

Two months later a greatly changed Dolores emerged from
the hospital door, and, accompanied by one of the sisters, was
driven over to El Paso, where she became the wife of the man
for whose sake she had so nearly lost her life. And few would
have recognized the poor, sickly prison drudge in the dainty,
smiling girl who bowed her graceful acknowledgments to the
cheers that went up from the crowd around the church as
Tom Bates and his bride waved their last adieux to the
country " down by the Rio Grande."

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1897.] A Protestant Defence of Manning. ioi

A PROTESTANT DEFENCE OF MANNING.*

BY REV. BERTRAND L. CONWAY, C.S.P.

FRENCH Protestant enters the lists as the latest
champion of the great English Cardinal. Car-
dinal Vaughan wrote of Mr. Purcell's Life of
Cardinal Manning: "The publication of this life
is almost a crime." M. de Pressens6 goes a step
further and says : " The publication of this life is a crime " —
Cest. une mauvaise action. After wading through the fifteen
hundred-odd pages in which the Catholic biographer " dis-
credits and shames " the cardinal " by his narratives, by his
judgments, and even by his praises," it is refreshing to read
this glowing and enthusiastic tribute from one of alien faith«
After viewing the fancy portrait of an "egoistic, ambitious,
jealous, double-faced, intriguing churchman," it is pleasant to
turn to a faithful likeness " of one of the greatest and noblest
figures the century affords."

This volume is important because it is the first work of any
length written in answer to Mr. Purcell ; because it comes from
a prominent French Protestant divine ; because in a remarkable
preface it shows the utter insufficiency of Protestantism to satis-
fy man's spiritual needs.

We know of nothing more severe in the way of invective,
since Newman wrote his famous reply to the Rev. Charles
Kingsley. It will be as decisive to Mr. Purcell's claims as a /
biographer.

Some Protestant critics, in discussing M. de Pressens^'s book,
wondered how he could write so strongly in defence of a Cath-
olic prelate. He thus answers them : " Are we to be accused
of treason to the Reformation if we point out the glaring errors,
the monstrous contradictions, the inexact citations, the mutilated
documents, the confusion of thought, the vulgarity of style, and,
worse than all, the spirit of disparagement and calumny which
makes this work a sad monument of all that a biography worthy
of the name ought not to be ? "

* Purceirs •' Manning^'' Refuted, Life of Cardinal Manning:, with a critical examination
of E. S. Purceirs misukes. By Francis de Pressens^, a French Protestant. Translated by
Francis T. Furey, A.M. Philadelphia : John Joseph McVey.

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I02 A Protestant Defence of Manning. [April,

HE LAYS BARE PURCELL'S INCONSISTENCIES.

He loses all patience with a man who, " while ever protest-
ing his love and respect for the cardinal, betrays at every step
an instinctive malevolence "; " whose assertions show not so
much a deliberate intention to deceive, as a constitutional in-
capacity to tell the truth." This is strong language. No mere
rhetoric either, for M. de Pressens6 substantiates his statements.
Let us take a few instances.

Fifty years after Manning had taken orders in the Church
of England he wrote in regard to his choice of a state of life :
" It was purely a call from God as all that he has given me
since. It was a call ad veritatem et ad seipsum. As such I test-
ed it, and followed it." And again : " My own thought was to
obey God*s will, to save my soul and the souls of others."
One would have thought that this was sufficient. But Mr.
Furcell " insinuates that the vocation of Manning was very
probably the fruit of an illusion ; that the young clergyman de-
ceived himself if he thought he was influenced by any but pure-
ly worldly motives. In point of fact, he felt none of those re-
ligious emotions he speaks of later on. This is plain speak-
ing. One is anxious to know on what this scaffolding of hy-
pothesis is built. Where are the documents which permit him
to contradict so flatly the express words of the cardinal ?"

No documents are forthcoming ; nothing but the negative
argument that "there is no contemporary evidence given by
Manning in his letters to John Anderdon," etc. (p. 95). Nega-
tive arguments, however, are often inconclusive, as the history
of modern criticism would prove. A thousand such arguments are
destroyed by one positive fact. M. de Pressens^ refutes this
statement by simply pointing to Manning's letter* of Septem-
ber 26, 1 83 1, "to his brother-in-law, Mr. Anderdon — a long let-
ter which shows how deeply he was stirred by the thought of
this vocation." Ab una disce omnes.

HE ANSWERS ACCUSATIONS.

Another more serious accusation is that of "speaking con-
currently for years with a double voice " (vol. i. p. 463). True,
Mr. Furcell attempts an explanation ; but his explanation does
not explain, if all that he insinuates of " moral difficulties,"
" human motives," and " shrinkings of flesh and blood " be true.
M. de Pressens^ shows that Mr. Furcell was utterly incapable

♦ Cardinal Mannings by Dr. J. R. Gasquet, p. ii.

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of appreciating Manning's position; totally blind to the fact
that a man cannot put more coherency in his utterances than
there really is in his thoughts. He mentions, as Dr. Gasquet
also has done, the dictum of the Spectator. It reads as follows :
" In the private diaries and letters purporting to give what Mr.
Purcell calls * the inner man,' who doubted the validity of the
Anglican position from the year 1846 to the year 1850, we find
likewise expressed that the doubt may be due to illusion. This
being so, he declares it to be his duty to speak hopefully of
the English Church, and not to unsettle others in their allegi-
ance to it. And in the letters cited in the same chapter as
giving "the outer man," or "the public voice," we do not find
assertions inconsistent with private doubts of the Anglican posi-
tion, but rather a line of argument which urges the duty of
remaining in the Anglican communion in spite of personal
doubts.

THE ERRINGTON CASE.

Again, M. de Pressens^ protests against the treatment of
"the Errington Case." Mr. Purcell, it is true, says (p. 81):
" The removal of Dr. Errington was, therefore, not merely the
removal of a man, but the overthrow of a false or vicious
principle"; and again, p. 89: (Manning was) "persuaded in his
own mind that the whole movement, or as he called it *con.
spiracy,' against Cardinal Wiseman was anti-Roman and anti-
Papal ; that the main hope and aim of the malcontent bishops
was to undo all Wiseman's work, and to throw back the church
in England for a generation," etc. But with this there is the
insinuation that Manning, by "somewhat unscrupulous methods of
attack," urged Dr. Errington *s removal for his own personal ends.

The general disorder of the letters and documents is insisted
on ; their juxtaposition in violation of chronology and logical
sequence ; their repetition with different context. Errors of
fact are noted, such as calling Manning the second English car-
dinal since the Reformation, speaking of the Catholic emanci-
pation as the order of the day as late as 1830, declaring the
cardinal averse to a losing cause his life long. Errors of judg-
ment are pointed out : the indiscreet publishing of letters which
will be misunderstood by the general reader; the undue impor-
tance given to the Errington affair and petty diocesan squab-
bles ; while so comparatively little is said of the cardinal's
charitable work, his preaching, his writings, his spiritual direc-
tion of souls, and the like.

This by way of showing that " such a writer puts himself

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to4 A Protestant Defence of Manning. [April,

out of court"; that the long-looked-for life of the great
cardinal has proved a fiasco, because written by one who
evidently was not in sympathy . with his subject. And, strange
enough, Mr. Purcell has written : " To a biographer his hero
should be of supreme and special interest " !

Will Mr. Purcell again utter his protest against idealized
history or biography?* Will he quote us Manning, Newman,
and Pope Leo to the effect that "truth is the only thing that
matters"? The knights of the story could with equal truth
maintain to the end their conviction that the shield was silver
or gold. We have heard of an old Arabian proverb quite to
the point : " He that tells ALL that he knows, often tells more
than he knows."

Until the executors of the late cardinal give to the world
a new life and a truer, M. de Pressens^'s book will act as an
antidote to the poison contained in Mr. Purcell's two bulky
volumes. For his is the portrait of a man, loyal to principle
and conscience ; of a Christian, obedient to the promptings of
the Holy Spirit; of a priest, the servant of his fellow-nien,
** the hero of charity.^'

Not that M. de Pressens^'s work is faultless. We object
strongly to Luthier being placed on a level with St. Augustine
and St. Vincent de Paul ; we refuse to believe that before his
conversion Manning " found little fault with pure Protestantism
as distinguished from his Anglican form."

But, above all, we declare that M. de Pressens^'s admiration
for Manning has led him to be unfair to Newman. He has
told Mr. Purcell that he exalts Newman to lower Manning.
M. de Pressens6, however, unintentionally goes to the other
extreme.

PEN-PICTURE OF NEWMAN.

Here is his pen-portrait of the illustrious Oratorian. The
very type of the intellectualiste, doubting, questioning, sceptical,
and " audacious idealist," who never could believe in the ex-
istence of the material world ; lacking some of the finish of the
gentleman ; before his conversion more Catholic, after his con-
version more Protestant than Manning; intoxicated with the
praise that came to him on all sides, especially from the Protest-
ants and the liberals.

This is not Newman ; none of his old friends would recog-
nize this portrait. Was he a dweller in an ideal world ? A

♦ •* On the Ethics of Suppression in Biography," The Nineteenth Century ^ October, 1896.

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1897-] A Protestant Defence oi^ Manning. 105

sceptic ever doubting his own conclusions? He himself has
written : *' Given the alternative in a university, of social life
without study, or study without social life, I should unhesitat-
ingly declare for the former, not the latter." If Manning was
" a man of action," so also was Newman in a no less true
sense. Not that he could ever interest himself in active works
as his brother cardinal, but that in his sermons, his lectures,
his philosophy, his theology, he always had in view the practi-
cal difficulties of his age and country.

It has been insinuated before — nay, openly asserted — that
Newman was a sceptic. If a clear perception of the difficulties
which beset men in an age of unfaith, if the exposition of these
difficulties in their fulness be scepticism, then Newman was a
sceptic. But if, with a vivid appreciation of the obscure night
which ever follows closely the bright day of truth, there was an
unshakable certainty of the facts of Christian philosophy and
dogma, then Newman was not a sceptic. He has answered
this objection in the Apologia : *

" Many persons are sensitive of the difficulties of religion ;
I am as sensitive as any one ; but I have never been able to
see a connection between apprehending those difficulties, how-
ever keenly, and multiplying them to any extent, and doubting
the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten thousand diffi-
culties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject ;
difficulty and doubt is incommensurate."

The very thought that some might deem it sceptical led
him to write the following apropos of his intended epitaph :
" If a tablet is put up in the cloister, such as the three there .
already, I should like the following, if good Latinity, and if
there is no other objection ; i, e.y it must not be^ if persons to
whom I defer thought it sceptical: " f

Joannes Henricus Newman.
Ex Umbris et Imaginibus
In Veritatem.

Die A. S. 18

Requiescat in Pace.

newman contrasted with manning.

It is not fair, therefore, to paint Manning as the great up-
holder of Catholic doctrine, and to describe Newman as a
compromiser with Protestants and liberals. No, he was as firm
as Manning in his stand against religious liberalism. Dogma

* P* 374» ed. 1864 ; Longmans, Green & Co. f Meditations and Devotions^ p. 439.

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io6 A Protestant Defence of Manning, [April,

had ever been the fundamental principle of religion with him;
" my battle was with liberalism," he tell us himself.* What he
held in 1864 he held unto the end.

True, his character, his temperament, his bent of mind was
the direct pole to Manning's. One insisted on the principle of
authority, the other on liberty ; one feared " the anti-Roman
and the anti-Papal spirit," the other feared the results of an
over-rigid dogmatism ; one was " the diligent laborer in the
field of ecclesiastical politics," the other was the recluse who
ventured forth but seldom save in the printed word. No
wonder, then, their views should differ on so many vital issues.
Their differences, however, are a proof of that great liberty th«
church allows where there is no question of the deposit of
faith.

No one who had studied at all carefully the writings of New-
man could maintain that he denied the existence of the world
around us. Many passages could be adduced in support of
this thesis. Let one suffice : " That things exist external to
ourselves, this I do consider a first principle and one of uni-
versal perception." f

THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM.

We now turn to that part of M. de Pressens6's work which
declares the present decadence of Protestantism, and the vigor
and strength of the Catholic Church. This portion of his pre-
face gives a value to his work over and above his just appre-
ciation of Cardinal Manning, and his spirited protest against
the insinuations and errors of Mr. Purcell.

We know that every heresy, being a denial of a part of
God's truth, contains in it the germs of decay. Catholic truth
(y.g.y the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception) may progress
and develop, even as the youth grows into the man, changing
yet ever the same. Heresy can never progress or develop ; its
tendency is always downward. It may live for awhile on the
truth it has preserved, even as the consumptive may live and
breathe with the one lung that remains to him. But the error
is there like a hidden parasite, destroying by degrees the truth
it feeds on. The end is corruption and death. Thus Arianism,
denying the Divinity of Jesus Christ, thrived for a time, grew
corrupt and died. So Protestantism will die.

We know that the Reformation was a great step backwards
in the history of civilization ; that Luther condemned it when

♦ Apologia^ p. lao. f Grammar of Assent^ p. 59 (ed. 1870 ; Cath. Pub. Soc.)

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I897-] A Protestant Defence of Manning. nyj

he said: "Though nowadays everything is in a wretched state,
it is no ground for separating from the church " ; that Protest-
antism must fail because it does not satisfy all the moral,
intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual needs of men's hearts.

We know, too, that the unspotted Spouse of Christ — the
Catholic Church — stands for the Oneness of the good, the beau-
tiful, and the true, though the human element may at times
separate that essential Beauty into the appearance of the seven
deadly sins, even as the prism separates the pure white light
of the sunbeam into seven primary colors.

We know that Catholicity, satisfies the longings of the human
race. For, taking her stand on the dignity of man, fallen, in-
deed, but raised again by the Incarnation, she maintains the
equality of all men in God's sight, the brotherhood of all men in
Christ Jesus, the liberty of all men to tend to God through the
Holy Spirit reigning within their hearts.

All this we know : men like Manning and Newman in Eng-
land, men like Lacordaire and Ozanam in France, men like
Isaac Hecker, Gibbons, Ireland, and Keane in America, have
been witness to it.

But in M. de Pressens6 we have a Protestant of the Prot-
estants — one who by birth, by antecedents, by profession is a
disciple of the Reformation — declaring that he must in con-
science testify to the same truth. " Protestantism is a failure ;
the future of religion is with the Catholic Church." Testimony
from such a source is valuable, for no one can accuse him of
special pleading. Testimony from such a source is important,
for it is the sign of a great religious movement to dawn with
the coming century. It is an earnest that the prayer of Jesus
Christ, "that all may be one, even as Thou, Father, and I arc
one," is ever being fulfilled.

THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PROTESTANTISM.

Last spring, when M. de Pressens^'s two articles on Cardinal
Manning appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes,^ many Prot-
estants on the Continent wrote him letters full of "pious in-
sults," demanding what he meant by writing so enthusiastically
of a Catholic prelate. Had he proved untrue to the teachings of
his father, Edmond de Pressens^, the Protestant Montalembert?

The answer came quickly. In words, too, that show a readi-
ness to follow the light ; a loyalty to truth and the dictates of
conscience. There is a subtle delicacy in this rebuke to the

*Mayi, May 15, 1896.

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io8 A Protestant Defence of Manning. [April,

so-called disciples of liberty of thought : " May it not some-
times happen,** he asks, "that in the very effort to be faithful
to the spirit, the lessons, and the principles of those to whom
we owe the knowledge of salvation, we may feel ourselves
obliged to be unfaithful to their doctrine ? "

Hearken now to his arraignment of Protestantism.

Protestantism, says M. de Pressens^, especially in France,
has been for some time on the verge of a terrible crisis. Prot-
estants are at a loss in their vain endeavor to be true to the
teachings of the Reformation. Protestantism was born and has
thrived on a two-fold principle : i . The formal principle of the
authority of Scripture, f>., " that every soul receives directly the
light necessary to perceive the message of God in the Gospels " ;
and 2, the material principle of justification by faith, /.^., " that
every soul comes into direct and immediate contact with Jesus
Christ as the source of salvation." But when we consider the
progress of modern Biblical criticism, what becomes of this
fundamental principle of Protestantism?

AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE DESTROYED.

In the old days, when men could turn over the pages of
their Bible and regard every word as divine, it was a simple
matter enough. But to-day this is not the case. Now men
open the sacred volume and begin to ask themselves : " Is this
portion authentic ? Is this word authentic ? Is this really
Christ speaking, or is it perchance St. John ? " etc., etc.

Some of the old school will answer that le sens intime — the
Christian consciousness will readily recognize the truth of the
Scripture ; the true Christian will be quick to hear the sound
of the Master's voice. But this is absolute subjectivism. On the
other hand, the younger Protestant clergy are full of the anti-
dogmatic spirit of the current philosophies; Hume, Hegel,
Kant, and Darwin are their guides in Biblical hermeneutics.
Fain would they have Christianity and the anti-Christian ration-
alism join hands in an unnatural union. But this leads to the
utter rejection of dogma ; this reduces religion to the definition
of Matthew Arnold's " Morality touched with emotion^

Grant for the moment that a few (flite souls may escape the
wreck. What is to become of the multitudes — and Christianity
is for all men — without some authority whereon to lean ? Over-
throw the authority of Scripture, and it does not take long to
destroy the divine personality of Christ therein recorded. " You
cannot shatter the vase, and still preserve the perfume."

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1 897-] A Protestant Defence of Manning. 109

Thus, Protestantism stands to-day between the Scylla of
" absolute subjectivism *' and the Charybdis of " anti-dogmatism."
Again, in the great social changes which are going on around
us, M. de Pressens6 declares that the Christianity of the Refor-
mation is not the proper leaven ; the individualism for which
Protestantism stands is hors de combat.

ANGLICANISM A HYBRID CHURCH.

No language is adequate to paint his contempt for the
Anglican form of Protestantism, He describes it as " a hybrid
church," on the fence between Geneva and Rome ; a church
which repudiates the Reformation, without accepting logically
what that repudiation should mean. It is a ''pseudo-Catholi-
cism " which fain would have all the advantages of the Catholic
Church (apostolic succession, valid orders, the Real Presence,
the Mass, confession, etc.) " without paying the price " of sub-
mission. It is a religion whose authority is '' factitious and illu-
sory" — "the most insular, the most local, the most dependent
of churches."

He cannot stomach those compromising reunionists who
would dictate the terms of peace to the Pope (this before the
decision on Anglican orders), but says, " il tCy a gutre de trans-
action possible ; il faut, semble t-il^ se soumettre ou se combattre''
No half-measures, he tells them ; either combat Rome or make
your submission.

Protestantism having been proved and found wanting, it is
natural that men look around them ; natural that men should
draw comparisons. The very essence of Christianity is endan-
gered. Therefore, "the question is asked in many quarters,
whether the supernatural Christian is not secure in a church
which claims the plenitude of the means of grace ; in a reli-
gious society over which the ages have passed ; which offers
men in the apostolic succession, in the primacy of Peter, in all
its hierarchical organization, in all the objective realities of
its worship, the triple guarantee of unity ^ authority^ and per-
petuity ? "

THE CHURCH ALONE COMPLETELY SATISFIES.

An age enervated by the passion for pleasure and dilettantism
has need of "self-denial, asceticism, discipline, obedience, holi-
ness of life, regulated activity, cloistered contemplation." Men
wearied with " the subtilities of analysis, the dry shells of rea-
son, the sophisms of doubt," turn with eager gaze to a " religion

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no A Protestant Defence of Manning. [April,

which gives them the daily repetition of the grand drama of
expiation, with its majestic liturgy, whose roots are deeply set
in primitive Christianity, to a church which is constant in its
affirmation of the communion of saints and the indefectibility
of the Church of Christ."

M. de Pressens^ is right in saying that the Catholic Church,
by her fourfold solidarity of unity, sanctity^ catholicity, and
apostolicity, is the greatest social force in an age of great social
reforms ; he is right when he declares the need of an authority
to act as the witness, the guardian, and the interpreter of Divine
Revelation, both Scripture and Tradition ; he is right when he
shows that the tendency of Protestantism is towards the denial
of a supernatural revelation. He has sounded the death-knell
of Protestantism when he declares that " it is not the religion for
the people,' for, according to St. Paul, "God our Saviour will
have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the
truth " (I. Tim. ii. 4).

M. de Pressens^ has not withal put his finger on the essence
of Catholicity — the union of the individual soul with God through
the Holy Spirit working in the church and in the individual
soul. He perceives, indeed, that the Catholic Church is the
corrective of that false individualism under whose yoke Protest-
antism is slowly dying. He does not perceive that she is the
crowning of the true individualism which Jesus Christ foretold
would make all men free (John viii. 32). He seems to feel that
Protestantism still offers " a mystic communion of the soul with
the Saviour "; he does not know that the Catholic Church realizes
that mystic communion in the fact that her true children are
members of Christ's mystical body (I. Cor. vi. 15), partakers in
very deed of His Flesh and Blood (John vi. 56), and temples
of the Holy Spirit (I. Cor. vi. 19).

We have noted the principal points in M. de Pressens^'s
volume. We do not think it rash to affirm that he is but a
step from the door of the church. True, it took Newman ten
years of deep thought and study to make that step ; it took
Manning five years of earnest seeking. Does it seem strange
that conversion is often so long delayed? "Neither are your
ways my ways, saith the Lord" (Is. Iv. 8). Faith is a super-
natural gift. Over the threshold, however, this Israelite without
guile must one day pass like the sacerdos ntagnus he so elo-
quently describes, unless he close his ears to the voice now
speaking to his soul.

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i897-] The Puritan Catholicized. hi

THE PURITAN CATHOLICIZED.

BY REV. P. J. O'CALLAGHAN.

I AST spring I was assisting in the giving of a mis-
sion in a city not far from the old town of Sa-
lem. I visited one of the parochial schools and
chanced to ask three or four boys to tell me
their names. I found among these few a Rogers,
a Pinkham, and a Robinson, and I said to myself, What is
coming over the face of New England ? There are signs of a
new epoch in her life.

CATHOLIC NEW ENGLAND.

Far more important than the change of blood is the change
of religion which immigration has already effected. Foreign
blood has brought to New England a religion which has seemed
foreign to the Puritan, and which he has always hated. In spite of
hate and all that hate suggested, the Catholic Church has grown
so that, from being almost unknown a hundred years ago, she
embraces to-day one-third of all the population of the New
England States. It is not using a misnomer to speak even
now of Catholic New England.

Wonderful and most rapid has been the growth of that strug-
gling church which John Louis de Cheverus found to consist of
a mere handful of faithful souls when he arrived in Boston just
one hundred years ago. It has been only in the last half-cen-
tury, however, that the church has risen like an apparition be-
fore the eyes of the Puritan. It seems almost incredible that
even as late as 1853 the present seven Catholic dioceses of
New England were within the jurisdiction of the Bishop of
Boston. This wonderful growth has not been confined to New
England. It has been estimated that there are more converts
from Protestantism within the bosom of the Catholic Church in
the United States than there are members of the Episcopalian
denomination in the same territory. Although it is asserted
that every New England family of note has among its repre-
sentatives at least one convert, the marvellous growth of the
church has been most striking in the land of the Puritan; not
because of the number of converts, but because in New Eng-

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112 The Puritan Catholicized. [Aprils

land the church has captured a stronghold which had been
for two centuries in the possession of those who hated her
very name, whereas in newer sections of the country Catholics
and Protestants have gone on, shoulder to shoulder, in the
building up of our nation.

THE church's early INFLUENCE.

The church began to exert an influence upon the Puritans
as early as the time of Bishop Cheverus. Although the influ-
ence of Boston's first bishop was largely personal, it broke down
many obstacles which bigotry had erected in the way of the
church's progress. The- learning and simple eloquence, and most
of all the sanctity of life, which characterized that holy man,
did wonders in obtaining for Catholics something more than a
grudging and formal toleration. So great was his influence that
the legislature submitted for his revision the formula of the
oath proposed to be taken before voting, in order that it might
not offend Catholic consciences. When he asked for a sub-
scription to get money for his new church, John Adams, while
President of the United States, headed the list, which included
also the names of the most influential Protestants of Boston.
Since those times many a Catholic congregation has been helped
in building its church by generous benefactions from the sons
of the Puritan. The same spirit which prompted such generosity
has also obtained for Catholics rights which they were not strong
enough to demand. It is my honest conviction that far more has
been granted to Catholics in Ne\Y England out of a sense of jus-
tice than has been obtained by the power of the ballot. I know
full well how deeply rooted has been the Puritan's hatred for
the church. But it would be a superficial view of that hatred to
think that it was inspired by anything less than a love of truth,
though a mistaken one. Would not any honest man, if he did
not know what the church really was, have hated the ugly and
wicked thing — that anti-Christ, that Scarlet Woman — which the
ignorant Puritan thought to be the Catholic Church ? The Pu-
ritan would not have been the God-fearing man that he was
if he did not hate this nightmare of wickedness, as he thought
her to be. He could not have loved justice without hating
such iniquity. His hatred has continued, and only because he
has not yet learned to understand the church. And why should
we condemn him unreservedly for the slowness of his perception
when we remember how often unworthy sons of Holy Church
have seemed to give the lie to her just claim of holiness ? I

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would not appear to admit that Catholics have been worse than
their neighbors ; all I know is, that those scandals which must
needs come have been at least an excuse for much of the Puri-
tan's unreasonable hatred of Catholics and Irish.

Testimony is not wanting from many sources that many a no*
ble, gentle priest is loved by all his Puritan neighbors. They
see him solicitous for his flock ; they admire his warfare upon sin
and the haunts of sin ; they love him for his devotion to the
poor, which knows no distinction of race or creed. They glad-
ly reverence such a man, and by their reverence they prove
the honesty and nobility of their hearts. Let a Catholic be all
his church teaches him to be, and let him be all that his coun-
try and society require of him, and the Puritan will not be
slow in discovering the man and the Christian. He will delight
to honor such a man while living, and after his death will
place his memorial among the monuments of his heroes. The
triumph of the church in New England will be at hand when
she brings forth, as she must, more of that race of perfect
Catholic manhood which has already found its exemplar in that
noble Irish-Yankee, John Boyle O'Reilly.

That race will be the race of the Puritan transformed, and
lifted on the higher plane of purest Catholicism. Already
Catholic and Puritan blood have mingled in the veins of thou-
sands. The church has already done much to change the Puri-
tan by bringing him to a fuller knowledge of her divine mis-
sion, and thereby has won his admiration and very often has
drawn him to her bosom. Will the church complete her triumph ?
If she does, will Catholic New England hold the place which
Puritan New England has maintained in the intellectual, social,
and political life of our country? That she will do so is our
hope and our expectation.

As the church transforms the Puritan the type of Catholic
itself will be transformed, not in essentials to be sure, but in
those characteristics which are his changing garb. A false de-
votion to relics, the innumerable cords and medals and scapulars
— all good in their proper place, but by some ignorantly made
to compensate for the keeping of the Commandments and pure
living ; all such things, when perverted from their proper and
devotional meaning, do rather repel than attract.

Whatever may have been the origin of the Puritan's love of
liberty, it has become with him now a consuming passion. The
voice of authority will seem to him the voice of God, when it can
show its right to speak in the name of the Most High, and only

VOL. LXV.— 8

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114 The Puritan Catholicized. [Aprils

while it speaks in accordance with justice and equity. He can
never be persuaded that arbitrary conduct and tyranny of an
exacting nature are any the holier because they emanate from
some vested authority. He will always think that personal
manliness calls upon him to rebel against vested wrongs as
well as less powerfully established sources of injustice. He
may sometimes submit where rebellion would work a greater
wrong than submission, but he would have no man to believe
that his submission to wrong of any sort can be obedience to.
the voice of God. It is only choosing the smaller of two evils.

And yet there is no man more obedient than the Puritan to
all legitimate authority. Let him be convinced that any
authority is divinely established, and he will obey the letter and
the spirit of its commands. The Puritan loves liberty passion-
ately, but he hates license more passionately. Every just
authority will find him its most loyal defender.

I know the mind of the Puritan, and I feel that it is most
important that his ruling sentiment should be clearly under-
stood, and .therefore honestly described. And it is my firm
conviction that the spirit of liberty which actuates the vast
majority of the priests in America, and which makes their ser-
vice of* Holy Church one of personal loyalty to her, will be
the only spirit which can hope to captivate the heart and win the
support of the Puritan. If we persuade him that Holy Church
asks no submission from him except the submission of his
mind to truth, and his will to a divinely established authority ;
if we can show him that mortification does not aim at tortur-
ing the individual, but simply at exercising him in the con-
trol of his inordinate passions, and that as human nature is not
totally depraved we do not believe it ought to be entirely
crushed ; if we can prove ourselves to be honest in our love
for virtue ; if we become ourselves all that Holy Church would
have us to be, and not try to make him accept more than she
asks him to believe, we may rest assured that the Puritan has
but to know the Catholic religion to embrace it most gladly.

Great have been the achievements of the past, but more
splendid yet will be the triumphs of the future when the Church
in America, after recovering from its pioneer efforts, will
gradually draw to herself the intelligence of this nation. In
those days Catholic New England will not forget the example
of leadership which has been set for her by Puritan New
England.

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1 897-] Juvenile Offenders. 115

JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

BY REV. FRANCIS W. HOWARD.

Criminology as a science has grown in the past
few decades and great interest has been aroused
in the inquiries suggested by it. Caesar Lombro-
so is reputed to be its founder. The value of
results obtained, however, does not seem to be
proportionate to the degree of interest taken in these studies.
The bibliography of criminology published in one of the late
reports of the United States Commissioner of Education will
give one an idea of the wide range of inquiries included in this
science, and also of the amount of attention that has been de-
voted to them. The principal work in criminology has been
done by writers of the Italian school, and indeed this school
claims this science as peculiarly its own.

It is not to be supposed that the subject of crime was not
studied in the past. The criminal code is the result of the
problem of crime. But the new science studies, not so much
the act of the criminal — that is, the crime — but it studies the
criminal himself. Scientific criminologists, and particularly those
of the Italian school, study the mental, moral, and more espe-
cially the physical characteristics of the criminal, and their in-
dustry in gathering facts is equalled only by their precipitancy
in drawing conclusions. An undiscerning reader of the works
of writers of this school is not unlikely to form the opinion
that some day we may hope to measure the degree of crimin-
ality by a micrometer, or that at least the cephalic index may
be some approximation to a standard of measurement.

HASTY CONCLUSIONS OF THE ITALIAN SCHOOL.

The works of these writers serve to show that mere fact-
gatherers do not make good scientists, and that a disposition
to base wide generalizations on unimportant coincidences does
not lead to trustworthy results. It is possible to gather an
enormous mass of facts in relation to crime, but there are so
many variables that must enter into the study of such problems
that it is extremely hazardous to lay down impressions as sci-

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ii6 Juvenile Offenders. [April,

entific laws. Criminalogists observe the association of facts in
criminals, but do not compare such individuals with equal num-
bers of non-criminal individuals. Perhaps physical defects may
be found in seventy per cent, of criminal individuals ; therefore,
the conclusion runs, there is a causal connection between the
two facts. But the criminals are not compared with an equal
number of persons who are not criminals. One is tempted to
think that many criminologists believe a causal connection exists
whenever they find two facts associated in bad company.

The statistics of crime, again, do not afford a satisfactory
basis for broad generalization. Official statistics of crime are
no indication of the morality, nor even in many cases of the real
amount of criminality, existing in a population. Laws vary in
different parts of the same country, and the statistics may show
a great amount of crinle in a particular locality, and this fact
may be only an evidence that the law is more rigorously enforced
in this place than in others.

Again, there are three classes of law-breakers, namely, those
who are convicted, those who are tried but escape conviction,
and those who do not in way come under the cognizance of
the c6urts. The criminals so carefully studied by the crimin-
ologists are only those offenders who had not wil enough to
escape the law officers, and thus the amount of criminality is
in some degree dependent on the sagacity and faithfulness of
those who are charged with the enforcement of the law. It
may be questioned whether society suffers more injury at the
hands of the first class than it does at the hands of the third
class.

Students, therefore, who deal only with law-breakers of one
class need to be especially careful in drawing conclusions that
may apply to all classes of criminals, and the writings of
the Italian school are untrustworthy in the conclusions which
they suggest as well as in those which they expressly deduce.

Another singular fact in these works is that the moral re-
sponsibility of the criminal is ignored. The only purpose for
which many statistics are arrayed seems to be to prove that
crime is a matter of weather, physical health, or insanitary
and unfavorable economic conditions ; but the degree of con-
trol which an individual exercises over his own actions is left
almost entirely out of accounts It is quite as rational to treat
human history without taking account of the human will as it
is to study the criminal without taking account of his power of
resolution. So far, therefore, as the scientific study of the pro-

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i897-} Juvenile Offenders, wj

blem of x:rime goes, the subject appears to be great in its pos-
sibilities rather than in its achievements.

THE WORK OF W. DOUGLAS MORRISON.

An interesting work, temperate in its statements and con-
servative in its conclusions, on Juvenile Offenders^ by W.
Douglas Morrison, has lately been issued in the Criminology
Series; earlier volumes of this same series treating of The
Female Offender^ by Lombroso and Ferrero. The work of
Mr. Morrison is free from many of the defects above noted,
but he almost entirely ignores the control which the individual
exercises over his own actions. Moral responsibility is the one
thing which gives crime its character, and no one will more
accurately discriminate between responsible and non-responsible
acts than the criminal himself. If external conditions are in-
voked to account for all the acts of the criminal, they may as
well be invoked to explain all the conscious acts of normal
individuals.

The problem of the juvenile offender is perhaps the most
important phase of the whole problem of crime. It Jias been
found on inquiry that the largest part of those who become
habitual criminals showed signs of criminal disposition in early
years. Our actions by repetition tend to become less amenable
to the control of the will and become habits or parts of our
constitution, and habits of crime may be acquired just as hab-
its of any kind may. It is of the highest importance, there-
fore, to study the conditions which prevail in the life of the
individual when he is at the parting of the ways, when he is
choosing between an honorable and useful career and a life of
crime. For it is perhaps within the experience of every one
to look back on the circumstances of his life and find a period
in which the presence or absence of some slight circumstance
would have resulted in great subsequent change. A small
amount of effort expended on juvenile criminals will accomplish
more than great effort expended on adults. All well-directed
efforts looking toward the prevention of crime must begin in
the time of youth. Mr. Morrison points out that statistics show
an undoubted increase in the number of habitual criminals,
and though it may appear from official figures in some coun-
tries that juvenile crime is not increasing, he shows that there
is good reason to believe that it is. It is his opinion also that,
in proportion to numbers, there is more crime in cities than in
sparsely populated districts. But this conclusion is disputed

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ii8 Juvenile Offenders. [April,

and it needs to be confirmed by more careful inquiries than
those whose results are at present available. He points out
how the growth of humane feeling on the part of the com-
munity, and especially of those charged with the administration
of justice, makes it difficult to estimate the tendencies of juve-
nile crime. After showing the extent and distribution of
juvenile crime, he discusses it in its relations to the sex and
age of the offenders. Then follows in separate chapters an ac-
count of the physical, mental, parental, and economic condi-
tions of juvenile delinquents. This part naturally contains an
inquiry into the causes of the evil.

NOT PHYSICAL DEFECT SO MUCH AS ECONOMIC CONDITION A
PREDISPOSING CAUSE OF CRIME.

There hardly seems to be reason to believe, from results
thus far obtained, that there is any correlation between physi-
cal defect and disposition to criminality, and there certainly
has been no ground shown for asserting that physical defect
constitutes any presumption of criminality. It might be true
that physical defects would be found associated in criminal
children in larger proportion than in normal children — though
comparisons are not made often enough to give these results
any value — but even this fact would not prove any causal con-
nection. The attempt to prove that moral delinquency is always
accompanied by some form of physical degeneration is an in-
teresting theme, but it does not help us in our knowledge of
the criminal or how to deal with him.

Economic conditions enter more largely as a factor among
the predisposing causes to crime. This is true more especially
in regard to offences against property. But the important
cause of juvenile crime is the lack of moral training. This may
come from loss of one or both parents, or from neglect of
parents in the discharge of their duties towards their children.
Juvenile delinquents show a large percentage of orphan chil-
dren. There are more who have lost fathers than there are
who have lost mothers. The moral faculties stand in need of
training as well as the physical or mental faculties, and if a
child is left in conditions where in the days of his early youth
he is subjected to evil influences, it cannot be expected that
he will develop the moral sense he possesses. We find that
children can receive a good moral training in the poorest
economic surroundings. And children born in the most favora-
ble economic conditions are quite likely to be law-breakers if

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1 897.] Ju VENILE Offenders. i i 9

their moral sense is not developed. Lack of moral training
will be found to be a predisposing cause of more importance
than any other in most forms of juvenile crime.

It follows, then, that among all the ways of treating juvenile
delinquency there is none of more importance than appealing
to the sense of right and the power of will possessed by the
<:hild. The strengthening of the moral resolve should be the
aim of the treatment of the offender, so far as the prevention
of future crime and the offender's own welfare are aimed at.
Mr. Morrison, in the second part of his book, discusses the
various methods of treating juvenile delinquency, namely, by
admonition, fining, corporal punishment, and imprisonment, with
^ concluding chapter on corrective institutions. The utilitarian
view of punishment is adopted. But do we not find that the
prisoner's own sense of equity demands his punishment ? And
-do we not often find that children who fail to receive punish-
ment for their offences soon lose their fine sense of justice?
The more philosophical view to take of punishment is, that the
prisoner's own welfare, and not merely social utility, demands
it.* The severity of punishments in other days also was not
altogether the result of lack of humane spirit, but it was in
some degree the expression of the detestation which society
had for the act of which the criminal was guilty. It is unfor-
tunate that many persons seem disposed to estimate the injury
done by crime by the amount it costs. The real evil, so far
as crime is an indication of it, is the deterioration of the moral
fibre of the people.

THE APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE.

Mr. Morrison, as we have noted, fails to insist on the
strengthening of the child's will-power and the appeal to con-
science, and seems to think that the abolition of crime is a
matter of improving the conditions in which the child is found.
** To build hospitals will relieve sufferings, but cannot cure dis-
ease." The implication is that " improved conditions " will make
hospitals superfluous, and " improved conditions " will cause
crime to cease. But it seems likely that so long as death is in-
evitable hospitals are likely to be useful, and so it is likely
that crime will exist so long as beings possessed of moral
freedom fail to act in conformity with the expressions of social
will.

In dealing with youthful criminals the best measure is re-

•See article in International Journal of Ethics iQX October, 1896, on " Hegel's Theory of
Punishment."

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I20 Juvenile Offenders. [April.

moval from vicious surroundings whenever practicable. If a
suitable home-life can be provided, it is by all means^ the best
thing for the child, for nothing takes the place of the influence
of a good home. But the great practical difficulties in the way
are best known to those who deal with the problem of juvenile
crime. Those who criticise the institution method of treating
dependent and delinquent children often overlook two things*
The first is the great difficulty in the way of realizing an ideal,
and oftentimes the impossibility of such realization. Denuncia^
tion comes easy, and, as the philosopher Hobbes said, it hath a
great appearance bl justice ; and often those who clamor for
what they think ought to be, fail to ask themselves, are matters-
as well as they can be? The second thing overlooked is the
vast improvement that a child's condition undergoes when it is
taken from vicious surroundings and placed under other care*
The evils of the "absolute dependence upon and conformity to
rule," supposed to be required of children in corrective institu-
tions, are much exaggerated. In no institution in the country,
perhaps, is this dependence and conformity so rigorously re-
quired as at the military academy at West Point, but we never
hear that it has any evil effects on the lives of the young
men.

This work of Mr. Morrison's is not only instructive, but, un-
like much of the literature appearing as criminal anthropology,,
it is respectable as well. There is a branch of criminology
which might not inappropriately be styled the science of ob-
scenity. It is not a healthy sign that some species of abnormal
phenomena should be made the subject-matter of scientific in-
vestigation and minute analysis. Writers on degeneration have
failed to note that interest in certain kinds of scientific pursuits
may be itself the most convincing evidence of degeneration.
Elaborate monographs on such subjects do not serve any pur-
poses of practical utility, nor do they contribute to our knowl-
edge, and interest in such topics does not seem to be compatible
with sound, healthy instincts.

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eulogy of the ungovernable apostate monk the author seeks to
load his subject ; the testimony he bears to his violent, wayward
character and Thersites tongue, no less than to the manifold
shifts and tergiversations, makes the picture so grotesque and
repulsive as to destroy every claim to respect. We have not
the slightest fear that such presentation as it makes of the so-
called reformer's claims can have any effect but that of strength-
ening the faith of even the most wavering, provided they have
still left the grace of sound judgment and the most elementary
conception of good taste. As a study in some phases of Ger-
man intellect the book is curious. Coarseness of the swineherd
level, puerility of the most childish sort, fantastic buffoonery,
horse-play logic, spitfire scurrility — these were the weapons with
which this sublimated figure of the Reformation sought to win hi3
cause, when he appealed to the hearts of the vulgar. Some
parts of the narrative give one a feeling of nausea, and leave
no room for wonder why the term ** hogs '* is sometimes used
to designate certain elements in our fleeting show. On the same
principle as the spectacle of a drunken slave was made to serve
a useful purpose in Sparta, we would desire a wide circulation of
this laudation of Martin Luther by his friendly biographer, and
the immediate issue of a popular edition at a low figure.

It is now place aux dames in the field of American Catholic
literature. From the press of McBride & Co. we have now to
hand an admirable compendium f of both biography and speci-
mens of work, showing how prolific is the American soil in the
production of women of more than average literary ability. The
array presented will doubtless astonish many ; it is, in fact, a

* Martin Luther. By Gustav Freytag. Translated by Henry E. O. Heinemann.
Chicago : The Open Court Publishing Co.

^ Immortelles of Catholic Columbian Literature. By M. Serafine, O.S.U.

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122 Talk about New Books. [April,

galaxy. To the Ursulines of .New York the public are indebted
for this admirable collation, and they will be felicitated upon
the acumen and judgment they have displayed in all the work.
No fewer than sixty-three authors are here recalled to public
attention, but the names of a fair proportion of these are
tolerably familiar to present-day readers. Portraits accompany
the biographical sketches in many cases ; and the sketches are
usually short and business-like. The idea of collecting the
women writers originated in the Columbian Reading Union, but
the credit of giving it practical embodiment belongs to the
Ursuline Sisterhood. They have thereby conferred a distinct
boon upon the reading public. In a green-and-gold cover of
handsome design, the book is finely presented by the publishers,
and the numerous portraits embraced in it are elegantly repro-
duced in many cases, but not all.

A new treatise on Logic and Metaphysics'^ by the eminent
teacher, Rev. Louis Jouin, of Fordham College, has just been
published. The salient features are its admirable conciseness
of statement and its orderly arrangement of parts. The chief
difficulty which confronts all students is the too frequent loose-
ness of definition of terms. Here there is no vagueness ; all
materials for the intellectual edifice to be reared are delivered as
they are wanted, each piece ticketed and identified so that the
builder can hardly fall into a mistake. Truth, as expounded in
the philosophy of St. Thomas, is the basis of the reasoning
presented, and the simplicity of the forms, the condensation of
the thought, and the perfect fit of the terms in which the
lessons are conveyed are the great recommendations of this
excellent manual. Father Jouin*s standing as a teacher, and
the favor which previous treatises from his pen have woni
justify the anticipation that this work must also be eagerly
sought after by philosophical and theological students.

The activity of the distinguished Vaughan family in religion
is again marked by the appearance of a notable book by one
of its numerous members, the Right Rev. Monsignor John S.
Vaughan. It is a volume of essays on profound spiritual sub-
jects, the nature and attributes of the Deity, the mysteries of
the Trinity and the Eucharist, the means of grace, the moral
virtues, and affiliated subjects, grouped under the title Thoughts
for all Times,\ A preface from the pen of the accomplished

^ Logic and Metaphysics, By the Rev. Louis Jouin, S.J., Professor of Philosophy, St.
John's College, Fordham, N. Y. (St. John's College Press.)

t Thoughts for all Times. By the Right Rev. Monsignor John S. Vaughan. London :
Roxburghe Press ; New York : Benziger Brothers.

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i897-] Talk about New Books. 123

litterateur^ Bishop Hedley, commends the work to the reader's
attention in terms of warm appreciation, but a perusal of any
one of the themes treated will easily convince the reader that
this introduction is one drawn forth from the genuine merit of
the writing solely, and not by mere friendship for the writer.
The style of the work is eminently calculated to arrest the at-
tention, the strength and solidity of its reasoning being clothed
in a classic grace of language such as always helps the tasteful
mind to an appreciation of the matter discussed. For, indeed,
we cannot help thinking that many a noble thought fails to'
strike root from the fact of its being presented in an uncouth
and slovenly garb of diction. The book is from the Roxburghe
Press, London, and is a good specimen of its output.

As ''society" in Ireland speaks of its "only duke," so so-
ciety in America may boast of its " only countess." Mrs. James
D. Mackin is the lady who rejoices in this unique distinction ;
and her title comes to her in a way which is not repellent to
American tastes. It was not- derived through ancestors — the re-
ward in their case, mayhap, of questionable services in politics
or obsequious tuft-hunting in times past — but was conferred on
herself by the Holy Father, in the same spirit as he bestows
the Golden Rose on distinguished ladies of high rank, in recog-
nition of exceptional claims to pre-eminence in virtue and noble
example in well-doing. We are prone to associate the idea of
" society " with a line of life at variance with Christian ideals ;
but we have many illustrious paradigms to the contrary.
When the heart is sound and pure, the follies and frivolities of
society can have little influence for evil upon it ; and here is a
notable case in point. Mrs. Mackin is an American lady of the
type which has made American ladies famous. Frank, joyous,
unaffected, unsuspecting, full of spirits, courage, and the im-
plicit self-reliance which makes the American woman respected
the world over, we find her going forth into the world at an
early age, desirous of seeing it for herself, and judging of it by
her own eyes and sense; and we find her so little impressed
with its false glitter and fashionable hollow-heartedness that she
can still keep her place in society while winning a world-wide
reputation for charitable deeds, and undergoing that profound
mental change which has led her into the bosom of the Catholic
Church. This was the singularity which, no doubt, inspired the
Holy Father with the idea of decorating her with the distinc-
tion which he has lately conferred upon her. It is in further-
ance of her charitable work that Mrs. Mackin now gives to the

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124 Talk about New Books. LApril,

world a book of her reminiscences ; and, we have no doubt, its
pages will be eagerly perused by her fair country-women, for
in many aspects they present attractions to them such as are
not visible to the mind's eye of the sterner sex.

One of the most amusing foibles of "society" is the weak-
ness of letting the outside vulgar know all about its great little
doings, in the way of balls and hunts and cotillons, by means
of the newspaper, while scrupulously careful to exclude any
representative of the class it desires to read these accounts from
its own charmed circle. There is no small snobbery of this
kind about Mrs. Mackin's book.* She probably never would
have published it were it not that she has been pressed to do
so, and she does so now only in the hope of realizing something
from its sale wherewith to help on her charitable work. She is
no aspirant for literary fame, nor is her book anything more
profound than a dashing sort of review of a varied and dazzling
life, in whose panoramic survey move many men and women
who have figured in great historical transactions of the past
quarter of a century. Some of these are put off in a way which
loses nothing by its terseness. There is also a considerable spice
of esprit occasionally in the anecdotes which reveals the fact that
" society " is not always the stupid atmosphere which its occasion-
ally inane doings would lead one to infer. There is a suspicious
soupgon of satire, too, in some of her remarks about some prominent
society folks. Of Mr. Chauncey M. Depew she says, for instance :

" He is so amiable that it is not possible for him to say
' no,' not even when solicited for railway passes. Instead he
impresses upon his private secretary, whose province it is to
dispense them, the importance and necessity of learning when
to say *no' with decision and beyond the question, of appeal."

We. can imagine how thoroughly an observer of this arch
kind enjoyed the scene she thus describes in a chapter on New
York " society " :

" My first introduction to Mr. Ward McAllister, the auto-
crat of drawing-rooms, was at a ball of the Patriarchs in New
York. He was standing at the entrance of Delmonico*s ball-
room in expectation of the arrival of an English lord. My
husband, being rather English in appearance, Mr. McAllister
made the mistake of thinking that he was the person expected,
and it was not until the arrival of the real lord that the error
was discovered. In the meantime I had made the tour of the
ball-room upon his arm, and he had paid to my Doucet gown
of yellow satin and tulle and bouquet of orchids one of his

* A Society Woman on Two Continents. By Sally Britton Spottiswood Mackin (Mrs,
James Mackin), a Daughter of the American Revolution. New York and London : Conti-
nental Publishing Co.

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i897-] Talk about New Books. 125

courtly compliments. I do not think that Mr. McAllister ever
quite forgave us this mistake of his, for although it was his
theory that * society should always be fooled/ he evidently did
not like to experience in practice what he preached."

There are passages in the book which make us feel regret-
fully that even for a woman of Mrs. Mackin's strength of
mind the spells of "society," especially in England, are suffi-
cient to overmaster the purer spirit of Americanism, and that
the smile of royalty is a talisman to overcome even hearts
which are capable of heroism and self-sacrifice. Who can be
hard upon a lady, however, when we find even the strongest-
minded men yielding to this dangerous influence, and, like Mr.
Bayard, risking the good opinion of their own people and their
own reputation for self-respect for the sake of favor at St.
James's. When, therefore, she describes tjie privilege of an
American lady being able to courtesy at the same time before
Queen Victoria and the Prince and Princess of Wales, at a
Buckingham Palace function, as a fact to fill one's qup of bliss
"to the brim and running over," we can understand the ex-
clamation of Hamlet, " O frailty, thy name is woman ! " The
appearance of the passage in the book reveals one consoling
fact, however : Mrs. Mackin has the courage of her vanity.
She makes no mawkish excuses for her attachment to those
glittering pomps, but gives her feelings as frankly with regard
to them as to any other experiences in her brilliant pursuit of
pleasure all over the world.

Mrs. Mackin spent much time in Rome (where she was re-
ceived into the church) and had the honor of an audience
with the Holy Father. It was a decisive event for her, and
her own account of it gives us a flash-light glimpse of the
wonderful power and irresistible magnetism of the august occu-
pant of the Chair of Peter. Her description of the interview is
worth giving almost in full. She writes:

"Through the vista of the open doorway is seen His Holi-
ness approaching. He is clad in the traditional white vesture
worn by the popes, cassock, cincture, rochet, hood, white beret-
ta (skull-cap), sometimes called soli Deo — to God alone — ^which
means that it is never removed except in genuflecting to the
Blessed Sacrament. His stockings are white ; the embroidered
shoes alone are red, with' a golden cross. He wears the
bishop's pectoral cross, and upon his finger is the Ring of the
Fisherman. He seats himself in the throne chair, over which is
thrown a crimson mantle, which makes a most effective back-
ground to the white-robed figure. On his shoulders rest a
scarlet cape edged with ermine. The splendid portrait at the
Annual Loan Exhibition of the Academy of National Design

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126 Talk about New Books. [April,

is a most faithful portrayal of Pope Leo XIII. at his recep-
tions of state.

" The master of ceremonies stands at his side and presents
all, and whispers who they are, and whence and why they
come. A husband and wife are presented together, sometimes
an entire family, group are introduced. All reverently kiss the
hand extended, upon which is the Ring of the Fisherman, and
many the cross upon his slippered foot. To every one he says
kindly, loving words that betoken special interest ; to Americans
he is particularly gracious and cordial.

" He is very pale, almost ethereal ; his face is spiritual,
Christ-like in its gentleness and benignity, his smile is divine.
The sparkle of his eyes is inextinguishable in its fire and cour-
age. To me he spoke in French, and his voice was slightly
tremulous, which made him even more impressive.

** He asked me * if it was my first visit and if I enjoyed
Rome * ? When I told him that I resided in the vicinity of
New York when in- America, he said: 'Then you must know
Archbishop Corrigan ' ? and when I answered * no,' he said :
* Upon your return to New York you must make his acquain-
tance, by taking to him my greeting.' The Holy Father then
asked me *if I were a Catholic'? 1 replied * no.' Turning%o
his chamberlain on one side of him he said, ' What a pity she
is not a Catholic,' and again turning to a chamberlain on the
other side he said, in tones that were tremulous to pathos :
' What a pity she is not a Catholic. We must pray for her.'
Then placing his hands upon my head he bestowed upon me
the Pontifical Benediction.

" Since childhood, from conviction I had been a Catholic.
Many times I had been on the verge of asking to be received
into the church, but the opposition of my family, particularly
of my mother, had deterred me. Cardinals, archbishops, pre-
lates, and priests, the Count de Paris and Catholic friends, had
argued the subject with me unavailingly. I was ever remote
from decision; but the words of the Holy Father appealed to
me, and resolved me to action.

" From the Vatican I went to his Eminence Cardinal
Macchi, to whom I had presented a letter from the Nonce
Apostolique of Paris. I told him of my resolution, but that in
order to do nothing upon the impulse of the moment I would
again return to America and consult with my family; but that
in any case I would come to Rome at Easter to be received
into the Church.

"The Holy Father had opened for me my eyes, and made
me realize that in the question of one's soul's salvation no
human influence should interpose. * For he that loveth his
father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me,* are the
inspired words of the Gospel, as are also *And whosoever doth
not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be my disciple.*
If opposition was to be my cross I must not shrink from bear-
ing it, but like a miracle, certainly by the special grace of God,
my family accepted the situation, and it will ever be my regret

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I897-] Talk about New Books. 127

that at sixteen, when first I openly expressed the desire to be-
come a Romaji Catholic, I did not act with decision and
promptitude; and I cannot but feel that in my thanksgiving of
this year I should mingle the deepest gratitude to His Holiness
for his words, that seemed almost an inspiration and that led to
such a joyful consummation."

Mrs. Mackin had the advantage in her youth of being edu-
cated in a Kentucky convent, and she never lost the impres-
sion which the demeanor and system of the nuns who con-
ducted the establishment left upon her mind. She refers to
this very vividly in the beginning of her work; also to the
lasting influences of contact with Bishop Spalding, Archbishop
Corrigan, Monsignor O'Reilly, and other prominent prelates and
priests of America in early days, at the examination exercises
and fites. Her conversion is a remarkable piece of testimony
to the benefit of the free mingling of people of different de-
nominations in social life, as contrasted with the old tradition of
maintaining an eternal wall of reserve and distrust between
Catholics and non-Catholics ; and its moral ought not to be lost
sight of.

The book is handsomely turned out by the publishers. It
contains many fine plates, including a portrait of the author.
It is dedicated to Cardinal Macchi, and it is ushered in with a
brief word of commendation from Monsignor Bernard O'Reilly.

We cannot recall any book that so fully enters into the
sublimity of the thoughts that the supreme sacrifice of the
Mass inspires as the English version of Father Chaignon's La
Pritre h PAutel, This work is now given us by the Right
Rev. Dr. Goesbriand, Bishop of Burlington, Vt., under the title
of The Sacrifice of the Mass worthily Celebrated* In the words
of his own preface to the work, we can devoutly say to all
priests who read it " Tolle, lege.** The sentiments put forth
are expressed in a strain of purest appropriateness, and the
appeals made to one's judgment, heart, and conscience are such
as not even the most sluggish can withstand. To layman no
less than priest we can indeed most heartily commend this
volume, as the sacred character of our great Catholic mystery
is so lofty that one can never have too great an illumination
of its meaning and grace, nor lose any opportunity of increas-
ing the reverence of all hearts for its touching symbolism and
intense reality of love.

♦ The Sacrifice of the Mass worthily Celebrated, From the French of the Rev. Father
Cfaai^on, S.J. By Right Rev. L. de Goesbriand, D.D., Bishop of Burlington, Vt. New
York^: Benziger Brothers.

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commanded wide attention. Such a congress will serve to
cement the bonds of union between American and European
scholars. While we have not a little to learn from the intellec-
tual men of Catholic Europe, with their deep scholarship and
thorough-going methods of research, it will not be without its
good results if they can come closer to the energy and breadth
of the intellectual life of the western world.

At a great mass meeting in New York City, under the
auspices of Archbishop Corrigan, to revoice the social attitude
of the Holy Father on the Labor Question and the betterment
of the masses, a striking point was made in the resolution which
said : " Hence we Catholics again and again remind our fellow-
citizens that our contribution to better citizenship in the City
of New York is the education of 34,000 of the children accord-
ing to the highest ideals of Christian citizenship without one
penny of expense to the city's purse."

We cannot reiterate this fact too often, nor keep it too much
in evidence. It is undoubtedly true that, were it not for the
vigorous Christianity infused into the seven hundred thousand
children who are being educated in the Christian schools of the
country, the admixture of supernatural religion would become
so diluted that it would not be felt in the blood of the body
politic. Where there is no supernatural religion morality means
convenience, politeness, " don't get found out," or anything else
that will thrive without the stern dictate of an admonishing
conscience or the all-seeing eye of the Master.-

♦

A relief from the constant spectacle of the sordid rush and
scramble of a commercial age is to be found in the wonderful
Celtic revival now in progress. It is like stepping into a strange
and beautiful realm of the unearthly to be taken back in fancy
into the world of the forgotten Celt, and behold the re-enacting
of the great epics of the past. An afflatus of Celticism is now

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1897.] Editorial Notes. 129

sweeping over Ireland, and the literature, the music, the romance
of the bardic days is being diligently sought after and brought
forth into the light of day by gifted enthusiasts from all parts
of erudite Europe. An additional impetus will be furnished this
year by a celebration bearing the Gaelic name of an OireuchtaSy
which it is proposed to hold in Dublin on the 17th of May next.
It will be a feast of literature and song, and in order to stimulate
effort toward its success the Gaelic League, who have promoted
it, have offered many valuable prizes for excellence in original
composition in both departments of art. It is intended that
this movement shall mark the beginning of a great Irish revival,
so as to lead to the organization of a great annual celebration
like the Welsh Eistedfodd. The committee of the Gaelic
League, of which Dr. Douglas Hyde is president, make an ear-
nest appeal for the support of their countrymen everywhere in
this most commendable undertaking, and there could hardly be
a more patriotic object, for as the decay of Irish language and
literature corresponded with the decay of the country's freedom,
so its revival may mark the beginning of a new and hopeful era
in her political fortunes.

VOL. LXV.-^9

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I30 Authentic Sketches of [April,

AUTHENTIC SKETCHES OF LIVING CATHOLIC

AUTHORS.

One of the most prolific of Catholic American writers is
Mr. L. W. Reilly, who for twenty years has been a regular
contributor to newspapers and magazines.

He was born in New York City in December, 1853, and
was baptized in St. Peter's Church, in Barclay Street. He was
educated partly in the academy of the Christian brothers, in
West Thirty-second Street, and partly in the college of St.
Francis Xavier, in West Sixteenth Street.

A hardness of hearing that
had crept upon him in the
wake of a cold shortly after he
had entered his teens kept him
out of the ambition of his
youth — an ecclesiastical career.
He early showed literary ap-
titudes, which were fostered by
wide reading in belles-lettres
and by persistent practice in
composition. His first contri-
bution to any paper was a
poem in the Danbury News,

He became editor of the

Catholic Mirror in May, 1876,

and held that position until

L. w. reillv. January, 1883, when ill-health

drove him to Florida. While
he was in charge of that paper it published a series of leaders
in favor of the establishment of a Catholic American Univer-
sity, which were widely noticed ; an editorial protest against
the bewildering multiplication of catechisms, which led to the
preparation of the Plenary Council Catechism ; and other ar-
tides which had their due effect, and extended the influence
of the paper far beyond the province of Baltimore.

Early in 1885 he was offered the editorship of the Catholic
Columbian^ of Columbus, O., and to the service of that paper
he devoted about five years, made up of three engagements

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1 897.] Living Ca tholic A uthors. i 3 1

broken by sickness. During his connection with it it printed a
number of leaders against Judge Atherton, who was a candi-
date for the Supreme Court of Ohio and who had once de-
clared that the Irish and the Catholics were an incubus on the
Democratic party ; a series of papers on civil and religious
liberty exposing and refuting the forged ** encyclical " issued by
the A. P. A. ; a succession of chats with young men ; a set of
editorials against the compulsory attendance of the Catholic
prisoners in the Ohio Penitentiary at the Protestant religious
services conducted therein by the Methodist chaplain, etc.

In 1887 he became associate editor of the Catholic Review^
and while the late P. V. Hickey was in Rome for the Pope's
Jubilee he conducted both that paper and the Catholic Ameri-
can. Ill-health again forced him to resign, to his own and to
his employer's regret. When the latter was about to die he
offered Mr. Reilly the editorship of his publications, with the
assurance of a life position. This offer was, by advice of the
late Dr. Murphy of Washington, reluctantly declined.

He does regular work for six Catholic papers and con-
tributes occasionally to several others, and has been a prolific
contributor to the various magazines as well as secular papers.

He has done more work anonymously for which others have
gotten the credit, and produced more ** copy," probably, than
any other writer now connected with the Catholic press in the
United States. His short stories alone would, if collected, fill
half a dozen volumes.

He translated from the French two books, The Catechism of
the Vows and The Principles of the Religious Life (John B.
Piet, Baltimore); he contributed to the American edition of
The Catholic Dictionary ; he wrote the introduction to The Life
of Mother Seton and the preface to Father Ryan's poems ; and
he has had articles in every prominent Catholic periodical in
the United States with one exception, and to that one he has
never submitted a manuscript.

At the celebration of its golden jubilee, Notre Dame Uni-
versity conferred on him its degree of A.M. honoris causa.

He married in 1884 Miss Rose Clare Mapes, a daughter of
Captain and Mrs. William H. Mapes, of the United States
Coast Survey. The wedding took place in St. Peter's Church,
Washington, D. C, at a nuptial Mass celebrated by Father J.
O'SuUivan, afterwards Bishop of Mobile. He has had six chil-
dren, of whom four daughters and one son are living.

On a hillside with a wide prospect, surrounded with woods.

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132 Authentic Sketches of [April,

far from the noise and smoke of town, he passes his days like
the envied shepherd of Virgil or the first co-laborers of the
Edinburgh Review^ who chose this for their motto : " We cul-
tivate the muses on a little oat-meal."

Thomas F. Galwev was born in England in 1846 of an
Irish family, one of the oldest branches of the " Burkes of
Galway/* He was brought up by his parents in Ohio, where
he received the elements of his education. While still a boy
the Civil War broke out and he at once enlisted, taking part

during nearly four years in
very hard active service, parti-
cipating in many of the bloodi-
est conflicts of that struggle,
and being many times more
or less seriously wounded.
His general military record was
such as to obtain for him a
ready election to the New York
Commandery of the Military
Order of the Loyal Legion.

His name is associated
with but one book, a trans-
lation from the French of
Paul F^val's /^suites / pub-
lished nearly twenty years ago.
Thomas f. Galwev. He contributed a number of

articles to the Catholic Diction-
ary, published by Kegan Paul, JTrench & Co., of London, of
which he was the editor of the American edition, and he trans-
lated years ago for the Catholic Publication Society Co.
Deharbe's Catechisms from the German. For the Catholic
Annual^ also, of the same publishers he wrote many articles in
the course of years during which itiappeared.

In 1879 he became the editor of the Catholic Telegraph
of Cincinnati, in 1880 he was made associate editor of The
Catholic World Magazine with the late Father Hccker, but
in 1884 a" old wound bringing on a complication of troubles
and a Southern climate having been advised for him, he ac-
cepted the offer of the editorship of a new weekly paper in
Galveston, the Texas Monitor, At the end of a year he re-
turned to the North, and for some time was a contributor to
New York dailies. He was professor of logic and of French

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I897-] Living Catholic Authors. 133

literature and Latin in Manhattan College for about six years,
when another outbreak of his wounds necessitated a period
of idleness, after which he accepted a place in the civil ser-
vice of the City of New York. He is now the attorney of
the Street Cleaning Department of New York.

To The Catholic World and to other publications he has
contributed a number of stories illustrating incidents of the
march, the camp, and the battle-field in the Civil War. In the
recent years he has been an editorial writer for the Catholic
Review of New York and the Catholic Standard, and the Catho-
lic Standard and Times of Philadelphia, and has also contri-
buted to the American Catholic Quarterly Review of Philadel-
phia.

Anna Elizabeth Buchanan is known as a writer of
magazine articles and short stories of very considerable merit.
She was born in British North America of pious Episcopalian
parents, and her life was passed in England and Scotland under
Protestant supervision. Her marriage in Scotland to a Bucha-
nan of Glenny was but short-
lived ; she early became a
widow with one son. In 1878,
then a staunch member of the
English Church Union and of
the "Order of Reparation to
the Blessed Sacrament " in
that church, she surprised
and angered her relatives and
friends by renouncing that
faith. The shock of the death
of her beloved brother, the
Rev. Edwin Roper Martin
(that indefatigable priest of
Newnham Paddox and Lutter-
worth), caused the conversion

for which he had so ardently anna Elizabeth Buchanan.

longed. The Faith was " her

brother's legacy," as Lady Georgiana Fullerton beautifully ex-
pressed it. He who had been cut off his earthly inheritance
when he became a Catholic left his sister an inheritance which
she says she has found to be of such amazing worth that no
amount of earthly wealth can approach it. With Lady Den-
bigh as her godmother, she was received at the Oratory of

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1 34 Living Ca tholic A uthors. [April,

St. Philip Neri in 1879, ^"^ after a visit to Rome she re-
turned with the Holy Father's blessing and was confirmed in
Cardinal Manning's chapel.

Anna E. Buchanan's greatest grief now was her son's separa-
tion from her. He wandered about as a sheep without a shepherd
for eighteen long months (a time never to be forgotten, she
says, by either of them), and when he was about to return to
Oxford, to graduate, to the great joy of his mother he em-
braced the faith and knelt by her side on his nineteenth birth-
day in St. Augustine's Church, Tunbridge Wells, at Mass for
the first time.

On the south side of the city of Glasgow, Scotland, is the
Episcopal church, St. Ninian's. This mission was started in
Buchanan Court through the instrumentality of Anna E.
Buchanan, and it has been an invaluable aid to that side of the
city. The same zeal was not wanting as a convert ; but now
loss of means pressed heavily upon a delicate frame, and also
interfered with her plans for her son's future welfare. Still, in
Kent there stands a monument of the grace that brought her
into the fold, for no sooner had she adopted the faith than
she was called to found a mission where in vain two previous
bishops of Southwark had attempted it, and to whoever should
succeed in founding it each one left his dying blessing.

A voyage to this country being the only alternative when
dispossessed of their means, Anna Elizabeth Buchanan and
her son came to the new world in 1887; hence the opportunity
we have had of placing her name upon the roll of Catholic
women writers of America.

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1897.] What the Thinkers Say. 135

WHAT THE THINKERS SAY.

CARDINAL VAUGHAN ON EDUCATION.

In acknowledging an address presented to him by the Catholics of Derby
Cardinal Vaughan (as reported by the Birmingham Daily Post) said the
motives of their action in the struggle for just treatment of their schools, and
also of their opponents, lay below the horizon. It was well that at times they;
should enunciate them without circumlocution, without fear, and without hesita-
tion. It was because they believed in the g^eat Founder of Christianity, and
were determined, as Catholics, to obey his precepts, and to train their children as
true children of the Father, that they acted as they did. It was whilst the child
was young that they must have it thoroughly instructed in Christian doctrine.
This was a question affecting not only the home and the individnal, but the wel-
fare of the nation as a whole. They lived not in a state of barbarism, but of
Christian civilization, and all that was good and great and noble in that civiliza-
tion they owed to Christianity alone.

They were determined, therefore, that there should be no divorce between
religion and education. It was interesting to see who were their opponents. He
was willing to admit that they were thoroughly earnest men, and that, although
they were opposing this poor dole, they were not actuated by mercenary or sordid
motives. First of all there were the Agnostics, then there were the Deists, and,
finally, the Unitarians or Socinians. He should no doubt be told that there were
vast numbers of Nonconformists who belonged to none of these categories, but
who were honest and sincere in their Christian professions. These men, how-
ever, utterly failed to grasp the Catholic position. He was constantly asked how
it was that Catholics could not be satisfied with the school board system. It
was because school boards, as at present formulated, were incompetent to hand
down Christianity to the coming generation that they dare not expose their chil-
dren to the loss of that which was their greatest treasure by sending them to the
board schools. The church to which they belonged stood by her artcient tradi-
tions and her own definitions. She asked for nothing that she was not willing to
grant to others ; but as to the justice and righteousness of her own demands, she
had no doubt whatever. But even if she stood alone, she was determined that
there should be no giving way in this matter. After all, what was there that a
fair-minded man could object to in their demands ? They were based on justice
and equality, and in the present day, when all were declared equal before the law,
they would not plead in vain. The situation at present was most unequal. The
Catholics were educating their own children, and were contributing af the same
time to the maintenance of the board schools, to which they would not send their
children, even if they had the chance, because they did not really trust them or
their system to do that for the children which they as Catholics had a right to
expect. They allowed all others the same rights that they were asking for them-
selves. They said to the Wesleyans, the Baptists, and the other Nonconformist
bodies, " We are quite willing that you should build your own schools, and give
your children the same educational privileges that we have, and we shall be
happy to contribute towards their maintenance if you take the matter in hand as
we have done." But they demanded, with all the force that they could command,
that they should have the rights which justice and honesty proclaimed to be theirs.

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136 What the Thinkers Say. [April,

THE PAPACY AND THE POWERS.
(From the Literary Digest,)

The great age of Pope Leo XIII. renders his sudden death very probable,
and the world was not surprised at the report (since contradicted at the Vatican)
that he had been found in an unconscious condition by his physicians and attend-
ants. The certainty that his successor will have to be elected in the near future
has raised the question, to what extent the Catholic nations have a voice in such
elections. The answer comes promptly and firmly — None ! The Catholic Church
asserts that it will brook no interference since it no longer receives protection.
The Irish Catholic, Dublin, in a lengthy article expresses itself to the following
effect : " A member of the Sacred College spoke as follows :

" ' The veto subsisted by virtue of a pact according to which certciin Catholic
states bound themselves to the defence of the Church and Papacy, and received in
return certain privileges and indulgences. Among these was the privilege of veto,
which may be considered as the fie plus ultra of the concessions that could be
granted to friendly and protecting potentates. Now, however, the states no lon-
ger defend the Church or the Papacy ; thus the veto would have to be considered
informally done away with. But it has been even formally abolished. At the
last conclave the representatives of the Catholic powers were given to understand,
in the most unmistakable manner, that no interference on the part of the state
would be tolerated.'

" The filling of the papal chair is not, therefore, a matter which the intrigues
or influences of any continental powers can affect, although it was not so long ago
that the ancient right of veto was sought to be exercised. When Pius IX. was
elected Pope the Emperor of Austria sought to exercise the veto long conceded
to his predecessors. When, however, the imperial messenger reached Rome the
conclave was over and the great and saintly pontiff chosen. To-day the right of
veto, if the right Q,2Ji ever be said to have existed, has perished through the recre-
ancy of those who once possessed it. The cardinal whose views we have already
quoted said :

" ' Before Europe was filled with constitutionally governed states the Papacy
had to deal with the all-potent political personality of monarchs who represented
stability both of tenure and of policy. To-day the support which the church
might receive is less valuable, while the interest of states in a papal election has
much diminished. ... So determined are the cardinals to suffer no pressure,
that if they cannot hold the conclave at Rome without some attempt to influence
them, they will retire from Rome to some* more favorable place, which will give
them the absolute immunity and independence they desire.'"

THE STORY OF JONAH.

(From the Literary Digest.)

On the question of the authenticity of Matt. xii. 40 (*' For as Jonah was three
days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth ") ex-President Bartlett writes a
short note to the Independent^ which had affirmed in its editorial reply to Mr.
Moody that the historical accuracy of the passage " is a matter of very serious
doubt," this doubt, however, resting on " internal evidence purely." He says :

" The great critical editions of Tischendorf and Tregelles, which cite authori-
ties, both give the verse without a hint that it is wanting in any one of the hun-

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1 897-] What the Thinkers Say. 137

dreds of Greek manuscripts. They refer to it as also contained in the old ver-
sions of weight, the two Syriac, the Latin, and the Ethiopic. They also allude to
it as found in the Christian Fathers Irenaeus, Origen, Cyril, and Eusebius. The care-
ful text of Wescott and Hort contains it- Without a hint of a doubt. The English
and American revisers do the same. The recently discovered Diatessaron con-
tains it. and so do the recently found Syriac gospels. So far as appears, it is not
even accidentally omitted from any known authority. Thus on the grounds of
text criticism there is not a better authenticated text in the New Testament ; and
if this may be disputed on the ground of internal evidence purely, any and every
other verse may be rejected on the same ground.

" Moreover, so far from being apparently a gloss, its credit was so well estab-
lished that it was actually introduced as a gloss into Luke ii. 29-32 (the parallel
passage to which you refer) in one of the five great manuscripts (codex D), and in
three Latin manuscripts.

" I have thus briefly stated the facts as to the evidence for the genuineness of
the verse. It would be asking too much to request permission to show why I do
not deem the objections made from supposed internal evidence to carry weight in
themselves, and much less as against the acknowledged rules of text criticism."

ETHICAL CULTURE AND CHRISTIANITY.

(J, M. Law son in Great Thoughts.)

So far from there being a close resemblance, there is a wide gulf of variance,
which widens the more minutely we examine the two. They are creations of
different spheres. The one is earth-born, the other heaven-born. One is of
the flesh, the other of the spirit. One is self-made — of human manufacture — the
other is imparted from above. One is self-reliance on self-righteousness and self-
merit, the other looks away from self and is dependent on Christ for existence ;
in fact, it is the life hid in Christ. The two natures are distinctly and essentially
different. Take an illustration. Two ships lie at anchor in the harbor, the one a
sailing ship, the other a steamer. The sailor leaves the harbor for the ocean, and
with sails spread to catch the breeze glides beautifully along through the water
without apparent effort. Presently the wind slackens, ceases, there is a dead
calm, and the ship lies at rest, helpless, unable to proceed, drifted hither and
thither at the mercy of the waves. She is dependent on the wind, on her exter-
nal surroundings, for her impetus through the water. The steamer leaves the
harbor. She too glides through the water, cutting the waves with her bows. The
wind drops, changes, veers right round, but still she drives on right in the very
teeth of the wind. She is not dependent on the wind, on external surroundings,
for her motion. Down in the engine-room throbs the engine of propulsion.

So with the Christian. The moralist drifts along the ocean of life tossed
hither and thither by every wind that blows, helpless to buffet with the surging
billows of inbred sin, with no chart or compass to guide him, no stronger power
than self to protect or help him, making no progress towards spiritual goodness,
and finally wrecked on the hidden rocks of his own self-righteousness. The Chris-
tian, strong in the new-born life within his soul, and the new joy and new hope
within his bosom, breasts manfully the angry waves of sin, laughs at the tempests
of opposition and the mountainous billows of adversity, and in his new-found, in-
born power cries, " I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

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138 New Books. [April,

NEW BOOKS.

B. Herder, St. Louis :

Answers to Difficulties of the Bible, By Rev. John Thein, author of Ckris^
tian Anthropology,
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York :

The Liquor Problem in its Legislative Aspects, By Frederic H. Wines and
John Koren. An investigation made under the direction of Charles W.
Eliot, Seth Low, and James C. Carter, Sub-Committee of the Committee of
Fifty to investigate the Liquor Problem. The Chief End of Man, By
George S. Merriam.
Benziger Brothers, New York:

The Sacrifice of the Mass worthily Celebrated. From the French of the
Rev. Father Chaignon, S.J. By Right Rev. L. de Goesbriand, D.D.,
Bishop of Burlington, Vt. How to Make the Mission, By a Dominican
Father. New, revised edition. Popular Instructions to Parents on the
bringing up of their Children, By Very Rev. Ferreol Girardey, C.SS.R.,
Provincial of the St. Louis Province. Short Instruction for Every Sunday
of the Year and for the Principal Feasts, From the French by Rev.
Thomas F. Ward, Church of St. Charles Borromeo, Brooklyn, N. Y. His^
torical Sketch of the Church of St. Antony of Padua, Brooklyn, N, K.
With an account of the Rectorship of Rev. P. F. O'Hare. Published on
the occasion of his Silver Jubilee, March 19, 1897.
Christian Press Association Publishing Co., New York :

77/^? Church of the Living God. An Appeal to our Thinking and Reasonable
Fellow-Christians outside of the Catholic Church. By R. M. R.
The Werner Company, Chicago :

New American Supplement to the latest edition of the Encyclopcedia Br it an-
nica, A standard work of Reference in Art, Literature, Science, History,
Geography, Commerce, Biography, Discovery, and Invention. Edited
under the personal supervision of Day Otis Kellogg, D.D. Enriched by
many hundred special articles contributed by men and women of interna-
tional reputation. Vols. IL and IH.
IVhat Christ Revealed, By Rev. Louis Jouin, S.J., Professor of Ethics, St.
John's College, Fordham,'N. Y.
The Macmillan Company, New York:

About Catherine de* Medici. By H. de Balzac. Translated by Clara Bell,
with a preface by George Saintsbury.
Longmans. Green & Co., New York :

The New Obedience. A Plea for the Social Submission to Christ. By Wil-
liam Bayard Hale. Contributions to the Science of Mythology. By the
Right Honorable Professor F. Max Miiller, K.M., Member of the French
Institute. Vols. I. and II.
The Burrows Brothers Co., Cleveland, O.:

The Jesuit Relations, and Allied Documents. Edited by Reuben Gold
Thwaites. Vol. iv.: Acadia and Quebec, 1616-1629.
J. H. Yewdale & Sons Co., Milwaukee, Wis.:

The Harp of Milan. Shipperson.
Fleming H. Revell Co., New York:

Inebriety : Its Source, Prevention, and Cure. By Charles Follen Palmer,
Brother Lawrence. The Practice of the Presence of God the best Rule of
a Holy Life. Being conversations and letters of Nicholas Herman (Brother
Lawrence). Translated from the French.

• NEW PAMPHLETS.

Soci^T^ Belge de Libraire, Bruxelles:

For mules Utiles d' Arpentage et de Mesutage des Corps. Par le R. P. Lau-
rent McCarthy, des Freres Mineur Capucins de Belgique.
Ranch-CEmponte :

Argumenta contra Orientalem Ecclesiam ejusque Synodicam Encyclicam.
Anni MDCCCXCV.

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1 897-] The Columbian Reading Union. 139

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

SOME young men at Antigonish, Nova Scotia, have discovered that much valua-
ble time is wasted sitting on counters in the village store, loafing around
town, and exchanging local gossip on matters of little importance. They have
also decided that the reading of trashy newspapers is neither edifying nor instruc-
tive, and is therefore of no value for mental training and culture. Under the
guidance of the accomplished editor of the Casket, they have been encouraged to
write to the Columbian Reading Union, and to form a club for the discussion of
an author, a social question, some leading event or personage in history. Such a
society affords the advantage of intellectual companionship ; it becomes a centre
for the interchange of useful knowledge, and an incentive to reading and study.
Good books are now within reach of every one who desires them. For the atten-
tive consideration of young men, especially in the rural districts of Canada and
the United States, we commend the advice given by the Casket in these words :

The priceless benefits of well-directed reading should be pondered over by
every one who has the making of his own future. And it is common experience
that this taste for reading and study can be diffused by association. To obtain
the best results, however, reading should be systematic. This is the object aimed
at by the Reading Circles of the United States. Each of these circles, while free,
as we understand it, to follow its own bent, obtains valuable assistance through
affiliation, in most cases, with a central association. Our young friends could
share those advantages by communicating with the Columbian Reading Union,
415 West Fifty-ninth Street, New York, or with the Catholic Reading Circle
Union, Youngstown, Ohio. They will find the Catholic Reading Circle Review^
the organ of the latter association, of much use to them. They can, too, get a
list of the wonderfully cheap and excellent publications of the Catholic Truth
Society of England by addressing the Catholic Book Exchange, 120 West Sixtieth
Street, New York. A small portion of their funds invested in a few of the best
Catholic magazines and periodicals, which they see mentioned in these columns
from time to time, will yield a good return in the way of keeping them in touch
with Catholic thought. One word of advice : Begin low ; lay the foundation and
build the walls before attempting to put on the roof. Many a man fails to obtain
the full benefit of his reading by neglecting to do this.

* « >K

At rare intervals the keen observer of passing events can find evidence that
a few of our young men devote a portion of their leisure time to combined efforts
for mental advancement. The most significant proof lately given was the annual
reunion of the Literary Society of St. Francis Xavier's Church held at the Tuxedo,
New York City. In the course of ah able address the president, Mr. Ludwig
Merklein, stated that the society was founded twenty-six years ago to satisfy the
craving of a score of young men for literary pursuits, for more knowledge, instruc-
tion, and education. To satisfy such a desire, so noble in its nature, so laudable
in its character, was oar society established, and, looking back on the record of
its twenty-six years, how truly can it be said that never was there a time when
it faltered in its mission or proved faithless to its office as a literary society.
True, our society is not the home of laureates and masters of English style ; our
orators and debaters, though great, do not challenge comparison with the efforts

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140 The Columbian Reading Union. [April,

of men famous in history. Many of our members have been denied the advan-
tages of a high education and owe much of tkeir present proficiency to the train-
ing received in our meetings. Others have joined our ranks in possession of all
these advantages, not to display their talents and accomplishments, but attracted
by the spirit of unity, liberty, and charity pervading it, and by the desire to retain,
utilize, and broaden what they had previously gained. Finally, we have among
us members who have already achieved fame in their professional careers, who
shine like brilliant guiding stars, leading and encouraging others and serving as
excellent models to follow.

Our average work may not have been a perfect one, yea we know it was
often defective, but who will say that our time at the meeting has not been well
spent ? Who will say that the studies and researches demanded in the prepara-
tion of essays will not cultivate and broaden our minds and help us to a better
performance of those duties which we owe our God, our neighbor, and ourselves ?
And when we remember the discussions on topics of current interest, and how
the most important questions that concern our country and ourselves, whether
political, social, or religious, were so thoroughly and ably treated, decided, and
settled for ever within the short space of one hour, I often wonder why they do
things so slowly in Washington and Albany, and I am certain that some of our
speakers could give points at the ratio of sixteen to one to our sedate law-makers.

Our society has never lost sight of the object for which it was founded,
and the same spirit of earnestness, the same desire to elevate themselves intel-
lectually and morally, which brought its first members together, animates its
members of to-day. Yes, gentlemen, when we consider that our society has
always been purely literary in its motives and aims, and that it has never held
forth to its members any inducement other than the opportunity for mental im-
provement, the mere fact of our twenty-six years of active existence offers some
excuse for self-glorification. Very few organizations similar to ours can boast of
so venerable an age.

Mr. Edmund F. Hogan spoke on the House and Club, and drew a very fine
picture of what the house ought to be, and the way to make it so. He also graphi-
cally described the advantages of a proper club. Mr. Joseph C. Rowan, in speak-
ing of our International Policy, said it behooved every American to scrutinize closely
the effort made to draw this country into foreign alliances, pointing out, in effect,
that the government had quite enough to do at home without going farther afield,
seeking after advantages that were very doubtful indeed. Mr. William N. Barry
next spoke on Latter-day Philanthropists, and drew some pictures of certain mil-
lionaires, without mentioning names, and their ostentatious charity. The Ameri-
can Player was spoken to by Mr. Nicholas J. Tommins; he dwelt on the glories
of the American actors of the past, and paid a high tribute to many of our artists
of to-day. He afterwards was heard in an original comic song which was loudly
applauded. Mr. William P. O'Flaherty read an original poem, which was con-
ceived in his best style, humorous, clever, and all too short, and which was re-
ceived very warmly indeed. The Romantic Novel was spoken to by Mr. Pierre
C. Van Wyck, and Literary Freaks was handled by Mr. Joseph D. Creeden in a
logical and most amusing speech. Not the least successful item was the manner
in which Mr. William A. Boylan treated the Popular Ballads of To-Day. The
Moderator, Rev. William J. Quigley, S.J., spoke next in terms of encouragement.
Rev. Fathers Van Rensselaer, S.J., Hart, S.J., and William Temple, S.J., also
addressed the company, and Mr. Luke Lindon was heard on behalf of the old
members.

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1 897-] The Columbian Reading Union. 141

Ex-President Cleveland deserves honorable mention for one of his latest offi-
cial acts in denying a pardon to James B. Wilson, sentenced in December, 1895,
in Indiana, to two years' imprisonment, $250 fine, and costs, for mailing obscene
papers. The reasons for refusing the request were as follows :

" This convict was one of the editors and proprietors, and a distributer through
the mails and otherwise, of a disgustingly vile and obscene newspaper. His con-
viction and sentence was an event distinctly tending to the promotion of public
morals and the protection of the sons and daughters of the land from filth and
corruption at a time when indecent newspaper publications are so dangerous and
common. Everybody in favor of cleanliness should encourage the punishment of
such offences and desire that it should be more frequently imposed."

* >K «

It is reported that the Public Library at Cleveland has in its list of books fif-
teen of the most rabid works against the church. Non-Catholic librarians, like
non-Catholics in general, take to anti-Catholic literature as readily as ducks to
water. But there was a notable exception to the rule in the person of Librarian
Poole, a free-thinker, who died in Chicago about two years ago. Receiving a
controversial book antagonistic to Catholic teaching, he always procured, if pro-
curable, the Catholic antidote, and placed both side by side on the book- shelves
of the librar}\ He followed this rule while librarian of the public libraries gf Cin-
cinnati and Chicago. It was an excellent rule ; it was honest and fair. If gen-
erally observed. Catholics would have no reason for complaint. Its advantages
are clear ; its utility evident. Catholic books can stand the test of any reasonable
mind, honest in the search for truth.

A fearless Catholic writer has lately declared that " no reviewer has the
death-power in his hands," though he may be guided by religious prejudice in his
estimate of a book. According to an old adage, there are more ways of killing a
cat than by choking it with butter. That there is still considerable antipathy
shown to the very best Catholic books is abundantly proved by the data gathered
through the Columbian Reading Union since the year 1889. A test case might
be easily made by an inquiry as to the number of publishers and librarians in the
United States who have admitted Fabiola, Calltsla, Dion and the Sybils — three
classic Christian novels — on equal terms with Ben-Hur.

:^ * m

Miss M. E. Ford, in her recent lecture-talk at the Waldorf, considered Altru-
ism as taught by George Meredith. She said in part that Meredith belongs to
the class of aesthetic teachers whose function is to make man desire the social
right. His method was compared in certain respects to that of Balzac, although
inferior in dramatic realism and style, and to Thackeray in the use of satire to
teach what is desirable by picturing the reverse in forbidding colors. By making
egoism repulsive, Meredith has helped the cause of altruism. In his psychologic
analysis he is a follower of George Eliot. Meredith considers his books an epi-
tome of the Great Human Comedy, and even goes so far as to excuse his style by
claiming that it is the part of the humorist " to puzzle our wits," which would in-
dicate that he is designedly obscure.

Several selections were read from TAe Egoist to disclose the fact that it was
not only the selfishness of the hero but his admiring self-revelation that wrecked
his life and made others sad or bitter according to their characters. Many ques-
tions as to why the egoist of extreme type seems peculiarly indigenous to British
soil were considered. One answer to this was that the law of entail makes the
eldest son of supreme interest in the family, while the superlative importance at-

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142 The Columbian Reading Union. [April.

tached to competitive examinations in the schools and the popularity of certain
sports all tend to the cultivation of egoism.

Mr. Richard Hovey added a realistic interest to the occasion by relating
some personal reminiscences of Meredith. He declared that in reading Meredith's
works he had not thought of his philosophy and deep thoughts as set forth by
Miss Ford, but chiefly of his rococo style or entanglement. He confessed that
Meredith's women exasperated him, as they always failed at the last moment,
but in talking with the novelist he discovered that he is not lacking in high ideals
of woman, but depicts her as the result of education and environment.

The fact that he is a Welshman may explain why Mr. Meredith detested
everything English. He is appreciative of the best French writers and is fond
of Americans : he has three hobbies — cooking, of which he is most fond, socialism
and the new woman.

Mr. Keeley felt indebted to Miss Ford for the lucid manner in which she had
brought out the thoughts wrapped up in mazes.

Professor F. Edge Kavanagh believed Meredith, in his psychological studies
of the inner workings of the human heart, superior to any one since Shakspere.

Miss Annie Vernon Dorsey, the novelist, asked for an expression of opinion
as to the motive of " Diana at the Cross Roads " in betraying her lover. Miss
Ford said it is inexplicable, unless the author desires to emphasize the intuitive
impulse upon which women so often act. Mr. Hovey did not think it a reflection
on the loyalty of woman ; only the lack of responsibility in her training.

in ^ 4(

It is good news to announce that the series of Catholic novels by American
authors has proved an instantaneous success, greater than was expected. Within
three months after publication a second edition has been printed of every one of
the following five books: Mr. Billy Buttons, by Walter Lecky, $1.25; Passing
Shadows, by Anthony Yorke, $1.25; A Woman of Fortune, by Christian Reid,
$1.25 ; The Vocation of Edward Conway, by M. F. Egan, $1.25 ; A Round Table
of the Representative American Catholic Novelists, Short Stories, $1.50.

Catholic novels never before had such success that of five new volumes a
second edition was called for within three months after publication. They were
new books by our foremost American Catholic novelists ; they were brought out
in attractive, up-to-date style, equal to any issued by non-Catholic publishers ;
they were cheap in price, considering that they are original novels on which copy-
right is paid to their authors, just as cheap as similar books issued by non-Catho-
lic houses, though the latter can publish theirs in much larger quantities.

A sneering criticism published in the Evening Post^ edited by Mr. E. L.
Godkin, had the effect of arousing a vigorous discussion on the unfair treatment
shown to Catholic writers and their books in this land of religious equality. The
Benziger Brothers feel very much indebted to the valiant support of their enter-
prise furnished by the Catholic press, and seem to have abundant proof for the
statement that " Catholic books are totally ignored by the secular press, despite
the fact that these secular papers have many Catholic readers."

i|c * *

No mere pen-picture would adequately describe the condition of the Library
of Congress at Washington. It is not confused — far from it. No library in the
world is so well arranged and so ready of access. But it is crowded to an extent
almost inconceivable. Nothing short of the genius of Mr. Spofford could have
made the collection in its present shape a practicable library. The removal of the
masses of books must involve no disturbance of their relation as expressed in the

(Continued on page 144.)

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SOCIALISM AND CATHOLICISM.

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^Wltli a Preface by CARDIM AI^ VAUGHAM. Crown 8vo, 353 pp , ^2.

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144 ^^^ Columbian Reading Union. [April, 1897.

catalogue— not even temporarily. Placed on the new shelves, the location of each
one must be as well marked as if it had not been transferred.

Incidental to the transfer, a few changes will be made in the classification of
the books, but they will not be important. Already the alphabetical system has
been developed to such completeness that there is very little beyond. There are
now 685,000 bound volumes in the library and 230,000 unbound, and any individu-
al work in all that vast number is accetsible at a minute's notice. In anticipation
of the move, a system of marks and numbers is being prepared by Mr. Spofford,
which will make it certain that no volume shall be misplaced in its new quarters.
The shelves, constructed on a novel plan, are so contrived that they may be
altered to fit books of any size.

The Library of Congress has now about i ,000,000 musical compositions — all
of them filed for copyright. No appropriation has been made for binding them as
yet. So at present they are merely arranged alphabetically by publishers.
Awaiting proper action by Congress, they will be stored in the music-hall of the
new building. Eventually, when bound in volumes, they will be arranged on
shelves. It is expected that Congress will make provision for framing the works
of graphic art which are to be displayed in a great hall, 217 feet long by 35 feet
wide. This collection comprises a quarter of a million pictures, including line en-
gravings, wood-cuts, chromo-lithographs, photogravures, etc. In charge of it will
be a skilled custodian, who will arrange the work in classes, making selections of
the finest specimens from each class. The best of such specimens will be dis-
played on the walls, while others will be shown in wing- frames, so that a vast
number may be exhibited in a little room. The rest will be arranged in cases and
drawers, so classified as to be of ready reference. One of the most interesting
features of the new building will be a literary museum, arranged by Mr. Spofford,
wherein will be displayed under glass all sorts of rare and queer books. There
will be a Washington Room, occupied exclusively by works relating to the Father
of his Country, and in the map-room will be shown a great collection of early
American maps and other curiosities of this kind.

A writer in the Washine^ton Post is convinced that a very large proportion of
the volumes now in charge of Mr. Spofford are the merest rubbish and unworthy
a place upon the shelves. To prove this it is only necessary to state that the
government gets two copies of every book upon which the author takes out a
copyright. Any reading man will know what percentage of the literature annually
copyrighted is fit for intelligent perusal. Any mathematician can calculate the
value of nine-tenths of the books received by the library in that way. The fact
remains, though, that we now have a magnificent building in which to house a
magnificent library ; that we have a really fine collection of maps ; that we have
the nucleus of a suitable collection of books ; that there is reason to hope that
some day there may be a wiser and better-informed system of development and
control. We have the beginnings of a national library of which the American
people may eventually be proud. Why not lift the thing out of the mire of
patronage- pettifogging and set it up on a fitting plane of usefulness and dignity?
The national library should be under executive, not legislative control. It should
not be a thing for congressional committees to quarrel over. Its employees should
not be the creatures of political influence and favor. Great libraries are not
managed in such fashion elsewhere. They are put under permanent authority,
and those who have charge of them are chosen with reference to their profession-
al acquirement and capacity. M. C. M.

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•They knew Him in the breaking of Bread."—
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THE

CATHOLI

Vol. LXV. MAY, 1897. No. 386.

THE PRIEST IN FICTION.

BY CHARLES A. L. MORSE.

RUTH with the biggest possible T
is the catch-word emblazoned upon
the banners of our nineteenth cen-
tury crusaders, the vociferous and
— be it spoken softly — swaggering
realists. M. Zola, Mr. George
Moore, and our own American
zealot, Mr. Hamlin Garland, grow
quite breathless in their fierce de-
nunciations of the untruthful ro-
manticists, whose day of triumph
they assure us is now but a fond
memory. Truth, stern, uncompro-
mising, and (according to the realistic cult) always unlovely
truth, is come into its own at last, and picturesque false-
hood in fiction is as dead as good Sir Walter himself. Mr.
Garland, in Crumbling Idolsj quite glows with the zeal of a
soldier of the Commonwealth piously engaged in smashing
cathedral windows, as he lays about him prodigiously with a
club in defence of the real ; and so loyal is he to the new
school of writers that he looks with suspicious eye even upon
a finished or artistic style. Probably the most conservative of
novel readers, even those old-fashioned enough to harbor a
regretful love for the " picturesque," would not care to deny
that there has been an all too powerful element of the unreal
in English and American fiction. False theories of life, false
ethics, false history cry at one with unabashed glibness from the

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146 The Priest in Fiction. [May,

popular novel both old and new. And to one who realizes the
disposition of the novel-reading public to take its fiction au serieux^
and to form its ideas of history and ethics and to shape its
ideals upon no safer basis than the say-so of the story-writers,
the development of a truthful school would be a joyous thing.
But when one descends from the platform of big talk and ex-
amines the work actually being done by the realists, no small
element of doubt arises concerning their absolute devotion to
truth with the big, bold T. Their detestation of the picturesque
cannot be denied. No one can accuse M. Zola's Rome or
Lourdes of possessing that quality. But, alas ! for the new
school, Lourdes and Rome are even less truthful than they are
picturesque. So also Mr. Moore in Esther Waters^ and Mr.
Garland in Rose of Butcher's Coolly^ with infinite contempt for
anything savoring of the noble or pure plunge us, the one into
.a world of sordid brutality, the other into a world of un-
blushing beastliness, as unreal to the American reader of decent
antecedents and of anything savoring of moral instinct as
was the world portrayed by the most extravagant of the old
romanticists. And as though to prove that the new school can
be as untruthful in its treatment of the type as it is in its
treatment of humanity, Mr. Harold Frederic, a much milder and
more reticent realist than the malodorous Frenchman and his
immediate followers, comes blithely forward with a new carica-
ture of that long-suffering victim of novelistic prejudice and
ignorance, the Catholic priest.

ENGLISH FICTION MISREPRESENTS.

Nearly half a century ago Cardinal Newman in his famous
lectures, delivered in the Birmingham Corn Exchange, accused
the Protestant world of merging everything Catholic in a great
fog, of refusing to think and talk and write of Catholics as
human beings with like natural traits to themselves, but rather
as strange non-human things, " griffins, wiverns, salamanders,
plunging and floundering amid the gloom " of their uncanny
religion. And as it was fifty years ago, and was for two
hundred years before that date, so is it to-day. In spite of all
the cant about "honest investigation," and the "growth of a
more liberal spirit " and the " passing of prejudice," with which
we are regaled in the secular press and in the non-Catholic reli-
gious press, those peculiarly accurate exponents of common
sentiment — the popular novels — tell us in no faltering way that
the great fog has not lifted, that Cath9lics, and the Catholic

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1 897-] The Priest in Fiction. 147

priests in particular, are still viewed through the mists of in-
herited prejudice. Even the most cursory glance at the
priestly characters in English or American novels of the imme-
diate past italicizes this fact.

THACKERAY'S FATHER HOLT.

When Thackeray gave the world Henry Esmond he gave his
master-piece. It is probably the most consummately artistic
piece of historical fiction in the English language. The great
novelist fairly evoked from its long sleep the brilliant, tawdry,
restless, fascinating world of Queen Anne. Jacobite and Whig,
the Young Pretender, the great Marlborough, the world of
fashion and the world of arms rise before us with a marvellous
verisimilitude which has been at once the wonder and despair of
more recent novel-writers. The one shadow of unreality in the
picture is the Jesuit, Father Holt. Not primarily because
Thackeray accepted the great Protestant tradition regarding the
Jesuits — the tradition that they are political intriguers — is that
figure unreal, but rather because the power of prejudice is so
inimical to true art that the craftsman's delicate touch became
clumsy under the influence of the poison, and he has given us, not
a life-like portrait but a caricature. Prejudice said the Jesuits
are mysterious, and so poor Father Holt is made to revel in a
very debauch of mystery. We are led to suppose that he took
a perverse delight in entering upon and leaving the scene by
means of sliding panels and secret stairways. He becomes a
veritable Jack-in-a-box, popping into sight and out again with a
knowing smirk like the clown in a pantomime, flaunting his
craftily gained knowledge of men and affairs after the manner
of a court-fool with his bauble. Now, however fondly a man
may choose to hug to his bosom the Protestant prejudice regard-
ing the heroic sons of St. Ignatius Loyola, no intelligent man can
deny that they have ever been men of extraordinary mental and
moral strength, brave, clear-headed, heroically in earnest, and to
represent one of them as a sort of priestly " lightning-change "
actor, parading with childish glee a by no means mystifying
sort of mystery, is unquestionably both bad art and bad history.

DISRAELI'S PRIESTS.

Does any one read Disraeli's novels in this day? Those
queer, glittering, pinchbeck books, with their peculiar flavor of
the upholsterer's shop and the diamond-seller's counter, so charac-
teristic of their author's race. Howbeit now, not many years

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148 The Priest in Fiction. [May,

gone they had great vogue, and not to have read Loikair and
the others was to declare one's self as unfashionable in litera-
ture as to-day to plead happy ignorance of Robert Elsmere or
The Heavenly Twins. The Catholic priest would seem to have
had a great fascination for the novel-writing premier of England,
and in Lothair the clergy are well-nigh numerous enough to man
21 seminary. But what a fantastic lot they are ! Written shortly
after the reception into the Church of the young Marquis of
Bute, the story is one long, snarling diatribe against the
alleged proselyting methods of the clergy. A cardinal, two
monsignori, and inferior clergy by the score are introduced
into the story, all bent upon one mad, scheming scramble for
the entrapping of the rich and noble and somewhat mawkish
Lothair. Once more we .see the Protestant tradition trotted
out with due fanfare of trumpets and wagging of knowing heads.
But now the scene of intrigue is changed from public to private
life, and the English Jew, indulging to the limit his natural
bent towards oriental extravagance, creates a type of priestly
character even more absurd than Thackeray's Jesuit. The priests
in Lothair are all men of wonderfully distinguished personal ap-
pearance. Cardinal Grandison has "a noble brow, and pallid
face, and flashing eyes"; Mgr. Catesby is "beautiful of form
and manner "; and the others are all peculiarly fortunate in an
endowment of majestic, or ascetic, or winning countenances.
And their mental acquirements are simply bewildering in their
wealth and variety. The cardinal is a walking encyclopaedia of
useful as well as ornamental knowledge ; but he is in this re-
spect no whit the superior of Father Coleman, a domestic chap-
lain, who not only "knew everything" but was "mild and im-
perturbable in his manner," a happy combination of omniscience
with humility which is quite attaching. Then there is Mgr.
Berwick, " formed and favored by Antonelli," who was pos-
sessed of the pleasing faculty of " sparkling or blazing " to or-
der, quite like a Roman candle. And these preternaturally
" noble " and " majestic " and " ascetic " men, with their brilliant
minds and stupendous accomplishments, are steeped to the lips
in intrigue and deceit. Disraeli, by a peculiarly malicious touch,
gives all his priests one marked peculiarity — they never walk,
they glide. Cardinal Grandison " glides " from the room after
his first interview with Lothair. Father Coleman " glides " from
the scene after a crafty interview with that hapless hero. And
so they all " glide " in and out, and to and fro, quite as though
the Catholic clergyman's method of locomotion was intrinsically

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1897-1 The Priest in Fiction. 149

different from that of other men. Thackeray's Jesuit is a mys-
tery-mad chatterer, while Disraeli's priests are cheaply glittering
human snakes, and in neither case is there a hint of a regard
for facts.

CARLETON AND LEVER.

In the case of Thackeray, but scarcely in that of Disraeli, it
is possible to excuse much on the plea of a lack of personal
knowledge of the actual character and general manner of life
of the Catholic clergy as a class, particularly those who are
members of the Society of Jesus. Thackeray, with his perforce
limited knowledge of the Jesuits, cannot justly be accused of
malice for accepting, without question, the popular Protestant
legend regarding them. At the worst, he was guilty only of a
more or less unconscious bigotry. But what can be said in ex-
cuse for such men as Carleton and Lever? — men who with full
consciousness of their own malice went to work deliberately to
pander to the lowest prejudices of their readers. So lacking in
form and style, so puerile, and above all so shockingly vulgar,
is the work of these two Irish novelists that one is tempted to
pass it by unnoticed, with the vain hope that our end of the
century reading public is at least too well instructed to accept
such maudlin chatter as literature.

But the knowledge that during the past year a new edition
of one of Carleton's most offensive books has been printed,
while three years ago a complete edition of Lever's novels, in
sumptuous dress, was brought out by a New York publisher,
proves only too conclusively that even now no misrepresenta-
tion of the priest is too gross, too monstrous to suit the vitiated
taste of a large class of readers. And, as if to accentuate this
fact, the book of Carleton's chosen for republication was the
one containing his most impiously shameless attack upon the
church and clergy ; a sketch, the genesis of which is satisfac-
torily explained when it is stated that it was written in the
first instance for a venomous anti-Catholic sheet published in
Dublin and called the Christian Examiner. Carleton's work was
done largely for the delectation of a group of rabid bigots by
whom he was patronized and exploited as that rare bird, a per-
vert, is always patronized and exploited, unless it happens he
is too outrageously disreputable even for prejudice-blinded eyes.
The fact that Carleton posed as a pervert, and wrote his books
primarily to please a clique, has made him less well known per-
haps to the world at large than is Lever.

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I50 The Priest in Fiction. [May,

"CHARLES O'MALLEY."

The latter's pose was not ostensibly in favor of any particu-
lar school of religion ; he played the part of a man of the world
with an ostentatious pretence of good-natured indifference to-
wards religious beliefs. But the fact that this attitude was in
truth a mask which hid a vindictive hatred for the church and
her priests, makes his books more pernicious in their effect upon
the world at large than Carleton's have been. It requires the
knowledge gained by personal experience to convince one that
some of Lever's more grotesque burlesques of the Irish priest
can possibly be taken seriously by people of reputedly sound
minds. It would seem impossible that any reader of more than a
child's mental development could fail to see that Mickey Free's
preposterous talc, in Charles O'Malley, about the souls in purga-
tory and Father Roach with his "six Masses the day, two in
the morning, two in the afternoon, and two at vespers," is only
an ebullition of Lever's by no means choice and pleasant humor.
But the writer of these lines has heard more than once glib
reference made to this same Mickey Free and Father Roach
as awful examples of Irish superstition and lightness and priestly
trickery and avarice. When Lever is not, under the guise of
"humor," pandering to the lowest dregs of anti-Catholic preju-
dice, as in the case of Mickey Free and his ilk, but pretends to
draw what guileless souls may fancy a more serious portrait of
the Irish priest, he is no less offensive and untrue to facts.
Perhaps Father " Tom " Loftus, in Jack Hinton^ is less outra-
geous in some respects than the other priestly characters which
he produced. He had at least the decency to make of Father
Loftus an educated man and not an illiterate boor, and he en-
dowed his character with a certain rough manliness. As a pic-
ture of a whiskey-drinking, horse-racing, free-living country squire
Father Loftus would not be a bad bit of portraiture. But to
clap a clergyman's dress onto this roystering, not-too-honest,
and generally drink-be-fuddled creature, calling it a picture of
the typical Irish priest, could mean only that Lever was as cal-
lous to the claims of truth as his English readers were ready
to swallow any brutal caricature of that hated class, the priests
of a persecuted people and of a history-distorted religion.

THE PRIEST BY AMERICAN NOVELISTS.

In America, with its mixture of races and lack of a command-
ing historical tradition, the novelists have not as a rule been

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I897-] The Priest in Fiction. 151

so guilty of wild bizarrerie in attempted portraits of the clergy
as have English novelists. With us the poison of prejudice
takes another form. The American's wide-open eyes discover-
ing that the Catholic priest as a rule does not seem to have a
penchant for mystery, that he is not characterized by the nau-
seous smoothness of manner of the Lothair type, and that he
is not the gross creature of Lever's burlesques, the American
novelists painstakingly enter a new pathway of misrepresenta-
tion. Their theory might seem to be something like this : the
Catholic priest would really, in many instances, seem a simple-
mannered, honorable man ; of course it is not quite consistent
of him to be so, but after all it's easily accounted for ; he is a
fine type of man because he isn't, strictly speaking, very much
of a priest. This is the gently superior theory upon which Mr.
A. S. Hardy's Father Le Blanc, in But yet a Woman, is based.
Mr. Hardy gives us a pleasant portrait of a white-haired, clear-
eyed French abb^, charitable, warm-hearted, outspoken. There
is nothing mysterious, nothing affected about him. He is at
once gentle and strong, priest and man. A genuine, honest
man and a priest ? Oh, yes ! But how so ? Because he reads
Plato's Ph<Bdo instead of his office ? And so is it with Miss
Blanche Willis Howard's Thymert in Guenn. A brave, pure,
noble Breton, "at once priest, doctor, comforter of the women,
and friend and comrade of the men." One might humbly ask
why not " priest of the men " as well as of the women ? but then
it is quite well understood by the novel-reading world that only
women and fools need a priest. However, Thymert is "a sim-
ple, faithful soul, man to the core of his brave heart," and "his
little world was better and happier that he lived in it" — as it
well might be, and as are countless numbers of little worlds in
all corners of this great earth because of the presence of the
parish priest. But true to the claims of prejudice. Miss Howard
is quick to explain how it comes that her priest is so brave,
so big-hearted, so true — it is because " he did not keep the
ropes of his theology quite taut." And we are given one
amazing scene in which this devoted man dashes madly through
a Low Mass in order to eat breakfast with some chance visi-
tors, and entertains those visitors with gleeful account of his
marvellous dexterity in disposing of that holy office in quick
order. In spite of the evident intention of Mr. Hardy and
Miss Howard not to be offensive and to deal honorably with
their priestly creations, both of them fall victims to the old,
ugly tradition. The true priest is not quite a human being — he

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152 The Priest in Fiction. [May,

still partakes of the fantastic shape of griffin or wivem, and if
he seems human (in the best sense of that word) it is because
he is not quite true priest.

HAROLD FREDERIC.

But it is left for that mild-mannered realist, Mr. Frederic, to
discover to a waiting world the grim truth about this strangely-
fascinating class of beings "plunging and floundering amid the
gloom." The specimen which he has decoyed from the fog-
enslaved world of Catholicity is an American clergyman of
Irish descent, called Father Forbes. He is a man of fine edu-
cation, in appearance distinguished, with a " pale, firm-set, hand-
some face." He is devoted to his duties as a parish priest,
active and zealous, and "head, adviser, monitor, overseer,
elder brother, friend, patron," of his flock. He is introduced
to the reader by means of a skilfully devised and extremely
well-executed scene in a laborer's cottage where he is adminis^
tering the last sacraments to a dying man. The description
makes a vivid and forcible picture of the priest's " pale, chis-
elled, luminous, uplifted face " in the yellow glare from the
flickering candles in the dingy cottage, while the sonorous, in-
sistent roll of the Confiteor — beatum Michaelem Archangelum
beatum Joannem Baptistam, . . . Petrum et Paulum — "like
strokes on a great resonant alarm-bell, attuned for the hearing of
heaven," resounds through the little room. The rite is not treated
as a picturesque bit of skilfully devised mummery — a view of
Catholic rites which non-Catholics never tire of exploiting — but
rather as a real and faith-compelling act full of meaning to
priest and people. At least that is the impression given the
reader for a few pages, but before long we are made aware
that Mr. Frederic lias made an awful discovery. His zealous
priest with a " luminous " face does not believe in his religion
at all. In public a devout dispenser of the sacraments, in the
privacy of the priest's house — which, by the way, Mr. Frederic
insists upon calling the " pastorate " — he is a sort of Herbert
Spencer in cassock and biretta, impiously prattling about thef
" Christ-myth." And this precious compound of agnosticism
and devotion Mr. Frederic presents to the world not as an ex-
traordinary and unusual type ; on the contrary he treats Father
Forbes as quite the usual thing in the way of an American
priest, and to leave no doubt in our minds upon this point he
introduces a conversation between two other characters in
which one remarks that he " knows a Catholic priest who

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The Priest in Fiction.

153

doesn't believe an atom in " his religion, to which the other
replies glibly " Oh ! most of us do."

Had Mr. Frederic been writing a description of a French
court priest of the age of Louis XV. one would not be sur-
prised if he had seen fit to. represent his character as tainted
more or less with scepticism, but even in that unhappy epoch
to extend that scepticism to the French clergy as a body would
be an outrage upon historic truth. That the absurdity — to use
the mildest term — of charging the American clergy with being
agnostics in disguise did not deter him from perpetrating such
an offence against the truth would seem to prove that prejudice
— blind, unreasoning prejudice — still lives and flourishes right
lustily in this *' liberal and enlightened " age. And that any
sane person can seriously allege scepticism as a characteristic
of the Catholic clergy in America — priests who labor as few
men have to do, and that, too, for a mere pittance, in the
cause of a religion which is not fashionable, which holds forth
no bribes of great social prestige to its ministers, and in an
environment where "the world" would applaud and reward
apostasy — can hardly mean anything except that the realists,
with all their noise about the truth, can be and are quite as
oblivious to easily ascertained facts as ever their despised
enemies, the romanticists, have been. As a product of a bold
and unfettered imagination Mr. Frederic's priest can more than
hold his own against his older rivals, Thackeray's Jesuit,
Disraeli's fantastic hierarchy, and the rest.

It does not require a very tremendous effort of charity for
a Catholic to think and write of individuals among the Protest-
ant clergy as human beings, not to say honest men. To ex-
pect non-Catholic writers to exercise some degree of like justice
towards the priests of the church would not seem to be un-
reasonable. Surely the reading world has had enough griflins
and wiverns and salamanders to satisfy even its abnormal ap-
petite.

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Old Mission of San Xavier Del Bag.

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE OLD MISSIONARIES.

BY ARTHUR M. CLARK, C.S.P.

WAY back in the days of discovery, long before

the " Pilgrim Fathers " landed at Plymouth Rock,

and nearly half a century before that compilation

known as the Book of Common Prayer had been

' thought of, Holy Mass was offered for, and the

Gospel was preached to the red-skinned natives who roamed

the plains from the City of Mexico to " Montezuma's well " in

Arizona by the brown-habited friars of St. Francis.

The missionaries passed across the wild lands and roaring
rivers, and came up to this portion of the United States known
as the Territory of Arizona, teaching the tribes of Indians the
truth of Jesus Christ. What they did, what they suffered, how
they died for the Faith, it is not mine to relate here. It shall
be done by worthier hands. But as it has been the will of God
that two of us Paulist missionaries should follow in the footsteps
of the Jesuits and Franciscans who once evangelized this coun-
try, I feel that I would be ungrateful were I not to acknowl-
edge the favors which have been ours during. the trip of three
months in the Vicariate Apostolic of Arizona. We have often
spoken of the privilege which has been ours to go over the same

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1 897-] (^ ^^^ Footsteps of the Old Missionaries. 155

ground and preach to modern " Indians " the same truths which
the friars and the " black-robes " delighted to teach. We have
held these saintly men in veneration, and have often invoked
their aid during these months, and we feel conscious of their
intercession in the republic of the saints above.

OUR PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.

The good bishop who invited us to come to Arizona ex-
pected no more than missions to our Catholic people ; and his
heart was delighted when we told him that we were ready and
eager, on our part, to undertake to give missions in four prin-
cipal cities of Arizona to those who were without any religion, as
well as to those wandering in the tangled paths of error " Do
not undertake too much," we were advised ; but we thought it
not too much, with St. Paul, to " turn to the Gentiles " and
preach the word of God to the faithless, as well as to those
" who are of the household of Faith."

Arizona ! — how some of my readers will smile when they see
this word. Visions of cowboys shooting at everything in sight,
of fights, murders, and all sorts of crime, will perhaps arise in
their imaginations. Let them dismiss such chimerical illusions;
they exist only in the pages of that ens rationis, The Arizona
Kicker. After a long tour through this territory I have found
it to be quite the reverse of all that I had heard and read ; in
fact, quite as well governed and as orderly a portion of the
United States as New York City, or the classic Boston itself.

THE PEOPLE.
There is one noteworthy quality which one finds among the
people in the Territory, and that is their hospitality to strangers.
We have been the guests of many people in many States, but
never have we had experiences so delightful as Arizona hospi-
tality afforded. I hesitate, from feelings of delicacy, to enter
into details, but as I go on to describe our mission work it will
be easy to gather the meaning I intend to convey. We have
found the people uniformly fair-minded, and in one place only
was there any display of bigotry or bad feeling, and this came
from a little knot of so-called " Free Thinkers," who stuffed the
question-box one evening. In every place we had crowded
houses, both at the CathoHc and non-Catholic missions. The
people of Arizona are more eager to listen to the word of God
from a Catholic priest than from a roaming, self-styled " Evan-
gelist "; and nothing short of a healthy, well-developed blizzard
was able to keep audiences away, and this occurred but once.

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156 In the Footsteps of the Old Missionaries. [May,

THE MISSIONS.
We were confronted with a serious problem from the day
we inaugurated the work. How shall we preach to a congrega
tion composed of twenty-five Catholics and one hundred and

Dwellings of the Pima Indians.

fifty without any religion ? How shall we reach both classes of
people in four or five days, and do good to all as we wish
to do ? I leave the real solution of this problem to older and
more experienced heads than mine; but my own solution I will
simply state, for I am not sure if it be the most judicious
method of proceeding.

Royalton* was the first place where we two missionaries parted
company, at two o'clock in the morning ; and I kept on to Bill
Williams, about a hundred miles east on the Santa Fe route.
We found it necessary to combine as much as possible the
Catholic and non-Catholic work in these two places. In the
former place there is one church, nominally Methodist, but
really nothing, presided over by an attorney, who gladly placed
the church at our disposal for the mission. As the large num-
ber of Catholics go there for want of a better place to spend
their evenings, I took the large court-house instead, in order to
emphasize the difference between us, and let Catholics see that
one is not the other. The result was the services of the church
adjourned over one week, and the minister, choir, and congrega-
tion attended the mission.

At Sandville we concluded to try a new method. Having
but four days to stay, every morning at 9 o'clock Mass was

* For obvious reasons throughout this article fictitious names are used.

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1897.] In the Footsteps of the Old Missionaries. 157

said and regular mission instruction given in the church. Then,
at four in the afternoon we had the children with their parents,
and the sermon was preached and Benediction given. In the
evening I lectured to a crowded audience of non-Catholics in
the hall.

The missionaries united their energies in Sky town, about
sixty miles west of Sandville, and there they opened a mis-
sion in the church for Catholics. .The fervor of the Catholic
people, the spectacle of the entire congregation receiving Holy
Communion at the midnight Mass on Christmas, the little ser-
mon at that Mass on "The Man of Good Will" — all this, in
presence of the best non-Catholic people of the town, helped
us not a little during the week after Christmas when we held
the non-Catholic mission in the opera house. The owners of
the opera house gave us the use of it as long as we wanted it,
and four nights of good, clear, cold weather gave us large
audiences. The Mormons patronized the question-box, and one
question on the " Higher Criticism " of the book of Genesis

" Montezuma's Well " ; an extinct Crater.

was presented one evening — evidently from a local minister.
The newspaper here was very obliging and kind ; it printed an
excellent and truly Arizonian account of both missions. Before
we left we started an organization, called the " Skytown
Catholic Union," composed of all the best young men of tiie

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158 In the Footsteps of the Old Missionaries. [May,

Cliff-Dwellers on the Walls of Montezuma's Well.

place, who promise to do all they can to be good missionaries
to non-Catholics, both by word and good example.

The snow began to fly the day after the gentlemen of Sky-
town banqueted us, and we left the town in a whirl of white for
Whipple. Here an excellent Catholic mission prepared the way
for a good six nights' work during the second week in the hall.
But we were doomed to be disappointed; for on Sunday night
when we opened there came rain, snow, and sleet simultane-
ously, and they spoiled our first attendance. Monday and
Tuesday were a little better, but Wednesday evening there
were only forty Catholics to hear the lecture on the Bible.
Thursday it would have been folly to venture out, and Friday
there were three feet of snow.

The journey from Whipple to Birdtown is about seven
hours by train. In the midst of snow and rain, by darkness,
in perils of washouts, in perils of caving banks, in perils
of falling rocks, in perils of floods and damaged bridges, we
came safely through all to the city of Birdtown. During the
night a huge rock fell on the front platform of one of the
cars and partly demolished it, carrying away all the steps.

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i897-] I^ ^^^ Footsteps of the Old Missionaries. 159

Naturally it should have derailed the car, but did nothing be-
yond shaking us up a little.

When we came to the opera house the opening Sunday we
found preparations for the mission were carefully attended to
by the local pastor. On the sidewalk a brass band played
sweet music to draw the crowd. A thousand dodgers scattered
broadcast and one hundred cards placed in the shop windows,
and daily notices in the newspapers, brought us a crowd vary-
ing from eight hundi^ed to twelve hundred during the six
nights that the lectures were held. Monday night brought a
shower of questions, among which was : " You said last night
that there was no need for secrecy in this country : why then
a secret confessional ? *' I had been speaking of secret socie-
ties the night before. This shows the curious working of an
illogical mind, and gave us an excellent opportunity of empha-
sizing the necessity of the professional secret.

The Catholic mission followed in the little old adobe church
during the next week, and we found it to be a good thing
that the non-Catholics had their turn first. While this was
going on I went over to Butte, an out-mission from Birdtown,

Main Street of Phcenix.

and lectured in Andre's Hall on '* The Bible " and " Night-
mares," with a boxful of questions each night, Thursday and
Friday. The people of Butte were delighted to hear a Catho-
lic priest speak in English, as many of them thought we never
preached but in Latin.

The new cathedral in Tucson was ready for occupancy, but
we used it first for our mission to non-Catholics ; it was blessed
the Sunday on which we opened our mission to the Catholics.

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i6o In the Footsteps of the Old Missionaries, [May,

Near by is San Xavier del Bac, an old Jesuit mission some
time served by the Franciscans when the Jesuits were expelled
from the territory. It was here in Tucson where we finished
our work in Arizona, a land sanctified by the blood of the old

Smelting Works.

martyred missionaries. Their voices cry aloud from the red-
dened soil : " Come over into Arizona and help us ! *' Who
will respond to the call? who will come to this fertile field
for missionary work among the newer races? We have but
skimmed the surface and gazed into the depths below; we
therefore know what we have seen, and I speak with con-
fidence when I say, that as our little work has been blessed by
the prayers of the old friars and " black robes " of a hundred
years and more gone by, so will they bless with their mighty
intercession the labors of the zealous Catholic missionary who
will dare to face the "terrors and dangers " of "wild Arizona."
The first night of our non-Catholic mission in Tucson we
had a fair crowd, but not many who did not belong to the
church. On the second night still fewer were in attendance,
and there were but two questions in the box at the door. The
two remaining nights were as the two first : a fair crowd only,
but an interested one. This last of the missions in Arizona was
a very ordinary mission, with nothing remarkable to chronicle.

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I897-] I^ ^^^ Footsteps of the Old Missionaries. i6i

So here closes the record of the most interesting and consoling
missionary experiences which it has ever been my happiness to
encounter. It has been all too short, and gladly would each
of us have lingered for twice the happy days allotted to each
place. Gladly would we have spoken, night after night, to the
people, whom we found so willing and delighted to listen to
the Truth. But it has been the answering of call after call.
"Do not neglect us. Give us one lecture or two, at least. We
are only a few, but we wish to hear you as well as our neigh-
bors." And so at the end of three months, all too short, we
find ourselves leaving for other fields of work. '

Our hearts are sad at the thought of leaving, thi^ fertile mis-
sionary field uncultivated, but at the same time; are. thankful to

San Francisco Mountains.

God for the blessing that he has showered upon the little
work accomplished. We can say the same for the good people
of Arizona: they will pray for the speedy return of some
one to take up the work among them, thankful to God for what
he has done, and ready to assist to their utmost him who shall
in future days go over the same paths which we have pursued
with so much pleasure. One thought has inspired the prepara-
tion of thie paper: it is the hope that a better knowledge of
the extensive work tp be done may inspire willing hands to
help in it.

VOL. LXV.— II

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1 62 A Worm in an awful Hiatus. [May,

A WORM IN AN AWFUL HIATUS.

BY JOHN A. MOONEY.

'' HERE is a worm at the heart of the Church/'

says Mr. J. Bleecker Miller in a ponderous

little book, bearing the catchpenny title : Leo

XII L and Modern Civilization^^ As Mr. Miller

has not even a speaking acquaintance with

the Church, his pretension that he has been pernnitted to look

into Her heart is vainglorious. However, Mr. Miller, and the

other little worms at the heel of the Church, may settle, among

themselves, a question of etiquette, while I am introducing Mr.

Miller to a company more intellectual than any he has met.

** If the priest, will but^ like the cobbler, ' stick to his last *
and attend to the development of man's spiritual nature, instead
of attempting the direct government of the world, in its minut-
est details, the germ of sympathy in the heart of every man
would blossom out into such love of neighbor that organiza-
tions of employers and employees acting together in harmony
(as set out in the author's Trade Organizations in Religion) would
make us soon forget that there had ever been a social ques-
tion."t At least one germ of sympathy has blossomed out into
neighborly laughter, over this testimonial to Mr. " Will but like
the cobbler " Bleecker's forgetfulness of all the authors who
have developed English grammar. That germ is mine own.
But Mr. ** Will but like the cobbler " can do better, as the follow-
ing extract witnesses : " These full-blown Roman Catholic doc-
trines are taught also in the text-books used in our American
schools and colleges, although the Latin language is expected to
keep them somewhat from profane eyes.":]: Neither Mr. Miller's
grammar, nor his rhetoric, blows full in these passages. Let me
pluck a bloomin' sentence : " In shorty should not the priesthood,
especially a celibate priesthood, keep its hands off the Family,
as well as off the State, and even in matters of education should
it not remember that its first duty is to educate the spirit or
conscience, and only when that is accomplished, should it de-
vote its surplus energy to the education of the intellect."§ How
sweet ! The bloom is on the rye, you say. Let m^ arrange a

* Leo XIII, and Modem Civilization, By J. Bleecker Miller, of the New York Bar. Au-
thor of " Trade Organizations in Politics, or Federalism in Cities"; " Trade Organirations
in Relig:ion " ; •♦ Das Englische Recht und Das Romische Recht als Erseugnisse Indo-Ger-
manischer Volker." New York : The Eskdale Press. f P. no. X Pp. 68, 69. J P. 123.

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1897.] A Worm in an awful Hiatus. 163

boutonni^re for you : " No greater contrast than that between
our Germanic Federal Constitution, as outlined in the Federal-
ist, with its respect for the individual and its limited organiza-
tions for the government of local, state, and national affairs,
and the inorganic, absolute government of a Greek city can be
imagined."* ..." Was it not natural that when the forged
bands of the False Decretals, which bound St. Thomas, and,
as he thought, all human reason to the Chair of St. Peter,
were proven by history to be but shams and illusions, that
man should fall back to the position of Aristotle, with reason,
deprived of all divine aid, as his only guide."t Surveying these
inorganic bands of bosh, I can securely say that if Mr. Miller
attempted to bind with them an old-fashioned teacher in a
primary school, he would compel Mr. Miller to fall forward to
a favorable position, and then would devote surplus energy to
laying hands on a limited corporeal locality, about which Aris-
totle had no illusions. There are times when only reason should
be the teacher's human guide.

miller's art of spelling..

With Mr. Miller's ignorance of every rule of grammar, and
with laughable illustrations of this ignorance, I shall not cum-
ber these pages ; but I cannot pass over Mr. Miller's art of
spelling. He affects a familiarity with the French language ;
and yet a Savoyarde bonne would indignantly spank a seven-
year-old brat for writing : La monde, regime^ etat^ apresy eglise,
generateuTy economiey etrey etude y or soirees de St. Petersburg. Mr.
Miller may plead that he is a graduate of Stratford atte Bowe ;
for he dare not charge his proof-reader with being more ignor-
ant than himself. Resenting Mr. Miller's crassitude, the proof-
reader, surreptitiously, placed an accent on : abb/.

Feigning scholarship, an ordinary dunce will labor hard to
learn how to spell the names of the authors he pretends to
quote. Mr. Miller is not ordinary. Referring to a living phil-
osopher, he calls him now : " Plassman," now " Plassmann," and,
without humor, designates him here : " the theological lecturer
in Rome "; and there : " the learned Professor in the college
in Rome." Even Mr. Miller should smile, were I to attempt
to render him famous by describing him as : the lawyer in the
bar in New York. Shamming an intimacy with Mgr. Mermillod,
Mr. " Will but like the cobbler " Miller calls the eminent prelate :
Mermillcrd ; and then, stupidly, informs his readers that " Mer-
millord " is '* a French Monsignor." A tyro in the ecclesiastical
• Pp. 82, 83. t p. 154.

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164 A Worm in an awful Hiatus. [May,

history of the past forty years, would know that the eloquent
Mermillod, Bishop of Hebron, Vicar Apostolic of Geneva, nomi-
nated Cardinal in 1890, was a Swiss, and that he died five years
ago. Of another famous churchman, Mr. Miller writes, on p. 87 :
''The following lines from Doctor (now the author believes
Cardinal) Hergenroether "; although Cardinal Hergenroether has
been seven years in the grave. One would imagine ** the " author
sleeps ' with the voluminous works of Descartes and of Male-
branche under his pillow ; and yet he knows them only as
" Des Cartes " and " Mallebranche." Avicenna, with whom he
is quite chummy, figures as " Avicenne " ; Suarez he names
Sufaez,. and Claudio Jannet is to him : '* Claude Janet." That
a scholar so brilliant should talk of " Proetorean " guards, of
*' anethemas,'' of an '' anti-Semetic " candidate, of the Council of
" Vienna," or of the " Oecumenical Council of the Lateran V,"
will astonish no one ; nor will a quotation from the " Codex
Ti^dosianus," or from the " Discorsi del Sommo Pontifici^'^
seem out of place in Mr. Miller's trumpery book.

Thus sumptuously equipped, the lawyer in the bar in New
York, laying aside his worm-eaten "Codex Thedosianus," took
up his goosequill, and, with its becoming aid, proceeded to con-
found Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Leo XIII., not to
mention the other Jesuits. Mr. Miller could not distinguish a
syllogism .from a dray-horse. Of philosophical, and especially
of "scholastic" methods, he is as ignorant as a man, who can
neither spell nor write a language, must be. Incompetent to
formulate an argument, he will be grateful to me for wasting
good time in the attempt to make him understand the purport
of his own words.

THE JESUIT CONSPIRACY.

Mr. Miller's argument should read thus: St. Thomas
" forged the weapons by which the victory for infallibility was
won, and by which the Papacy hopes in the future to gain
universal empire " ; but St. Thomas founded his philosophy on
Aristotle, who was a pagan ; therefore St. Thomas was a pagan,
and the Catholic doctrine . of the infallibility of the Pope is
pagan. The pagan philosophy of St. Thomas lay neglected for
about three centuries, until Ignatius of Loyola lighted on it,
"swiped" it, and forced the Jesuits not only to accept every
jot and tittle of it, but also to teach it to others, word for
word, whole and entire. Therefore the Jesuits are pagans.
Why was St. Ignatius guilty of this unhistorical and side-split-
ting act ? Mr. Miller gives away the whole dread scheme. St.
Ignatius had foreordained that, about three hundred and fifty

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1 897-] A Worm in an awful Hiatus. 165

years later, Leo XIII. should, insidiously, try to " gain univer-
sal empire." Pope Leo came on time, and now he is busy
with his predestinated work. A pupil of the Jesuits, he is
bound to carry out the terrible plot of Ignatius, and of Aqui-
nas, and of that other pagan, Aristotle, who, according to the
unique historian, J. Bleecker Miller, made Alexander the Great :
" the first universal ruler." •

All the " Encyclicals " of the present Pontiff are inspired
by the Aristotelian-Thomistic-Jesuitical-pagan idea, says Mr.
Miller. The Papacy is aiming at the absolute control of the
family, the school. Labor, the State. In order to make the
work light, the present Pope has obligated all Catholics to ac-
cept every opinion of St. Thomas, thus putting us all on a
dead level with the Jesuits. Why did Leo XIII. do . this
peculiar deed ? Because, if we are to believe Mr. Miller : St.
Thomas, besides forging the weapons for infallibility, was both
pagan and intelligent enough to maintiain that : '^ Our acts are
to be called moral, so far as they proceed from reason and are
free"; which proposition, as the acute Mr. Miller ventures to
argufy, implies that : an infallible Pope can control, absolutely,
every free, rational act, of every man, "including, of course,
the casting of a ballot." The shocking power thus lodged in
the Pope, according to the lawyer in the bar in New York, I
shall bring home to my readers, by the following illustration.
Some day, a cold day of course, — a very cold day, — Leo XIII.
may compel the Catholics of the United States to ballot J.
Bleecker Miller, "of the Bar of New York," into the President
tial chair. As I listen to the triumphant bowlings of the
democratic republicans of the universe, greeting him at his
inauguration, I turn to President Miller, and I ask him : Is not
a free, rational, though unreasonable, act of the Pope, highly
moral ? Is not a recent moral act of the Pope, a most posi-
tive proof of his infallibility? What's the matter with the
pagans, and the other Jesuits? If Mr. Miller will answer these
three questions, in a dainty volumette of his own English, or
French, or German, I promise to translate it with a solicitudinous
reverence.

"THE AWFUL HIATUS IN THEIR SYSTEM."

Obligating Catholics to stand by every word of St. Thomas,
the learned Leo XIII., if we should believe Mr. Miller, com-
pelled us to accept scientific views that are not only un-modern,
but indeed pagan, awfully pagan ; nay, must I write the word :
"astrological." Why was St. Thomas paganly astrological?
Mr. Miller answers: because Aquinas could not otherwise de-

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i66 A Worm in an awful Hiatus. [May,

fend the doctrine of " transubstantion," or the " doctrine " that
the Pope is a universal emperor. No astrology, — no Romanism.
To save himself, the Pope must constrain us all to believe in
astrology, like St. Thomas. Curiously enough, Mr. Miller has
discovered that the Jesuits, though bound by Ignatius Loyola
to hold and teach every word of St. Thomas, do not teach
the "astrology" of St. Thomas, and indeed some of them do
not even mention it. You would not guess why the Jesuits
have violated the binding law of their " pagan " founder. Mr. |

Miller shall tell you : " They are in effect trying to conceal the
awful hiatus in their system — this skeleton in the closet." i

The skeleton of the fatuous Mr. Miller no closet can con- j

ceal ; nor could the most calculating " astrologist " hide the
"awful hiatuses" in Mr. Miller's brain. Among the many
ignoramuses who have recently sought notoriety by attacking
the Catholic Church, he is one of the most arrant. He could
not tell an " Encyclical " from a log-book, as his text plainly
shows. Of books he pretends to be acquainted with, he knows
little or nothing. One instance will expose his quackery. On
p. 23, he says that he " cannot forbear in passing to refer any
one in doubt on this subject (of Papal infallibility) to the im-
mense Ante-Nicene Literature, translated into English within
the last few years for the first time." You noted the : " in
passing " ; " in passing " is good. Ridiculously assuming to be
conversant with the " immense Ante-Nicene literature," Mr.
Miller does not know that, fifty years ago, more volumes of
Ante-Nicene literature were translated into English than, in a
life-time, he will read intelligibly ; and that, the Edinburgh
edition of Ante-Nicene literature has been in the hands of stu-
dents for more than a quarter of a century. Of Latin, " the "
author knows as little as of French or of English. Transla-
tions from St. Thomas — and Mr. Miller is not always the
translator — are interlarded with Latin sentences. Doubtless
this little trick was devised so that timid souls would infer that
the " Romish " doctor wrote things that the blushing Mr.
Miller dare not turn into his modest English ; but malicious
wags will say that he dodged the hard places. In passing, let
me instance his expertness in Latin. On p. 10, he refers to
the: "official edition of the Encyclicals (of Leo XIII.) by the
Order of St. Augustine^ published at Bruges, in 1887." The
title of this work is : Alhcutiones, Epistola, Constitutiones, aliaque
acta prcBcipua ; all of which the lawyer in the bar in New York
translates into : " Encyclicals." However this rendering is
clever, when compared with the following. On the title-page

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1897.] A WOKM IN AN AWFUL HIATUS. 1 67

of the " AUocutiones," Mr. Miller found the words : Typis
Sodetatis Sancti AugustinL Small as these words are, they
knocked " the " author into an awful hiatus. " By the Order
of St. Augustine/' he translates thetn. Their plain meaning is :
Printed at the Press of the St. Augustine Association. Imagiile
this " scholar " groping in the labyrinth of Aristotle, the " im-
mense " Ante-Nicene literature, the Summa of St. Thomas, or
the Allocutionesy Epistola, etc.^ of Leo XIII.

miller's lack of honesty.

Among his friends, Mr. Miller's lack of education has been
admired. Can it be possible that his lack of honesty has at-
tracted friends to him ? Thus I am tempted to ask, when I
find him, on p. 63, mistranslating a quotation attributed to
Cardinal Gousset, and rendering the words : ^^jus sacrum " by
*' divine law." Let us here give Mr. Miller the benefit of the
doubt and charge his abuse of Cardinal Gousset to ignorance
and not to malice; but what must we say when, tracing a
quotation of eleven lines, imputed, on p. 6, to Donoso Cortes,
we detect the lawyer in the bar in New York putting up a job
on the distinguished Spaniard. The two opening sentences of
the quotation form only one in the original, where they are
printed on p. 24 of the edition of 185 1. The third sentence is
manufactured out of the text of Cortes, p. 27 of the same
edition ; which text Mr. Miller mutilates. The fourth sentence
of the quotation is culled from p. 402 of the same edition, and
is also mutilated. Was I not justified in questioning the honesty
as well as the scholarship of Mr. Miller?

On p. 7, "the" author twists and tortures the text of
Cardinal Manning's Vatican Decrees^ presenting as a con-
tinuous quotation six sentences, two of which are taken from
p. 20 of the original, and the remainder from p. 25. On pp. 8
and 9, Mr. Miller mutilates a Letter (which he calls an "Encyc-
lical ") of Leo XIII. to the Belgian Bishops. An extract from a
speech of Cardinal Satolli, on p. 12, is also mutilated, as well as a
passage from a book by Father James F. Talbot, on p. 18. A
Latin quotation, on p. 73, is not only misprinted but shamefully
mutilated. On p. 112, pretending to quote from the ** Encyclical
on Labor," Mr. Miller, beginning a sentence, skips thirteen lines
of the original, and still finishes his sentence with equanimity,
though not with decency. Not satisfied with mutilating texts,
"the " author occasionally adds to them. Without increasing my
list of his deceptions, I may here ask once more : Can it be possi-
ble that Mr. Miller's lack of honesty has attracted friends to him ?

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l68 A WO/eAf IN AN AWFUL HiATUS. [May,

" The " author practises trickery no less odious, when hand-
ling the text of St. Thomas. Details of his mutilations of this
text, I shall relegate to a note ; * confining myself here ta
some illustrations of Mr. Miller's incompetency. Though he
feigns familiarity with the Life and Labors of St. Thomas of
Aquitiy by (Archbishop) Roger Bede Vaughan, he attributes the
work to Cardinal (Herbert) Vaughan. Of the metiiod adopted
by scholars, in quoting from Aquinas, he is utterly ignorant.
The "Summa Theologica " is to him:, the " Summa Tkeologi(g'*
Texts quoted by Aquinas, from Aristotle or St. Augustine, Mr.
Miller is unable to distinguish from the text of St. Thomas.
Rarely, if ever, does he state the question resolved by the
saint when he used the words referred to him. Though St.
Thomas, in the " Summa," primarily supports his teaching by
arguments drawn from the Sacred Scriptures, and from the
Fathers of the Church, nowhere does Mr. Miller disclose this
fact ; but he does, frequently, cut out of the text the Scriptural
quotations of St. Thomas. For Mr. Miller's ignorance one could
feel pity, were it not that his charlatanism, and his malice,,
invite contempt.

LEO XIII. AND ST. THOMAS.

To the idiotic argumentation of Mr. Miller, no educated or
reasonable man will ask an answer. The pagan philosopher,
Aristotle, had more sound philosophical principles than Mr.
Miller has acquired. By the light of reason, natural truths can
be known ; and by that light Aristotle proved the spirituality
of the human soul and many other truths; The truths of
revelation cannot run counter to the true teachings of reason.
Whatever of truth Aristotle taught, St. Thomas accepted. He
could not do otherwise. Truth cannot be rejected by an honest
mind. There is no pagan truth. Truth is truth. The Jesuits
were never bound to teach everything laid down by St. Thomas ;
nor have they ever accepted all of his opinions. St. Thomas
was a Dominican, and still is the glory of that order. Only a
booby could talk about Thomistic philosophy as if it were the
hobby of the Jesuits. Had Mr. Miller the slightest knowledge
of the various schools of Catholic philosophy and theology, he
might have been saved from appearing to be as nonsensical as
he is. Leo XIII. has not imposed upon Catholics, either the
philosophical, doctrinal, or scientific views of St. Thomas. The

* On p. 33, Summa II. II., quest. 60, art. 6, ad. 3, is mutilated, and so is Summa I. II.,
quest. 96, art. 10. On the following P^ge, Summa II. II., quest 11, art. 3, is mutilated, and
the same is true, on p. 35, of Summa II. II., quest. 10, art. xo, and art. 11. On p. 47, Summa
I. II., quest. 58, art. 2, is mutilated. From his abuse of these fourteen pages, one may infer
how many wrongs Mr. Miller has heaped upon St. Thomas.

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1897-] A WOUAf IN AN A WFUL HiA TUS. 169

progress of the physical sciences may have rendered some of
his argruments of little value, or of no value ; but others, de-
rived from the very nature of things, being based on extrinsical
or intrinsical evidence, retain all their force. It is the method
of Aquinas, and the luminous reasons by which his teaching is
corroborated, that the Pope commends.

Arguing that the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the
Pope implies, or includes, a claim to universal sovereignty, Mr.
Miller intends to be mischievous, though he is only silly ; and
he is as silly as he is ungrammatical when he states that '' ac-
cording to Roman Catholic theory^ the Pope is not only the
source of all law and has power to dispense with any law, but
can direct every human or rational act." From the form of
this sentence, as well as from its matter, I have well-founded
doubts concerning Mr. Miller's knowledge, not only of law
of any sort, but even of the meaning of the word : law. In
several of the books to which he refers, and indeed in any
elementary catechism, he could have ascertained what Catholics
understand by Papal infallibility. According to Catholic faith,
the Sovereign Pontiff is infallible, when, as universal teacher,
he instructs the entire church on matters of faith or morals,
and when, at the same time, he requires the Faithful to adhere
to his teaching. The Pope can claim no infallibility in the
matter of history, or of science, or of art, or even of phil-
osophy, unless where a philosophical question is intimately
connected with Catholic faith. Mr. Miller's rigmarole about St.
Thomas's ** astrology " should not have been written by the '
lawyer in the bar in New York, if he would have his brethren
believe that he read the Encyclical : " itterni Patris " ; for there
the Pope expressly states, that he desires the bishops to insist
" on the wisdom of St. Thomas," and that " by no means does
he wish to impose what scholastic doctors had either investigated
with too great subtlety, or handed down without ^t, consider-
ation, or what does not agree with well-ascertained doctrines of
more modern times, or what in any way is not probable."

POTTER AND DOANE HIS BACKERS.

Of square lies, Mr. Miller is a wholesale retailer. However,
I shall note only two, at the present time. The first is the
hackneyed, despicable lie, that the Jesuits hold that : the end
justifies the means ; and the second is the stupid lie, that the
Jesuits took this " principle " from St. Thomas. With a charita-
ble consideration for Mr. Miller's "hiatused" intellect, and for
his stupendous ignorance, I hinted, some time ago, that he de-

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served contempt. Now I must ask pardon of all men and wo-
men who respect the truth ; for, after these lies, they will not
consider him worthy even of contempt.

A " catchpenny " book, I called Mr. Miller's " anti-^Romanist "
tract. Hoping to catch a penny, he pretends to believe that
he has been at least as slanderous and malicious as any of the
deceased members of the late Mr. Traynor's A. P. A.; and cun-
ningly, and of course ungrammatically, advertises, that he is
not a member of the American Protective Association, and that,
" so far as he knows, he has never seen, nor received any com-
munication from any member of that Association." With the
help of the second page of his book, and of a circular issued
by "the Order of St. Eskdale," we shall put Mr. Miller in his
proper place.

On the second page, and in the circular, Mr. Miller prints
extracts from letters commending his book. Bishop Potter,
Bishop Doane, Bishop Perry, and a Professor Body, of the
General Theological Seminary, are the signers of these letters.
3ishop Potter, is thankful to the lawyer in the bar in New York,
because his book " traces the principles of a great ecclesiastical
policy to its pagan source," and because " it reveals the hostility
of that policy to American ideals, whether of the state, the family,
or the freedom of the individual." Bishop Doane owns up, like
a little man, that he was " startled " by " the " author's facts ;
Bishop Perry finds the work : " really beyond praise," and very
prettily assures Mr. Miller that : " Nothing has appeared since
Mr. Gladstone's Vatican Decrees of like masterful grasp and un-
answerable logic." Professor Body was " struck," indeed he
was " especially struck with the arguments on astrology as an
original factor in Roman philosophy." " This," says the learned
professor, " opens up a new line of historical investigation well
worthy of attention."

To the Catholics of the United States, Bishops Potter,
Doane, and Perry are not unknown ; and by the Catholics of
the United States, the three have been classed where they be-
long : among the most bitter and blind enemies of American
ideals. As members of an A. P. A. association which covered
itself under a more specious name, they belied their Catholic
fellow-citizens for years, in the effort to suppress, utterly, Catho-
lic institutions for destitute children. Remembering the pagan,
though none the less wise, and appropriate, apothegm of Aris-
totle : Asinus asinum fricat^ the lawyer in the bar in New York
will infer how easily we placed him. He is no more, and no
less, A. P. A. than his episcopal friends are.

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1897O A Worm in an awful Hiatus. 171

A word reflecting on the illustrious Professor Body, of the
General Theological Seminary, no man, with a heart, could say.
Having been "struck," and not only "struck," but also "es-
pecially struck "; and having been thus " especially struck " by
Mr. Miller's "astrology," Professor Body now lies, on his back,
helpless, — I imagine, — in some Historical infirmary, or, perhaps,
in a General Theological Hospital. " In passing," we wish the
professor a speedy recovery. He is " well worthy of attention."

The three bishops, it will be noted, do not commend Mr.
Miller's religious " theories "; — " theories," I say with care, for
Mr. Miller has no creed. How could a man have a creed, while
respecting conscience so little as to call it a " talent " ? Con-
ceming the Blessed Trinity, he entertains views not in harmony
with the teaching of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. On one page,
he seems to be a pantheist ; on another, a theosophist. For
these varying moods, or views, I am not inclined to hold Mr.
Miller responsible. Where he startles a reader, by his " origi-
nality," Mr. Miller has, I surmise, been translating from some Ger-
man book ; manufacturing one sentence out of a half-dozen differ-
ent pages. From intrinsic evidence, I feel quite certain about his
method ; and this method alone will account for some of the dis-
connected twaddle that the bishops have pronounced : " masterful."

However, putting aside Mr. Miller's religious, or irreligious,
theories, what are we to say of the " scholarship " of the three
bishops who have commended Mr. Miller's abounding ignorance?
Tenderly flaying Bishop Potter, on October 2, 1896, the Sun
hinted that the words : " large ignorance " were not inapplicable
to his lordship. Can it be that these three bishops fairly repre-
sent the scholarship of the rich and cultured Protestant Episco-
pal communion ? We are unwilling so to believe. Our opinion
is that one, at least, of Mr. Miller's worms — ^^Milleria Obfuscata "
— found a lodging in each of three mitres. The Milleria is a
borer. Making his way into the episcopal brains, he excavated
hiatuses more awful than Mr. Miller's. Perhaps if the whole edi-
tion of " the " author's " masterful " book were dumped into these
hiatuses, the skeleton in the Protestant Episcopal system would
consent to conceal itself, temporarily, in some spacious closet.
And meantime, what is to become of the lawyer in the bar in
New York? Is there no helminthologist in the General Theo-
logical Seminary? To him I appeal: Isolate Mr. Miller. Only
by heroic treatment can those awful hiatuses be bridged over.
All scientific men agree : " In these cases, the prognosis is always
tinjavorable**

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THE RETURN OF MAY. •

BY C. T. RUSH.

VEET Virgin May! with nature's hidden charms
Beneath thy raiment of celestial white ;
Thou blushing with the knowledge of thy right
To bear them smiling in thy tender arms.
Thine ear must hear the secrets of each flower
That trembles ere it blows upon thy breast :
Thine eyes must see that birdlings have their nest
In sheltering crannies from the early showers.
And thou must laugh with Laura as she saves
Her dandelions to wreathe her grandma's head ;
And thou must walk with grief as she doth tread,
In sorrow bowed, amid the blossoming graves.
Sweet Virgin May! with countless beauties bound,
Queenly Jat day ; at night all starry crowned.

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Louis Joseph Ferdinand Windhorst.

WINDHORST AND THE KULTURKAMPF.

BY MARY A. MITCHELL.

N the 14th of March, 1891, the German papers of
all political creeds sorrowfully announced the
death of the great leader, Windhorst. Even his
bitterest antagonists could not refuse to lay the
tribute of reverence on the grave of the octo-
genarian who had spent his long life in unselfish and brave con-
tention for " truth, right, and freedom, for church, state, and
people/'

On the 17th of January, 18 12, Louis Joseph Ferdinand Wind-
horst was born on the estate of Caldenhof, in the now Prussian
province of Hanover, of. which his father was agent. On the
baptismal registei- of the neighboring, " Ostercappein " we find,
under the date January 20, the names of his father, Francis
Joseph Benedict Windhorst, a doctor of both civil and canon
law, and his mother, Clara Antoinette Josephina {nie Niewedde),
proving that he was not of peasant parentage, as has been
erroneously stated.

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174 Windhorst and the Kulturkampf^ [May,

The little Louis was the second of a family of six children,
and, as he often in after-life humorously recalled, he received
his first instructions in a girls' school. When but fourteen he
was held up at the close of the "Carolinium" Institute as "a
model pupil of marked ability, untiring industry, and exemplary
conduct."

In his eighteenth year he left the " Carolinium " with the
following report : " ist. For good conduct, perfect ; 2d. For
German, Latin, history, natural science, very good ; 3d. For
French, pretty good."

He now selected law as his future profession, and, after
studying at Gottingen and Heidelberg, passed a brilliant exami-
nation, and was admitted to practice at Osnabriick in the year
1836.

HIS COURTSHIP,

Windhorst's domestic life played such a pivotal part in his
brilliant career that we shall begin this short sketch with the
description of his wooing, as being eminently characteristic of
the temerity of purpose and the power to overcome obstacles
which crowned his eighty years with the respect of nations.

He became attached to Julie Engelen, the sister of a former
school-mate. He obtained the permission of the father to pur-
sue his suit, but found, to his chagrin, that the fair Julie did
not reciprocate his feelings. Nothing daunted, the future leader
of the " Centre," discovering that music was the favorite ac-
complishment of the young lady, set to work with a will, and
after some time visited the handsome garden of Herr Ignaz
Engelen one evening and, guitar in hand, serenaded Miss Julie.
After some minutes a window was raised, and the young trou-
badour was so overcome that he stepped back and fell into a
stream of water. A cry of alarm came from the window, and
in a few seconds Miss Julie appeared in the garden to find her
determined admirer issuing from his involuntary bath. An ex-
pressive look and a firm grasp of the hand revealed the depth
of feeling which prompted such determination,' and the young
couple returned to the house engaged.

This romantic courtship was followed by one of the happi-
est of marriages, and the description of the golden wedding in
1888, which we find in the Hanover papers, is proof of the
most blissful family relations, and the respect in which both
husband and wife were held by all classes, while the words of
Windhorst himself in Berlin on his eightieth birthday, when he

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I897-] - Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. 175

responded to the toast of Freiherr von Heeremann, thanking him
for having included the name of his wife, who "had ever influ*
enced him in aught of good, and by her self-sacrificing thought*
fulness and care enabled him to devote so much of his time to
his country," tell how worthy they were of each othen

NOT ADONIS-LIKE IN APPEARANCE.

Windhorst's personal appearance would almost shock one
who had looked for the renowned minister of Ernest Augustus
of Hanover, the devoted adherent of his blind son, George, the
able parliamentarian, and, finally, the victorious leader of the
" Central party " and brave adversary of the tyrannical " Kul-
turkampf." He was of almost dwarfed stature, with a dispro-
portionately large head, broad, high, deeply furrowed forehead^
irregular eye-brows, small eyes — always spectacled — and a mouth
and chin which, with all their width and squareness, told of
power, resolution, nervous energy, and indomitable will. This
is surely not Adonis-like, and yet it would be hard to form an
idea of the magnetic influence wielded by this little giant. We
will borrow the description given of him by August Stein, a
prominent Israelite of Berlin : " He who has never seen Wind^
horst laugh, nor followed the mirth growing from the smile on
his broad mouth to the outburst of jovial appreciation in his
hearty laugh, can form any idea of the power of expression in
his mobile features. For this reason none of his pictures pleas^
me, either the photographs or the portrait painted by a cele-
brated Hungarian artist, from which the papers have given cuts.
Of course there is a resemblance in them all, for that head
could not be mistaken even in the gross representations of cari-
caturists, but they give no idea of the kind and humorous man
whose expressive features cannot be copied in the staid pose of
a portrait."

He often made his personal ugliness food for his humor;
for instance, once he fell down the steps of the parliament
house and wrote to his wife assuring her that he was not hurt,
adding, ** When I return home at Easter you will find that my
beauty has not been marred." The writer of this sketch saw
him at Easter, and can vouch that there was no beauty to
"mar."

THE SECRET OF HIS POWER.

Notwithstanding this downright ugliness^ few men of our
day won more deep respect and admiration from the public.

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176 Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. [May,

more love and confidence from those who knew him, or wielded
more influence among colleagues, party politicians, or positive
antagonists, than Ludwig Windhorst.

The secret of this universal esteem and confidence was to
be found in his deep-seated religious convictions, which made
even the least of his actions subservient to a "higher law"
and his natural love of justice for justice' sake. His proud in-
dependence and absolute disinterestedness disarmed the re-
proaches of those who sought for a raison cPitre in his stead-
fast loyalty to " the powers that be " when properly constituted,
instead of shaking off the responsibility of the statesman in
order, to idly nurse personal or traditional preferences. No
bribe of gain or honor could touch the man whose favorite
axiom was, " He who is self-respecting and prizes his indepen-
dence cannot afford to receive favors."

His stem sense of justice and enlightened, self-forgetting de-
votion to his convictions bore the Christian fruit of generous
toleration ; his conception of which can be best understood by
his own words at the German general conference of Catholics
at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in September, 1882: " Toleration does
not mean to wipe away, to revile, to stifle existing states of
things. Tolerance means permission to all to seek their own
means of salvation. We demand respect for our convictions and
the right to declare them ; we guarantee the same right to
others. With regard to our Evangelical fellow-citizens especi-
ally, they can rest assured that we shall never make an attempt
to trespass on their domain, and, so long as they are consistent
with their convictions, we shall in all things allowable stand by
them and oppose those who would deprive them of their
rights. These are not mere words, gentlemen ; I ask any one
present who has followed the parliamentary proceedings if the
Catholic party has not ever protected and fought for the rights
of the Evangelicals with the same energy that they have for
their own? On the day that we cease to carry out this princi-
ple we forfeit all the claims we make for ourselves. The same
justice ; the same measure for all — this, gentlemen, is what we
give and what we ask."

HE DEFENDS HIS LOYALTY.

Windhorst has been accused of being unpatriotic and vacillat-
ing in his attitude to the former kingdom of Hanover and to
the established German Empire. Again we will allow his own
words, when the mighty Bismarck — "the Iron Chancellor" — threw

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178 Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. [May,

suspicion on his loyalty, to speak. In the House of Parliament
he said : " His respected excellency (Prince Bismarck) asks me
if I am still as true to the royal house of Hanover as when I
had the honor of holding negotiations with him? I answer
the princely minister-president that that loyalty continues un-
changed and will go down unchanged to my grave, and no
power on earth, even the powerful minister of the German Em-
pire, can change it." To the representatives he said : " Now,
gentlemen, an accusation has been flung by the minister-presi-
dent at 'the 'Central party' which belongs to me personally.
Is this a fault ? Is this a confession ? It is not for me to de-
cide. The justice of the accusation, however, I deny. If I
could forget the past as lightly as others I would openly con-
fess it, but before all I acknowledge with me it is, Once lavedy
never forgotten. Now, I am a constitutional representative, and
on this floor I stand by the constitution. So long as I do this
with all the powers of mind and body, no man, no minister,
has the right to throw suspicion on me. . . . Gentlemen, I
have before my eyes the command of the Holy Scriptures,
' Submit to the powers that be,' and I have tried by obeying
this commandment to the best of my ability to prove my
loyalty."

We have tried, in a necessarily limited space, to give an
insight into the character, surroundings, and principles of this
great man, who was admired, loved, and feared by friend and
antagonist, and shall now follow him through the varied and
difficult positions to which he was called during his fifty
years of strict adherence to duty, intelligent usefulness, trying
disappointments, and final success.

HANOVERIAN POLICY.

Windhorst's political career may be said to have com-
menced in 1849, when he was elected to the second chamber
of the House of Parliament at the general election in Hanover
following the amending of the constitution after the European
uprising of 1848. He attached himself to the "great German"
party, as embracing his ideal for the securing the self-
dependence of the states. This was the question par excellence
which agitated the kingdom of Hanover for years, and was
watched with eagle eyes by both Austria and Prussia with a
view to future dictatorship.

During the reign of Ernest Augustus, Windhorst possessed
the confidence of his sovereign, while preserving perfect in-
dependence in the maintenance of his principles. Together

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1 897-] Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. ' 179

with his co-religionists and the ** orthodox " or Evangelical
Protestants, he strongly opposed the law excluding religious
teaching from the schools, saying, "Society can be saved only
by making religion the fundamental principle of education."

In 1 85 1 the octogenarian king, Ernest Augustus, died and
was succeeded by his son, George V., who had been entirely
blind from the age of ten. Whether from the helplessness of
his bodily condition or from error of education, George was of
a suspicious nature, fancying himself surrounded by spies, and,
as is often the result, he chose the most selfish and deceitful
for his confidants.

AS MINISTER OF JUSTICE.

In the new ministry formed on King George's corona-
tion Windhorst was appointed minister of justice, the . first
Catholic to reach so high a position in pre-eminently Protestant
Hanover, and in Hartmann's memoirs of Hanover we find the
following testimony to his ability : *' Hanover's department of
justice is a pattern to all other courts."

Each year brought Windhorst proof of fhe confidence of
his countrymen by his repeated re-election to positions of trust,
and in all the struggles, conspiracies, and restlessness through
which the weakening and fated kingdom passed he was loyal
to the " great German " party. This was no easy matter under
a sovereign who rested secure in the belief of a fatalist in his
Guelphic star, which he was confident was invincible, particu-
larly with the strong hand of Austria directing the rudder of
the ship of state.

As of old, the sword cut the Gordian knot of Hanoverian
politics, and on the 20th of September, 1866, Hanover became a
Prussian province. Windhorst's loyalty to the fallen royal
house was only the complement of his love for his native land,
and throughout his long parliamentary career, representing the
Hanover (Meppen) district at Berlin, he was always watchful of
the interests of his constituents, while foremost statesman on
the broad questions of the nation and humanity.

This paternal care Hanover has acknowledged by gratifying
the ardent wish of his heart to see a second Catholic church
in his home. Donations and presents have poured in from the
admirers of the great and good Ludwig Windhorst not alone in
Germany, not alone from Catholic, Protestant, and Jew, biit
from all southern countries of Europe ; and to-day the towets
of the " Marietikirche " proudly lead the eye to the lofty ideals
for which Germany's brave son fought, while they keep alive in

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Anton von Werner's Portrait of the Emperor.

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1897O Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. 181

the thoughts of his countrymen his soul-stirring appeals for
justice for all and untrammelled freedom of conscience.

Immediately on his entrance into the Berlin Reichstag, as
deputy from Meppen, an opportunity presented itself to give
evidence of the stand he proposed to take. With Malinckrodt
and Reichensperger he voted in favor of the constitution of the
Northern German Confederation.

This at first sight seems inconsistent with all his former
political working, but a deeper study of the clever statesman
and his own words, "I am always governed by my honest
sense of right," give the key to the apparent change. The
stupidity of carrying on an obstinate opposition to an established
state of things would have been unworthy of so skilled and far-
seeing a politician as Windhorst, and the wisdom of the states-
man was proved in his career, although it must be allowed
that to his last breath his love of the old state of things was
dearest to his heart.

He was loyal to his oath to support the German Empire,
and always voted for measures which would strengthen its insti-
tutions ; but he attached himself unflinchingly to the Catholic or
" Central " party, and would tolerate no legislation tending to
the oppression of that party, which was pledged to guard all
religious and political liberty.

In March, 1871, the following programme of the "Central"
party was published and signed by v. Savigny, Dr. Windhorst,
V. Malinckrodt, Dr. Peter Reichensperger, Karl, Prince of L6w-
enstein, Freytag.

PROGRAMME OF THE " CENTRAL " PARTY : " JUSTITIA FUNDAMEN-

TUM REGNORUM."

" The Central party has adopted the following axioms as the
goal of their efforts:

'' 1st. That the fundamental character of the empire as a
state confederacy shall be known by its efforts to change the
federal character of the imperial constitution, and by not inter-
fering with the decisions and activity of the individual states
in all interior matters any more than is necessary for the inter-
ests of the whole.

'' 2d. That the moral and material good of the masses should
be furthered, that the civil and religious freedom of the sub-
jects, especially of religious bodies, be continuously protected
from legislative greed.

".3d. The party, as a body, shall be guided by these
principles in all future legislation ; but individual members

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1 82 Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. [May,

are not prevented from voting according to their own judg-
ment."

Windhorst was immediately chosen as leader of the party,
and in this character he found the most fruitful field for his
best talents and most successful efforts.

The formation of the " Central " was the signal for an up-
rising of enemies, at their head the imperial chancellor, Bis-
marck, representing it as ''a sectarian faction." Well knowing
that the strength of the infant organization depended largely
upon its elected leader, the wily manager of the future " Kul-
turkampf " set to work by impeaching Windhorst's loyalty and
sincerity. On the 30th of January, 1872, the *' Iron Chancellor "
said in the Prussian House of Deputies:

BISMARCK ASSAILS HIM.

"In this house I contemplate the most extraordinary spec-
tacle. ... A sectarian faction setting itself up as a political
party ; a party which, should all other sects accept its principles,
must be confronted as an evangelical body. This would lead
.us into a tortuous path, for theology would necessarily be in-
troduced into our debates. It was a great mistake of policy,
from the stand-point of the previous speaker (Windhorst), perpe-
trated by these gentlemen, to build a political party on sectar-
ian foundations, for they draw their co-religionists from the
various parties through the subtle influence at their com-
mand.

"On my return from France I could only look on this
party as a factor decidedly opposed to the state, and I asked
myself. Will this mutinous body be true to the government —
will it aid it or oppose it? My fears increased when I saw at
its head so argumentative and aggressive a member as the
deputy from Meppen ; a member who, according to my impres-
sion — and I am responsible for my impressions, — a member who
from the commencement, actuated by feelings which I respect,
subscribed unwillingly to the Prussian government ; a member
who has never, either in his conversation or in the spirit of his
addresses, acknowledged a change in those views ; a member
who, I am fearful, to-day regrets the establishment of the Ger-
man Empire — of this I have grave doubts.

" I believe, gentlemen of the ' Centre,' that you would be
more in sympathy with the state had you chosen other than
your Guelphic leader, and if you had not received into your
ranks Guelphic Protestants who are not of your mind. Since
the war ceased — so gloriously for us and so unfortunately for

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1897.] Windhorst and the Kulturkampf, 183

••The Iron Chancellor."

the hopes of the Hanoverians — the CathoHcs have been made
use of to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the Guelphs ! "

Windhorst immediately replied to these remarks as follows :
" The ' Centre ' party, to which I have the honor to belong, is
not a * sectarian faction.' The programme of the party has

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i84 Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. [May,

been publicly announced, and all who agree with its provisions
are invited to join it, no matter to what sect they belong. If
it happens that the greater number of those who agree with us
are Catholics, it merely shows that Catholics view political ques-
tions from the more humane premises. But it is not true that
the principles of my party are mostly adopted by Catholics.
There are a great number of Protestants, gentlemen, who sym-
pathize with us, and the truth of my words come more into
evidence day by day.

" Now, I beg to ask the minister-president (Bismarck) in what
my party has been aggressive ? In the Reichstag it has, on
more than one eventful question, voted with the govemnient.
. • . Further, the * Centre ' is now willing, and will be ever
willing, to unite with any party offering a programme accept-
able to their convictions. Yes ; in the cause of peace it would
go even further ; when the Catholic grievances are settled, when
the unjust attacks on the church cease, the * Centre' will will-
ingly disband, for it seeks a rest which is each day becoming
more desirable. , . . But so long as these attacks continue,
so long will the * Centre ' hold its ground, not aggressively de-
fensive — energetically defensive! "

A few days later he replied to personal attacks in the fol-
lowing words:

"Yesterday and to-day there have been so many personal
attacks made on me, with a degree of asperity which I do not
understand, that it tempts me to increase my opinion of myself.
Gentlemen, I am very little and I have not much power, but
you seem determined to make something out of me. To-day
I shall pass by these attacks ; there will be future occasion to
revert to them. I rely implicitly on the discretionary powers of
the president. This discretionary power, it must be confessed,
is not very clear; therefore the weapons are not alike. In the
meantime I do not quail before any one.

" The minister-president has cast suspicion on me in order,
as he acknowledges, to make me withdraw from the leadership
of my party. This manner of obstruction in diplomatic wind-
ings is new to me. Is my policy different from my colleagues ?
I would like to know what induced the minister-president to
have recourse to such a course. He has abundant material at
hand, through his secret police, to discover any crime of mine.
Gentlemen, if such aspersions are allowed, then we are on the
brink of a reign of terror which will stifle freedom of speech.
For my part, I can asstire you that I shall never bow to such
a power. It is something new in the history of diplomacy to

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J897-] Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. 185

see a man of so dignified a position spend an hour making a
personal attack/'

HE CROSSES SWORDS,

In these speeches two great intellects cast down and took
up the glove of defiance, and in the following pages we shall
briefly review how unrelentlessly the fight was maintained.

Windhorst stoutly denied that his party was opposed to the
government. It was in strong sympathy with the empire, but
unflinchingly insisted that it should be the protector of all.

The labor question he looked on as the overwhelming dan-
ger of the age, and always favored the making and amending
of laws suited or unsuitable to the changes brought about by
the constant advance of invention or mechanical work. He
maintained that both capital and labor had much to learn, and
would both be gainers by peaceful negotiation and wise legis-
lation.

At one time Windhorst's scrupulous sense of parental re-
sponsibility made him decide to abandon his public political
career in order to devote himself to the education and interests
of his sons.

Would it be wrong or blasphemous for us to dare to fathom
the designs of an all-wise Providence when we see two promis-
ing sons sicken and cut down in early youth ? It is said that
after the first shock of the loss of his two boys had passed he
determined anew to devote his remaining years to obtaining
justice and freedom for all his fellow-citizens, particularly for
"the brethren of the household of faith."

AS A PUBLICIST.

The " May laws " and the " Kulturkampf " opened a great
field, and with disinterested unselfishness and the weapons of
eloquence, knowledge of his subject, incisiveness, sarcasm, ridi-
cule, and timely pleading, this brave general led his party.

A few quotations from his defence of the religious orders
may now be of interest when we see his prophetic words com-
ing true that " the danger to the state from the toleration of reli-
gious orders would disappear like so many exorcised spirits."

'* We have a right to demand full freedom for the Catholic
Church in Germany and the means to her proper development.
According to the views of the church, the orders form an im-
portant factor in her system."

" There are laws — good laws — for the protection of the
Protestant deaconesses, and we will uphold them with all our

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1 86 Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. [May,

strength. But why should the Sisters of Charity be dangerous
to the state?

" Who so fitted to teach and educate our young girls, pir-

PopuLAR Greetings at the Door of the Reichstag.

ticularly of the classes so debarred from opportunities, as these
noble, modest, generous women? In the words of a colleague,
* there is no power like woman's influence to develop all that is
sweetest and most lovable in woman.* "

" I cannot forbear from expressing the impression which the
general approval of the nursing sisters has made upon me.

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1 897-] Windhorst and the Kulturkampf. 187

This universal voice fills me with hope. But why are they
hampered with these 'cloister laws'? They tend the sick in
palace and in cottage. They bind the gaping wound on the
battle-field and bring peace and comfort to the dying. It is no
secret that our venerable emperor, in the height of the Kultur-
kampf persecution, interposed on behalf of these sisters; and
yet to-day these noble daughters of Germany, who only asked
to be allowed to devote themselves to humanity, are seeking
refuges in America and England."

" It is urged that our missionaries must be suppressed. He
who says that we can conquer savage lands without missionaries
does, not know the A B C of colonization. We can take a
lesson from England and France. Although the France of to-
day cannot be called the model guardian of religious institu-
tions, you will find that grants for missionary purposes will
be the last stricken from her budget. It is not good policy to
shoot down or extirpate the natives of East Africa ; we want
to civilize them, and some of the Jesuits make a good body-
gruard among the' cannibals."

HIS TRIUMPH.

In oft-repeated and never-tiring efforts such, as these the
great Windhorst combated the religious persecutions which
darkened the foundation of the German nation.

On the 2ist of May, 1885, ^^ "Church peace laws" were
passed and began to dig the graves of the infamous " May
laws," and to close the " Kulturkampf," or, to make a very poor
translation of one of Windhorst 's witty plays on words, the ««-
Kulturkampf:*

Windhorst's constant attendance at all general conventions
of Catholics was only on a par with his scrupulous watchfulness
in his parliamentary duties, which were continued up to the
very last week of his life.

On the 9th of March, 1891, he was seized with a fever
which was accompanied by constant delirium. Even then his
mind was busy with his life work, and in fancy he made elo-
quent appeals on the Christian school question, the return of
the Jesuits to Germany. His daughter was sent for, and during
the occasional moments of consciousness he took leave of her,
sent messages of love and resignation to his wife, who was too
ill to travel from Hanover, and received the last sacraments of
the church whose valiant knight he had lived.

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1 88 In the Time of War. [May,

IN THE TIME OF WAR.

BY HELEN M. SWEENEY.

FINE turnpike road of stiflf red clay led in al-
most a straight line for twenty miles to Kershaw
on the south, and stretched northward, beyond
the river, twenty mfles to Ashton. That hard,
firm road was destined to echo in later years to
the tramp, tramp, tramp of Sherman's men on their way to the
sea; but to-night in the gathering dusk it lay calm and lonely,
never-ending to Barry Windom's anxious eyes. Across the
river the country of broad levels lay open to the slanting rays
of the setting sun. Barry noted the ungainly, ragged bushes
standing in long rows, looking as though their white wool had
blown that way and had caught and clung at random. They
resembled a parade of sturdy beggarmen unwillingly drawn up
in line, with their stubborn, uneven branches and generally lop-
sided appearance.

A moment later tired horse and rider turned sharply to the
left and entered the bit of woods that lay between the turn-
pike and his own beautiful valley. In the dense shadow of
these pine and fir-trees a soft, green twilight reigned. It was
absolutely still. In the deep, brooding silence not a leaf stirred,
not even a bird's sleepy note was heard — nothing but the soft
thud of his horse's hoofs deadened by the thick, brown carpet of
pine-needles. Just ahead of the lightsome arch where the woods
opened out to the road again lay home — and home held Winona
and Baby Win.

All day long his thoughts had been anxiously peering into
the future, but now they reviewed the past. He remembered
the first time he had come down into this lovely land to spend
the Christmas holidays with his chum, Thornton' Nelson, and
the royal welcome he had received from the family with that
generous, spontaneous, whole-souled hospitality which for genera-
tions had been one of the distinguishing features of Southern
civilization. He had had pleasant times before and since, but
never while life lasted would he forget that first visit ; the long
ride through the light snow in the big family carriage, filled
outside and in with Nelsons, young and old, in every degree
of relationship ; and the creaking cart that followed piled up

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1 897-] I^ ^^^ Time of War. 189

with trunks and boxes containing the innumerable Christmas
gifts. As last they had reached the " big gate '* and had dashed
through with great noise and clatter. Suddenly a shout had
gone up, " There she is ; I see her ! " and he had leaned far'
out the window to catch the gleam of a la||U> in a window of
the distant house, which for hours had been waiting, the light in
the mother's window which was to carry afar the welcome that
shone like a beacon, as pure, as glowing, as steady as the ten-
der love in that mother's heart.

He remembered their swarming into the house, the glad
cries of welcome, the hearty embraces between mother and
sons. There were a number of girls there, sisters and cousins,
all young, all charming in their sweet, gracious hospitality ; but
from the first moment there had been only one Winona. She

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I90 In the Time of War. [May,

was like her mother, so gently bred and so exquisitely fine.
Then to think of his winning her the next year, of his taking
her from the host of admirers, who had hotly resented a North-
erner wearing their lovely Southern rose. She had been a co-
quette, but had toyed with hearts as innocently as the wind
tosses flowers in the sunshine. She had played upon every
chord of the human soul, for hers was a masterhand. Perhaps
it was because of her untrammelled freedom that when she did
give up the surrender was absolute. She made a perfect wife.
She had urged his buying the old Frankton estate and becom-
ing a Southerner by choice and adoption, since he had missed
the inestimable blessing of being bom below Mason and Dix-
on's line.

Their first child was two years old now, and Barry was going
home to-night with his heart heavy and sad with forebodings.
As he emerged from the shadows he could see the house and
his wife standing waiting. A great lump rose in his throat as
he looked on the fair, quiet scene and the tender, primrose
April sky arching over all. The low, brick house seemed to
warmly glow, even in this light, with deep russet tints that told
of honest manufacture in the beginning and a century of sun-
baked seasons since.

Barry lifted his hat in return to his wife's salute, and only
then remembered the unused gun slung over his shoulder. He
had gone out that morning to hunt. He had to pass through
Pendleton, and he had found the little town in a ferment.

Three days before Sumter had surrendered.

To many in that secluded little corner of the world that
meant little. Their peaceful lives had been only faintly stirred
by the rumors of war that for months had been gathering force.
The fierce wave of secession had risen in their own little State
and had broken on the shores of Maryland. The momentous
.election that had put Lincoln into power had little significance
for those quiet hamlets girt by the calm, eternal hills.

But to this thoughtful young rider, slowly picking his way in
the dusk toward waiting home and wife, the news he had heard
that morning meant a great deal. His youthful figure seemed
to have lost its jaunty poise, and he was turning over grave
questions in his troubled mind.

First Winona had to be told ; and he wondered how she
would take it. And then — and then —

He flung himself from Victor's back and clasped his wife in
his arms with a wild, half-passionate fervor.

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"O Barry! you've been so long," she said.

She waited until Ephrem had come round from the back
to take his horse, and watched him impatiently as he carefully
placed his gun in the rack in the hall ; then she could wait no
longer,

" Barry, have you heard the good news ? Sumter's been
taken ! "

" Who told you ? " And he felt half ashamed of the intense
feeling of relief that came over him that he did not have to
tell her.

" Why, Eph just streaked home ; he's been in an hour." She
clasped her hands on his arm, looking up at him with brilliant
eyes. " Now they'll see," she said excitedly; "they'll never call
us blustering braggarts again ! Now there's nothing left but
war ! O Barry ! for the first time in my life I wish I were a
man."

He wished so, too, for an instant ; then he could blurt out the
sentiments that were crowded in his heart ; but he only dropped
his eyes, and continued his monotonous walk up and down the
gravelled path, mechanically caressing the white fingers on his
arm. At last his silence struck her ominously. She stood still
and faced him, her eyes blazing into his, her softly-arched brows
meeting in a dark line.

He put his arm about the tense little figure. "Let us have
tea," he said.

Tea, tea ! and the echo of that shot not yet died out of
the blue hills that shut them in!

She darted away from him.

"Winona!" That was all. Just her name in a sweet, sad
tone ; just a man calling to her, a woman. The hot little rebel
heart sank within her. And she knew.

She led the way into the long, low-studded dining-room, with
its oaken wainscoting, black with age, its one wide latticed
window a softly luminous square in the dusky twilight of the
room. In the open fireplace, between the brasses, stood a blue
jug heaped high with jonquils, and the big punch-bowl on the
sideboard was crowded with violets. The round table had been
pushed near the window and Eph was lighting the candles with
hands that shook a little. The pale light gleamed on snowy
linen, silver and glass, and lit up Barry's white, concentrated
face as he took his seat opposite Winona, who was glad to busy
herself with the tea things behind the big urn. She could not
eat ; she could do nothing but watch that white, absorbed face

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192 In the Time of War. LMay,

across the table, with the firm-set jaw and straight mouth that
told of a fixity of purpose that nothing would change.

How had it been with her? why had she not thought of
these things before? She had known, dimly, of the gathering
cloud of war ; but then she had 'been on her honeymoon, and
no war or rumors of war could reach her there. The halcyon
days had slipped along, each more beautiful than the last,
crowned by Baby Win's birth, when life seemed too full of joy
to last, and now — She felt that Barry was going to enlist,
and on the Northern side ! The thought was like a chill wind
blowing through her heart. She went out again into the *gar-
den. The great blue silence overhead had deepened and faded
into a sombre background for the early stars. The fireflies
danced about, the crickets droned, no other sound broke the
scented stillness. She heard his step on the walk behind her,
but she did not turn.

" I think we will find Winona here," she heard him say, and
turned to welcome, in a cool little way, her cousin Winthrop.
His plantation adjoined theirs, though his house, where he lived
in bachelor freedom, was nearly seven miles beyond on the
turnpike.

"Winona, what is this dreadful thing that Barry tells me?
He is going to fight on the Northern side? Impossible!''

Winona drew herself up. To condemn Barry herself was
one thing, to hear him condemned was another. She slipped
her hand into her husband's arm.

" I have yet to see the day when Barry decided hastily or
unwisely, Winthrop. Whatever is right to him is right," she
said. "I said to-night I wished I were a man, but I take it
back. If I were, we would be on opposite sides, and that
would kill me, if the bullets spared me."

Winthrop, young, impetuous, bubbling over with admiration
for his plucky little State and the momentous step she had taken,
felt like applauding his cousin ; but Barry spoke.

" Dear one, I know how you feel, and believe me I would
not give you pain if I could help it. I know that both of you
love your land, love the institutions that you were born to and
brought up in. So do I. The very word * Union * is sacred to
me, and the first man to lay a desecrating finger on its hallowed
entirety will find an enemy in me, were that man my brother."

" My dear Barry," said Winthrop emphatically, " to pretend
that we have not the legal and constitutional right to secede
from the Union is to stultify ourselves and falsify history."

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"I am afraid that is a question that only the sword can
answer now, Winthrop. Winona, you can see if our land were
less stable these convulsions would have wrecked it long ago."

But Winona could only lay her head on his broad shoulder
and picture her own fair little world that was about to be
wrecked by a convulsion as awful to her as those impersonal
questions were to the commonwealth.

Barry turned and looked at her. Her white, intense little
face peered into the darkness and smote his heart.

" I am a brute," he said ; " you are cold and tired. We
will talk no more to-night, my dear; but let me say just one
word. Is my action as incomprehensible as it was?" And he
held her soft cheeks between his palms. She looked up at
him; her lovely eyes filled up with tears that slowly gathered
and gathered and at length rolled over and wet his hands. She
said no word, but Barry felt he was answered.

Barry, clear-headed, cool, loving, but determined in what he
thought was right, made what preparations he could for Winona's
comfort and safety while he was away. He advised her not to
return to her father's plantation. "I am pretty sure that most
if not all of the fighting will be done on the border line."
From the first he was not one who thought " the trouble would
blow over in sixty days " ; nor did he think eleven dollars a
month, and future unsubstantial glory, large pay for an able-
bodied man ; but nevertheless he enlisted, and as a private.
Upon arriving at Washington he was made sergeant in Company
A, 144th New York Volunteers; wrote two letters from head-
quarters to his wife full of love and devotion, sad as death
that anything, even patriotism, should have been as a shadow
between them ; then came an unaccountable silence. Weeks
and months went by ; but not a lihe, not a word of any descrip-
tion, came to cheer her bewildered, lonely heart.

Her old home was on the Sand Hills, twenty miles from
the cotton-fields on the river-levels. Her mother had been
dead just a year when the war broke out. Her father was an
old man now, too old to enter the field himself, but he had
given both his sons to the Confederacy. Thorn, his first born,
was shot at Fredericksburg in the depths of the first winter. It
had been bitterly cold, more than bitter for the Southern boys
trying to throw up entrenchments on the heights with pointed
sticks for spades. The cold winds played havoc with their health,
but could not dim their courage. Thorn, it was told them after-
wards, said no word after being shot but ** How cold ! How cold ! "

Then John, the second son, went on his northern way to

VOL. LXV.— 13

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194 In the Time of War. [May,

** I WOULD LIKE TO LEAVE THIS YoUNG MaN HERE FOR AWHILE " (p. 20l).

corpse-Strewn Virginia, who in her constant storm and stress of
war could not take time to count the many thousand brave boys
in gray who found a grave in her blood-stained breast.

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"War is cruelty," said our great general. It is, it must be
so ; but to the men who offer up their lives for the mainte-
nance of a principle there is an exhilaration, a divine uplifting
of the spirit that sustains them in their hours of struggle ; but
no words, however eloquently said or sung, could portray the
suffering of these Southern women who, like Winona, became
personally acquainted with the cruelties of war.

Two months after her return to her father's house, while, all
unknown to her, Barry was lying in prison, her son was born.
She wanted the little one called Barry, but shut her lips in
proud silence when her father called him Nelson. Her father
had lost his old vehemence in regard to her husband ; age had
not subdued him, but sorrow had. He never forgave Barry's
desertion, as he insisted on calling it ; but lately he never
mentioned his name. Winona understood the proud old heart,
and without remonstrance called the baby the good old family
name. The child seemed to have inherited grief; he grew and
thrived in a silent, joyless way that nearly broke his mother's
heart to see. At two and a half, when other children are play-
ing and laughing about the house like human sunbeams, little
Nelson was silent, grave-eyed, and serious. He would lie in his
mother's lap for hours, his big dark eyes, so like to Barry's
eyes, looking up into her face with haunting questions in their
depths that tried her very soul. Often she would hold him
close in a passionate embrace and murmur ** Barry, Barry I " in
his ear to ease her aching heart of its load of silent grief.

In the third winter of the war her father died. Then she
and Baby Win and the grave-eyed little boy lived on alone in
the old house with Marm Hizzie, the one servant who had re-
mained faithful to them. They suffered as only the tenderly
reared can suffer when reduced to poverty ; but Winona never
complained, never rebelled. The greater griefs had swallowed
up the less. As yet they had seen no real fighting in their
quiet retreat ; but there soon came sorrowful times for the lit-
tle Palmetto State. The great army crossed the swelling yellow
tide of the Savannah, and South Carolina expiated her sin.

" Chile, chile, dey is come ! " cried Hizzie, bursting into Wi-
nona's room one afternoon, her withered black face gray with fear.
Cavalrymen were sweeping through the village, but Winona
never looked out. Nelson was sick. For hours he had been lying
in a semi-stupor, each labored breath being like a blow on the
mother's heart. What were war or the issues of war to her now ?

The house was some distance back from the road, and broad
grounds separated it from the neighboring residences. Hizzie

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196 In the Time of War, [May,

piled up pillows and cushions s^ainst the windows and doors so
that the noise in the road outside would not disturb the tiny
sufferer. There was a meUe going on a little way down the
road, caused by an ill-advised attack by the fiery people of the
village ; but Winona still knelt by the low bed and prayed as
she had never prayed before for help to the God of the father-
less. All night she knelt watching the flickering breath. She
felt dimly grateful for being left unmolested by the crowd
whose tramping feet she could hear going past the house until
long after midnight ; but as the small hours came on she felt
horribly alone with sorrow and memory and overshadowing
death. Every now and then she could hear on the gallery out-
side her window the tap, tap, tap of her faithful collie's tail as
he switched it against her window, and the soft thud of his
step as he moved about. How welcome in her sorrowful vigil
was the brute's dumb constancy !

When morning broke there was a change. She made no
outcry, she shed no tears, but rose from her knees stiff and
cold, chilled to the very soul with speechless woe. She threw
open the long window and found herself looking into a soldier's
face. It was not Hector, then, that she had heard, but this
man's sword tapping against the rail !

"You had better give up what you've hidden here," he said
roughly ; ** there's a guard at every house of this accursed town."

She stepped aside. " Come in," she said quietly.

With his bayonet ready at defence, he crossed the sill. In-
stantly he uncovered and silently withdrew. Yet no armed man
had met him, no resisting foe had compelled his retreat — only a
still, baby form lying on the bed, clothed in the majesty of death.

All that day the sun shone down on the streets full of
blue-coats, thousands upon thousands of them. One wing of
the great army was marching through. There was still hot
anger against the little town for its show of resistance, and the
guards had orders to shoot any man or boy who showed him-
self outside his doorway.

Late in the evening, in the long, silvery twilight, Winona
said to Hizzie :

" We must bury Nelson — you and I together, Hizzie."
There was no one to help them ; the neighbors, without an ex-
ception, had suffered some loss the] previous day. The old
woman followed her without a word. Had she been bidden to
go alone even as far as the gate she would have cowered at
her "chile's" feet in abject terror, but she would follow to the
world's end. The family burial-place was on the grounds, as

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was the custom, and in silence the two women hollowed out a
grave as best they could. The guard near by watched them for
some moments, and terrified them by calling to another soldier,

Hizzie trembled as if in ague, " Do not fear/* said Winona ;
"we are only two women and a dead child."

" What are you two doing there ? " said the second soldier.

"Digging a grave for my son," said Winona, in slow, mea-»
sured voice. No more was said and the women went on with
their work. They lined the shallow hole with roses and a fine
linen sheet, and, holding the corners of the blanket, lowered
the little body into it. Then, opening her prayer-book, Winona
read aloud the prayers for the dead. Hizzie wailed and cried
aloud, rocking her body to and fro ; but the mother did not
weep. She worked with feverish haste, and saw with tearless
eyes the last shrouded outline disappear under the stifling,
heavy clods. When it was all over she turned to go, and for
the first time raised her eyes. There at the fence-corner stood
a row of Federal soldiers, silent, attentive, with bared heads, the
utmost respect and sympathy in their faces. As the two lonely
women moved slowly up the slope to the house a volley rang
out over the tiny, freshly made grave, and the Federal soldier's
son had received a soldier's last honors.

During all the next day, too, the blue-coats were marching
by; there seemed to be no end to the glistening muskets, ^
Winona watched them passively. She felt as though she could
never suffer anything again, as though she had come to the limit
of human endurance. Yet there were moments when she actually
smiled at the grotesque things she saw in this strange procession.

Cock-fighting, a straggler had told Hizzie, had become one
of the pastimes of the " flying column." Many fine birds were
brought in by the foragers. " Those with no fight in 'em we
put in the stewpan," but those of valor were now holding an
honored name and place on the front seat of an artillery cais-
son, or were carried tenderly under a soldier's arm. After the
army came the army followers, lil^ horrid carrion birds who
flew behind the conquerors and devoured what was left. The
fine old Nelson place did not escape ; every nook and corner,
every chest and drawer, was ransacked ; even the old family
portraits on the wall were cut into ribbons. A soldier coming
in from the smoke-house with his hands dripping with brine
deliberately wiped them on Winona's wedding vail, which had
been taken from its box by a former intruder. The boy was
young, he meant no harm ; but how it hurt !

The next night Winona, little Win, and old Hizzie went

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198 In the Time of War. [May,

away, for their home was in ashes. It is one thing to say
" the fortunes of war," and another thing to experience them.

They struggled on and on in a rude ox-cart, driven by
Marm, Hizzie's nephew, who was following in the wake of the
advancing army when he was caught and his conveyance
pressed into her mistress's service by his old auntie, who was
loyal to the very core of her honest heart. On, on they went,
jolting over the rough corduroy roads, till they reached the
mountains, those friendly hills that stood in silence, calm,
majestic, and imperturbable, amid the wreckage of human
hearts and homes.

Here they found a refuge with Lon Loomis and his wife,
who lived on a strange level where the great mountain peaks
are crowded close together near the end of their chain. There
was but one entrance to his upland home, a narrow gorge
opening to the west. Loomis had found this shelf, and seeing
it grassy and good for grain, had built his house there. Even
to this remote spot the echoes of war had found their way.
Lon was a neutral. He was neither a Southerner nor a North-
erner, he said, but a mountaineer ; like the little Sunday-school
boy who was neither a Gentile nor a Jew, but a Presbyterian.

It was to this haven of peace that Winona and her child
came, after battling with the waves of fate. At first she was
supine, crushed by the weight of her griefs and loneliness ; but
soon the magic influence of high regions effected a gradual
cure of this tried soul, and she lifted her head again. She and
little Win used to take long walks back into Hickory Gap,
the wild loneliness of the place being their sole protection.
One evening, when they had lingered late, they heard the un-
usual sound of hoofs coming up the Gap ; they had never heard
anything there before but the sound of birds and the rush of
running water.

"Sit close," whispered Winona; "put your head in mother's
lap. The trees will hide us." The frightened child obeyed.
Winona's heart beat high with fear. There were no farms in
that direction, and no one rode through wild, dark Hickory
Gap for pleasure. Presently they saw a man ride by on horse-
back supporting another, wounded and bleeding. The horse
galloped by, the pale face hung in their sight for a moment,
then out again. The sound of the hoofs grew fainter and
fainter, the blue-coats became but a blurred vision, and then
the familiar sound of the rushing river filled up the silence
again. In that brief glance Winona had recognized her hus-
band. She wanted to rush out, to claim the wounded man as

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i897-] J^ THE Time of War. 199

" * There's the North R(»ad,' he cried, pointing to the left " (p. 202).

her own Barry, but something restrained her — fear, pride, she
knew not what ; but before she could act on impulse or reflec-
tion she was alone with the child, who was sobbing with fright.
That night the war reached even these upper levels ; it had
come even to neutral Lon Loomis on his shelving ledge. It
was only the edge of the storm, but to Lon it was the judg-
ment day.

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200 In the Time of War. [May,

"Turn out, old man, and give us some horse-feed," called
an imperative voice, while impatient hands knocked at doors
and windows. " Ah ! you are there, are you ? Whom are you
for?"

Lon raised his candle on high. Its sickly little gleam flashed
uncertainly in the high wind. " Come out. WeVe got to levy
on your live-stock here. Whom are you for ? "

"I'm for neither; Fm neutral," said Lon doggedly.

"Oh! that's the story, is it? I've heard that tale before,"
said the officer* His worn gray uniform hung in folds on his
gaunt frame. "Neutral! Why don't you tell the truth and
come plank out with Union ? You'd have a better chance with
us, I reckon, old chap. Neutral, indeed ! I'd be on one side or
the other, and not on the fence, if I were you. Go ahead,
boys ; find the pitch-pine and light up ; give you half an hour
for your job."

They did go ahead. Winona and Hizzie, from an upper
window^ saw the lights flashing in the rain, while the men went
to and fro, driving out the animals, collecting and loading them
up with all the forage they could p^ather. Black Bess, the one
saddle-horse Lon possessed, was a tricky little mare, and used
often to lift the latch of the stable door and meander about at
her own sweet wilL This little way of hers saved her to-night,
and she was the only thing on four legs left on the place ;
everything else was far down the Gap and away when daylight
broke. Hizzie lifted up her voice and wailed, but Lon was
furiously angry.

" I've paid dollar for dollar, and done no harm to any man,
and now I've been robbed — openly robbed ; and by men in uni-
form, too ! rU have the law on 'em, you'll see ! "

He saddled Black Bess and rode off to the village, only to
find it half in ashes, the people sullen, with but little sympathy
to bestow on a trouble not as bad as their own.

" Were your two sons killed in battle ? " demanded an old
man sternly. " If not, hold your peace."

Lon rode angrily back up the mountain, nor would he speak
a word for two days. Then he began to draw up a statement
of grievances to be sent he did not know exactly where ; but to
bend doggedly over his unaccustomed work, following the shape
of each letter with his tongue, relieved his overcharged feelings
somewhat. His wife, however, wept openly whenever she looked
at the empty pens and stalls, and the great door of the barn
sagging on its broken hinges.

" The critters had no politics, anyway," she sobbed.

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1897.] In the Time of War. 201

Before the week was out they heard horses again coming up
the Gap. ** There's nothing left to take now but ourselves,"
said Lon grimly. But the visitors were bent on addition this
time, not subtraction. With them was a wounded man, a youth,
who sat his horse with difficulty, one empty sleeve pinned to
his breast.

" I would like to leave this young man here for awhile,**
said the officer in charge ; " he is badly but not dangerously
hurt, and only needs care and attention. May I ask, sir, how
this happened?** he added, glancing at the desolation around
him.

" You may,*' said Lon.

" How, then ? *'

" RaskiUs ! **

" Are you Federal or Confederate ? "

*• Neither," said Lon, now with a sort of fierce pride in his
position ; " I'm neutral.**

" I believe he would maintain that at the stake," thought
Winona anxiously.

" Bah ! ** said the stranger, " I have no use for neutrals. Here,
ride on!** But the wounded soldier settled the question by
swaying in the saddle, and would have fallen fainting to the
ground had not the elder man jumped from his horse and sup-
ported him in his arms. He was carried into the house, and^
as Colonel Halliday laid him down on the worn old lounge, he
looked up into Winona*s white face and said :

" You have no politics, thank God ! This is what the war
means for women. You will care for him awhile ? **

" He is my cousin," she said, and stooped to kiss Winthrop's
white forehead. The colonel went away satisfied that his charge
was in good hands, and once more the Gap settled down to
peace and silence.

As strength came slowly back to Winthrop he and Winona
would sit for hours at the edge of the gorge while he made
real to her all the horrors of battle. With little tact and less
kindness he pointed every tale with a personal application. He
could not revile the North enough, and with subtle cruelty
made Barry the scapegoat of all his country*s sins. But he
overshot the mark. Notwithstanding all her own bitter experi-
ences, heedless of her cousin*s list of grievances, disregarding the
recent sad scenes she had witnessed up here in the mountain
fastness, she forgot that she was a Southerner ; she remembered
only that she was a wife and mother. Her heart yearned for
the one who had given her the purest, sweetest happiness of her

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202 In the Time of War. [May,

life, and who even now, perhaps, needed a woman's tender care.
She told no one of the fleeting glimpse she had had of him,
and to that memory she added these deep, holy thoughts and
locked them in her hearty and was so still, so sad and unre-
sponsive to Winthrop's vehemence, that he added another to
the long list of ills the North was accountable for. He soon
ceased to talk quite so freely to her. One can never quite
trust another whose heart has strayed beyond Mason and
Dixon's line.

One morning she saw he was putting his arms in order with
great care. He was in great spirits, and sang and whistled as
he worked. Twenty times that day . did he go to the foot of
Sentinel Rock, as if expecting some one. After each fruitless
return he chafed and fumed, and finally, toward dusk, started
to walk down the Gap toward the turnpike with a determined
air, as if he could endure the suspense no longer.

That night, as Lon and the women sat at supper, a face ap-
peared at the open door.

" Lieutenant Nelson is here, I believe ?. What ! not in ?
How provoking ! and I haven't a moment to wait. Just tell
him, will you, that the Feds will be at Upton some time to-
night or at dawn, and our boys, coming across from the west,
are going to pounce upon them and bag them all. General
Browne is with them, wounded, I believe. They are tired and
fagged out and we shall have an easy catch. They are coming
by way of the north road and will probably camp on Upton
Hill. Nelson will understand ; just tell him, please."

A flourish of his cap and he was off again ; only a foolish,
hot-headed boy like Winthrop himself. An older campaigner
would not have called through an open door like that, and
would infallibly have waited for supper. But hot-headed South-
ern boys did not v/ait for supper.

The party at the table sat silently gazing into each other's
faces until the echoing hoof-beats had died away. Then Lon
sprang to his feet and hurried out into the yard. Winona fol-
lowed him. He caught her arm in his excitement.

"There's the north road," he cried, pointing to the left.
"If I'd been the fool you women would have me, I'd be in
that scrimmage to-night "; and Winona could not tell whether
it was relief or regret that made his tone strident with feeling.
As for her, a wave of complex emotion surged through her
soul and shook her as if with a chill. Upton was only twelve
miles away ; tired Federal soldiers were marching toward it ;
and Black Bess was in the stable !

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A» the long, dusky twilight was deepening into darkness she
stole out, a dark dress on, a black straw hat tied down on her
head with a cord. With trembling hands she saddled Bess.
Jim, Winthrop's horse, a strong, vicious beast, eyed her know-
ingly while she labored with the straps, as if to say, " Oho,
young woman! is that your game?"

She led Bess out, across the grassy slope, through the silent,
starlit field?, and down the Gap. At the foot of Sentinel Rock
she mounted. and rode away. The valley lay bathed in silver
mist before her, the rugged peaks around were softened into
velvet in the still air. She knew the road, Bess was swift and
sure, yet her cold hands trembled on the bridle. She saw a hun-
dred dread forms behind the trees, and unfriendly faces seemed
peeping from every fence-corner. She was terribly afraid; but
with courage born of the highest fortitude, that conquers fear,
she was flying on in spite of her fears. She wondered how
long it would be before Winthrop's return ; she reckoned he
would cross the river first and join his company, who were to
" pounce " on Upton. She thought of Winnie, and a sob caught
in her throat; she thought of the little grave in the orchard,
and her labored breath spurred Bess on to new effort.

Hark! the sound of hoofs on the road behind her. She
gave one frightened backward glance. Jim, the vicious, the
terrible, with his head stretched forward and his ears laid back,
was dashing madly after her. Winthrop's voice was urging him
on, coaxing, persuading him to outdo himself. Winona forgot
her fears. She put the whip to Bess and thought with anguish
of Jim's wonderful strength, which in the end would tell against
all the fleetness of Bess.

" Never more friends nor cousins ! *' thought Winona fiercely,
clinching her hands and shutting her teeth hard.

They were down the mountain at last. The two horses
had fallen to a regular gallop — Bess still in front, but the
black brute behind gaining by the inch. Winona hastily
scanned her chances. Jim was strong, but Jim was also wicked.
If he should show his temper now !

He did.

When they came to the little river which they must ford

Jim decided to rest awhile with his legs in the water, and take

a long, slow drink. There he stood, switching his tail from

^side to side, while Bess, thirsty too but docile, clambered up

on the other side, got well in the lead again, and kept it.

" Now, Bess ! now, Bess ! " sobbed Winona.

The plucky little mare did her utmost. She flew down the

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204 In the Time of War. [May,

valley like a bird. Winona's heart beat fast. She had won I
Dear old Jim ! Dear, obstinate, delightful, wicked old Jim !
Winona calculated. Had the Federals reached Upton ?

" It was Winona's Arms that clasped him close " (p. 205).

Should she gallop straight to the hill, or out the north road to
meet them? Winthrop would, of course, turn to the left.
Winona hesitated a second. No sound of following hoofs,
She turned and looked where a level space between two ridges
gave her a view of the town. Camp-fires glowed on the hill
beyond !

The tired Federals, resting on the hill till dawn, their
wounded general under shelter, waiting for a taste of the coffee

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1 897-] I^ THE Time of War. 205

over the fire, suddenly saw a vision gallop into camp. A white-
faced little woman on a jaded, foam-flecked mare, who cried:

"To arms! They are coming! They are coming!"

But they had already come. The Federals found themselves
surrounded, and the bravest of them could only surrender.

Two days afterwards there was an exchange of prisoners,
and Winona was sent back to Hickory Gap under the escort of
a special guard, but without Black Bess. That fleet-footed
mare had run her last race, and had been shot an hour after
reaching the camp.

They saw no more fighting in the mountains. G^fant's line,
like a huge lariat, was drawing closer and closer around the
doomed capital, and the poor, tried South laid down her arms.

Winona took advantage of Lon's moving away from his
** neutral " ground, and she, with Winnie * and Marm Hizzie,
travelled with them toward Washington. What a scene of
desolation they passed through ! Wrecked engines, bent and
twisted iron rails, blackened ruins, and lonesome chimneys bore
silent, pathetic witness to the terrible ravages of war. As they
came nearer and nearer to the river-levels, and at last entered
the strip of pine woods that lay between her and her own once
happy home, Winona thought her heart would burst. The
straight trunks of the pines shot up to a great height, their
branches spreading out into a green roof that made a perpetual
5hade. Here was peace ; what lay beyond ? Winona scarce
dared to look,. but by a happy miracle her house was not de-
stroyed. The rooms were empty and deserted, bereft of every-
thing that could be removed or burnt. With the child's hand
in hers, Winona wandered for hours through the grounds, the
orchard, the empty rooms.

Suddenly she heard a footstep overhead. It could not be !
Who was this stranger looking at her with great longing eyes?
Some holy instinct made the child pierce through the change
four years had made — the beard, the stain and dust of travel,
the benumbing touch of two years* imprisonment — and she
cried :

"My father!"

But it was Winona's arms that clasped him close, Winona's
soft brown head that lay on his shoulder, Winona's wet cheek
that was pressed to his. Little Win could only look on in
wistful surprise at her mother's unusual exhibition of emotion,
while she clung to the big, brown hand that held hers so close.

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206 ECHTERNACH AND THE DANCING PILGRIMS. [May,

ECHTERNACH AMD THE DANCING PILGRIMS.

BY REV. ETHELRED L. TAUNTON.

HO has not heard of that curious remnant of me-
diaeval pageantry, the stately and graceful dance
of choir-boys in the cathedral of Seville? And
thought runs back to the king of Israel, clad in
a linen ephod, dancing before the ark in the
sight of all his people. Dancing is only a form of gesture, and
may, as in these two instances, be indicative of the highest rev-
erence and worship. One may run up and down the whole
gamut of human sentiment, and find in saltatory exercise the
expression of its various moods. The war-dance of the Ameri-
can Indians, the seductive steps of the Nautch girl, and the
boisterous, unrestrained license of the cancan are other examples
of the various meanings attached to dancing. The mystic whirl-
ing of the dervishes, the leaps of the Jumpers, are all expres-
sions of the religious aspect of the power of motion, rhythmical
and poetic. Another point of view is afforded by the striking
performances of the Dancing Pilgrims of Echternach in the Grand
Duchy of Luxemburg, which takes place every Whit-Tuesday,
and which the present writer saw two years ago.

It was quite by accident I heard about it, so little is it
known by outsiders. I was then living in Belgium ; and pro-
posed to a friend of mine, a good Jesuit missionary then at
home on sick-leave, to go and see for ourselves what promised
to be a very curious sight. We got together most of the litera-
ture we could on the subject, and found that the dancers are
pilgrims to the shrine of the Saxon saint, Willibrord, who left
England in 690 to preach the Gospel in Friesland. His relics
lie under the high altar of the parish church of Echternach, and
it is in a penitential spirit that the pilgrims dance their way to
his shrine.

Passing over the details of an agreeable journey, we found
ourselves at ten o'clock on the Whit-Monday of 1895 at the
beautiful town of Luxemburg, which we left at five en route for
the small town of Echternach. The little train crawled through
most exquisite scenery, through deep valleys girt about with
hills clad in all the glory of their early summer dress, or full

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1 897-] ECHTERNACH AND THE DANCING PILGRIMS. 20/

of the promise of a purple autumn's wealth of grapes, for we
are in the Moselle district and vineyards abound. While feast-
ing our eyes on the landscape a disquieting thought flashed
across my mind ; I disclosed it to my companion : Where are
we to lodge ? " Oh ! anywhere," gaily replied the missionary.
But I gravely pointed out to him, if missionaries were accus-
tomed to sleep in the open air, I was not used to find^ my
lodging on the cold, cold ground. I told him, moreover, that
I look upon bed as one of the most blessed of all institutions,
and often invoked blessings on the man who first invented it.
He bore with my remarks very patiently I must confess, but
that didn't calm my agitated soul.

As the train drew up at Echternach about 8 P. M., while the
beauty and novelty of the scene excited me, the crowds at the
station chastened my spirit for fear that beds in Echternach
would be like x in algebra — an unknown quantity. We alighted,
and I was at once struck with the sound of church bells
ringing, and noticed the streets were gaily decorated. " Did
you send word we were coming?" said I anxiously to my com-
panion. In his usual grave, matter-of-fact tone he said no, and
suggested the belU were ringing, not for us but for the bishops
who travelled by the same train as we did. And so it turned
out ; for the venerable dean of Echternach was there with a
carriage and pair, not for us, but for the Bishop of Luxemburg
and his brother of Treves, who drove oflF to their beds. Lucky
men ! I only wished we were as well provided. However, we
made our way through the crowd and began a weary search.
The same tale at every place : ** full up." Uselessly did I plead
in my best German that I was only a little one, and accustomed
to put up with anything ; the best of everything is good enough
for me. We tried every sort of place, and at last, reckless of
expense, went off to the best hotel, where mine host, while ming-
ling his tears with ours, told us it would be impossible to find
accommodation in any hotel or inn that night. Still he would
take compassion on the travellers. We might have our meals
(with a bill, of course) at his house. We went off to the Re-
demptorists, who gave us supper and most kindly sent out to
find us rooms. And we did well ; for we got the finest rooms
in the whole place ! The old Benedictine abbey, a seventeenth
century building, has passed into the hands of the Sisters of
the Poor Child Jesus, and they received us in a wing of the
house occupied by the brother of the prioress, a charming host
and full of kindness. My room, all panelled in oak and decor-

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208 ECHTERNACH AND THE DANCING PILGRIMS. [May,

ated with landscapes, had been the private room of my lord
abbot of Echternach, and in the great cupboards, which reached
right up to the ceiling, he doubtlessly kept his mitres and ab-
batial boots. Tired out by a long journey, I went to bed ; but
not to sleep. For just outside my window was a peacock who
was bent upon serenading me. But the lullaby effect of the pea-
cock's notes has yet to be discovered. The discordant squawk
kept me listening to his lay while I lay sleepless. However, I
had my revenge next day ; for at dinner we had a roast pea-
cock, and, out of spite, I took two servings.

Next morning after Mass we sallied forth, about 7 A. M.,
to view the town. With hills all round, Echternach nestles in a
valley. A quaint old town with much to interest the antiquarian
and artist, it is still so far advanced with the times as to be
lit with electricity. Its usual inhabitants are about four thou-
sand, but to-day nearly ten times that number are within its
walls. Some came yesterday, and others have come in stream-
ing from the neighboring towns and the villages upon the sur-
rounding hills.

Our first visit was to the basilica of St. Willibrord, adjoin-
ing the monastery. Founded by the saint, and chosen as his
own resting place, his relics were kept here from 739 till the
French Revolution. The present church was begun in 1017 and
finished in 1030, but has been often changed to suit the taste
of ages. At first in the pure Romanesque style, it gradually
evolved the Gothic form of art. It has been restored to Catho-
lic worship, and has been magnificently decorated by the famous
Belgian artist, M. Helbig. The good folk of Echternach, now
that the basilica has been repaired and restored, are looking
forward to the day when the relics of St. Willibrord shall be
restored to the place of his choice.

From the basilica we made our way to the parish church,
passing by on the way the miraculous well. The church is
small, too small, and is a very poor and tasteless affair inside.
The exterior is picturesque, and its position is fine, standing as
it does on a little hill. It is reached by a flight of more than
sixty steps. When we got inside, the first thing we noticed was
a far from pleasing statue of St. Willibrord, surrounded with
lights, at the entrance to the choir. The old walls of the church
are discolored with age and damp; and a paltry, poverty-
stricken-looking panelling of wood, painted a chocolate color,
runs round the building. All is in great contrast to the splen-
did basilica. Under the hideous renaissance altar, in a wooden

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1 897-] ECHTERNACH AND THE DANCING PILGRIMS. 209

reliquary, lie the sacred remains. There is a clear passage all
round the altar. Near the entrance to the sanctuary, on
the epistle side, is a wooden cupboard, also painted chocolate
color. In this poor and common receptacle is kept St.
Willibrord's hair-shirt. There is little else of interest in the
church.

It is now getting near to 8 A. M., the hour the procession
starts, and we see the clergy making their way through the
crowd, singing the Veni Creator^ as they go to a place just the
other side of the river Sure, which runs by the town. As soon
as the procession is in motion, the two bishops, in cope and
mitre, carrying their pastoral staves, come out from the dean's
house and follow on. They bless the kneeling crowd as they
pass by. We follow immediately after the prelates, for we want
to see everything. On we go till we come to the bridge, which
we find in possession of the boys of Echternach, who have the
immemorial privilege of being the first of the Dancing Pilgrims.
The lads from seven to twenty years of age have taken off
their coats, and their bright, eager faces make a bonnie sight as
they make way and kneel for their bishop's blessing. There must
be nearly eight hundred of them or more. When we get to
the other side of the river there we find a temporary pulpit be-
neath the shade of a linden-tree. The Bishop of Luxemburg
preaches a short sermon to remind the pilgrims that their exer-
cise is one of mortification and penance, and has to be done
in that spirit. While the bishop is preaching we take a look
around. The glorious hills form a fitting background. The
sunlight dances upon the wavelets of the river ; the warm wind
rustles gently the leaves of the trees ; the crowds of listeners ;
the majestic form of the bishop clad in Gothic vestments, his
noble face and grand gestures marking him out as a typical
bishop of the olden days, a veritable prince-bishop ; the stately
figure of the other bishop sitting below the pulpit listening to
the sermon. Hard by the old village cross of stone, with its
quaint and worn carving. The whole looked like some picture
out of an illuminated missal of the middle ages. The sermon
was only ten minutes, and then the ecclesiastical part of the pil-
grimage made its way along the traditional route to the parish
church. There was no dancing here, of course; but there was
a sight and a sound which did me good. Nearly ten thousand
men, walking four abreast, followed the great silver crucifix.
These good fellows, of all ages and classes, were singing out
the litany of St. Willibrord. They had no fear of letting their

VOL. LXV. — 14

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2 JO ECHTERNACH AND THE DANCING PILGRIMS. [May,

voices be heard, no human respect. The roar — for I can only
call it that — which goes up from their stentorian throats, as they
thunder out Heilige Willibrordus bitte fur uns, is soul-stirring
in the extreme. This part of the procession is so long that
every here and there are men who say the invocations, and
those near them make answer. So there are great waves of
sound surging on one after the other, rolling on in ever-increas-
ing volume.

Directly after the sermon, when the ecclesiastical procession
has got beyond the bridge, a band comes and takes up its
position at the head of the expectant dancers. Music is neces-
sary to mark the time for the dancers. Did I say a band?
Well, I ought rather to have said bands, for along the great
line of dancers, twenty-five thousand in number, are scattered
here and there over forty bands of music. They are of all
sorts. Some very fair and mustering, perhaps, twenty or
thirty performers; others are very so-so. One little corps of
musicians was really quite touching to see and hear. It had
evidently come down from one of the villages up in the hills.
An old grandfather, bent with years, played a wheezy clario-
nette of a very ancient type, which often gave way to those
unaccountable squeaks affected by this instrument in untrained
hands ; his little grandson, a boy of seven or eight, scraped
away manfully upon an old fiddle, while two stalwart men
walked on either side, evidently his sons, one making fearful
music out of a cornet, while the other breathed his soul into a
flute. The squeak of the clarionette, the bray of the cornet,
and the gentle tootings of the flute made odd music with the
scrapings of the tiny fiddler. But all the bands played the
same tune— an admirable one for the purpose and one with an
ear-haunting melody. It is an old traditional tune bearing
the name of "Adam had Seven Sons." One of the musicians
gave me a copy of his cornet part for the dance, which I here
transcribe and present upon the opposite page. It is a species
of march-dance.

But now come the dancers. The boys come first, and jump
up and down to the music. This perpetual jump they keep up
all along the route, which, please to remember, is not far from
two miles in length. After them come the other dancing pil-
grims, who have a step of their own. How shall I describe it?
We must confine our attention to one section of the pilgrims,
who, headed by their own band, may serve as a sample of the
rest. Well, fancy some eight hundred men and women of all

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1897.] ECHTERNACH AND THE DANCING PILGRIMS. 211

ages, the old bent with age and gray-haired; the young full of
life and vigor ; the sick supported by their friends — all dancing
in time to the music, three steps forward and two steps back-
ward ; or sometimes five steps forward and three backward.
They are all silent, and dance gravely with their hands by their
sides, four or five in row. All is recollection, and seriousness is

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marked upon every face. No roughness, no horse-play. There
is nothing the most captious could lay hold of as savoring of
disedification. The whole thing is evidently done in a deeply
religious spirit. Forward and backward they go, like the flow
and ebb of the sea. There is no appearance of superstition or
fanaticism, but the whole scene is full of faith. There is a
calmness about the whole proceeding very foreign to one's pre-
conceived ideas ; and far from there being anything to laugh at
or to excite ridicule, the lookers-on can hardly refrain from tears,
so touching and so edifying is the spectacle of the Dancing
Pilgrims. On they go dancing under the broiling sun, with the
perspiration streaming down their faces. The numbers are so
great that, with the prescribed movement, it would be impossi-
ble to make any progress. Sometimes the musicians have to
pause to take breath ; the section walks on for a minute or
two. Then the band takes fresh courage and wind, and strikes
the merry tune once more, and the penitents begin their weary
steps. I cannot conceive a more effectual cure for an excessive

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212 ECHTERNACH AND THE DANCING PILGRIMS. [May,

fondness for modern dances than to send young persons to
Echternach to take part in the pilgrimage.

On they go through the streets, over the rough-cobbled
roads, for nearly two miles, till they come to the flight of steps
leading to the church. Up these steps, sixty-four in number,
they dance forward and back, ever with the same motion.
Right up to the church door do they dance. Into the church,
up the gospel aisle, through the sanctuary the dancers go.
Round the high altar, down the choir, down the epistle aisle,
out through a door into a church-yard, still dancing do they go,
and three times round the church-yard cross finishes their
share of the pilgrimage.

The scene in the church when the pilgrimage is at its height,
about noon, is something indescribable. The nave is packed
with people kneeling and praying aloud. The bands are play-
ing their loudest, perhaps two or three regardless of each other.
The north aisle is one thick mass of bobbing humanity getting
nearer and nearer to the high altar. In the sanctuary they go
in single file, still dancing of course ; and as they get nearer the
altar they give their rosaries and other pious objects to some
priests who are busily employed in laying them on the sacred
relics. As they dance round at the back of the altar they can
see the tomb of the saint they venerate. I was standing for
some time in the sanctuary watching the curious sight, and was
much struck with the pale, exhausted faces, which, though worn
and streaming with perspiration, were lit up with a most peace-
ful, happy light. There is one stream of dancers passing through
the church till after one o'clock, when the clergy return to
sing the TV Deum and close the pilgrimage with benediction.
Fancy, for over five hours this dancing goes on ! About mid-
day I asked the official counter how many had passed ; he said
already some 22,000 dancers and 240 musicians. This was more
than an hour before the pilgrimage closed.

The origin of this dancing pilgrimage is disputed. Some
attribute it to the penitential processions instituted when the
Black Death was ravaging Europe in the middle of the four-
teenth century; others connect it with the processions of the
Flagellants, or to an outbreak of the St. Vitus's dance. But
these are all surmises warranted by no facts and are really un-
trustworthy. For the dancing pilgrimage of Echternach dates
from a much earlier period. It most likely dates from the very
days of St. Willibrord himself. St. Aldhelm, abbot of Malmes-
bury and bishop of Shireburne, so history tells us, was so loved

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1 897-] ECHTERNACH AND THE DANCING PILGRIMS. 21 3

by his people that whenever he returned from his missionary
expeditions he was met by the whole populace dancing a
rhythmical measure for joy of seeing once more their pastor.
St. Aldhelm died in 709. St. Willibrord and his first compan-
ions had been months at Ripon under St. Wilfrid, the friend of the
abbot of Malmesbury. They never have, most probably, known
of this custom, and as the saint was greatly beloved at Echter-
nach, a similar tradition may have been introduced there on the
occasions of his returns from missionary labors. Once intro-
duced, the custom would naturally be continued after the saint's
death as a cherished way of approaching his presence.

Whatever may have been its origin, it remains an edifying
relic of the days of faith. It still survives in spite of the scoffs
of unbelievers who have never seen it. I cannot imagine any
one, no matter what he professes in the way of religion, witness-
ing the dancing pilgrimage of Echternach without being pro-
foundly touched and moved to contrition. Many have come to
scoff, and, like the centurion, have returned striking their
breasts.

Two things struck me besides the general aspect of the
pilgrimage. One was the entire absence of clerical organization.
The pilgrims danced by themselves, and so earnest were they
that no help was needed for preserving decorum. The other
was the paucity of mere sight-seers. The British tourist made
his absence delightfully felt. Every one in Echternach, with the
exception of the clergy, came to dance, and dance they did for
five mortal hours.

Should any of my readers feel inclined to visit Echternach
for Whit-Tuesday, they can combine with it a delightful tour
in the Belgian Ardennes and the beautiful country of Luxem-
burg. Living is cheap, and as far as Belgium is concerned, a
first-class ticket, costing ten dollars, can be got at any railway
station which enables one to travel all over Belgium, as many
times as you like, for a whole fortnight. Some of the towns
in Luxemburg, such as Diechirch, are well worth halting at, and
the walks, fishing, and roads for cyclists are everything to be
wished. If any are led to go through reading this, do not
forget the writer before St. Willibrord's shrine.

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214 The Church AND Modern Society. [May>

THE CHURCH AND MODERM SOCIETY.*

HE existing relation of the church to society is
the most important problem which has yet con-
fronted man as an individual and as a member
of a political community. In a manner some-
what analogous to the operation of the Chris-
tian sentiment in forming the European commonwealth of
Christian nations is the influence of the modern spirit of in-
quiry and attack in binding social forces in all civilized coun-
tries in a community of opinion at the least unfavorable to exist-
ing institutions. Though the peoples of France and Germany
are antagonistic to ^ach other in all that constitutes a nation*s
life, they are one in questioning the found-ation of society and
the source from which the laws derive their authority. What
has been said of these peoples can, to a greater or less extent,
be stated of most of the European nations. We only state a
fact, we are not offering an explanation ; but it would be of
the greatest interest and value if some one were to rise and
tell us why it is that the masses of the people everywhere, no
matter under what form of government they live, are dissatis-
fied, and that this dissatisfaction is not merely a concern of
ways and means, but is in addition a craving, a call, a demand
for a higher and an ampler life.

THE OLD ORDER CHANGES.

We are living in the midst of mutations more impetuous
and rapid than the changes which startled Europe a century
ago, though the forces working now are silent as the powers of
nature that we hear not. Old gods of popular worship are
lifeless idols. The sentiment of loyalty which sent men to the
field, the prison, and the scaffold is regarded as the feeling of
a living fossil or the tyrannical opinion of a hater of liberty.
Law is regarded as an instrument of power, legislation as an
organized hypocrisy, and religion, where it is not the crime of
priestcraft, is only an occupation for women in their leisure
hours. Modern society is based on contract, and the contract
may be dissolved by the parties, tells the story in a word.

♦ The Church and Modern Society. Lectures and Addresses by John Ireland, Archbishop
of St. Paul. Chicago and New York : D. H. McBride & Co.

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1897.] The Church and Modern Society. 215

This, again, is the statement of a fact. There is not a
single work on social questions in bur age that does not assert
,or assume this view as the foundation of the state. It stands
behind the political inferences of every Whig, every Radical,
every revolutionist in England. Mr. Locke lays it down in his
essay on government. It is at once the vindication of the
Revolution of 1688, and the undeveloped body of anticipated
progress, penal laws on account of opinion, accumulation of es-
tates in a few hands, white slavery, black slavery, protection,
smuggling, hangings for larceny, legal murders for breaches of
the game laws. French political philosophy is full of it, and it
accounts for every assassination, with or without the forms of
law, from the murder of the Marquis de Favras in 1791 to the
murder of the Hostages in 1870; for the expulsion of the re-
ligious orders from France by the ingrates who would have no
France to-day but for the Catholics who saved her in her
deepest peril ; it accounts for the degradation of the Church
by her Eldest Daughter, the Regan of the nations. We see the
Socialism of Germany marching under that opinion to the over-
throw of the empire, and it was by its light the bandits of Italy
rushed to rapine and national bankruptcy, through the Porta
Pia, when they consummated the crime which a public lie in
the shape of an euphemism called United Italy.

THE CIVIL POWER FROM GOD.

It is necessary that those phenomena, so alarming, should be
seriously thought of ; very little if anything at all in this direction
has been done by Catholics; we therefore welcome the volume
before us. It cannot be too clearly and too strongly insisted
upon that all power comes from God, that the authority of the
state is divine as well as the authority of the church ; they
cannot be independent authorities in the sense of totally separ-
ated ones, for conscience is a sanction in both ; nor can the
freedom of the church anywhere be made subservient to that
of the state. And when we say the power of the state is
from God, we mean government, and not polity; government,
and not an empire, or a kingdom of legitimacy, or a limited
monarchy, or an oligarchy, or a democracy, but the state itself.
The state — ^that is, the national government, whatever be its
form — is the vicegerent of God over man's natural life, and with
regard to his natural end ; the church is the vicegerent over his
supernatural life, and towards his supernatural end. To point
out an aspect of this truth is the object of Archbishop Ireland,

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2(6 The Church and Modern Society. [May.

and although criticism may be and will be ventured upon this
volume, it cannot be denied that the distinguished author aims
at a high purpose, and that popularity, in the ordinary sense
at least, is not that purpose. The prelate who dares to lead
men ttpon the doubtful ground jointly occupied by church and
state, is followed only by the more adventurous spirits among
Catholics, the rest looking on with bated breath, some with
even suspicion and worse than suspicion. Let well enough
• alone, say the timid — keep the peace at all hazards.

THE MODERN STATE'S VIEW OF RELIGION.

Outside the church, the rights of religion in reference to
y^g^ the state are not^ known as organic rights. The non-Catholic
mind views the state as an organism and the church as a num-
ber of citizens, whose religious ends are helped by corporate
union in no other and higher way than are their business
interests. Here is a prelate who speaks for both the Catholic
citizen and the Catholic Church, not in platitudes, but in propo-
sitions of living, powerful earnestness. He commands as a
Catholic bishop among his priests and people in the diocese of
St. Paul, but he exerts the spell of the orator upon all this
nation. He is one of its foremost citizens, and he has the
gifts and acquirements of a leader of men. These discourses
are his contribution to the discussion of the relations of reli-
gion to the civil and political spirit of the world of to-day,
especially in the United States. They will be studied with
much earnestness, and, we think, with much profit by all
thoughtful Americans.

The Archbishop's topics in the opening lectures are the
relation of the church to American liberty, to the spirit of
modern progress, and to contemporary state education. If in
these discourses he is soundly Catholic, then he has given us a
gloss on the Syllabus of real value — a distillation of the princi-
ples of Pius IX. boiled in the Leonine solution. In plain
words, Archbishop Ireland has here presented the church's adjust-
ment of Papal warnings to the better realities of modern societ}'.

IRELAND ECHOES LEO.

This fact is all the more interesting because the archbishop
is an exponent, a chosen and favored exponent, of the Holy-
See's attitude towards free political institutions. This can be
shown from many utterances of Cardinal Satolli while speaking
Pope Leo's mind as Apostolic Delegate, as well as by the Holy

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1897.] The Church and Modern Society. 217

Father's request to Archbishop Ireland to address the Catho-
lics of France on the position they should assume toward the
French republic.

The reader will find that Archbishop Ireland is not the
advocate of one or other side in the social conflict, but that he
is the spokesman of the whole body of the people. Like Leo
XIIL, he holds the balance between the conflicting interests of
classes, and appeals to the justice and charity which find an
echo* in every heart ; such is the spirit especially of his intro-
ductory remarks. The rights of property and of authority are
emphatically recognized, though the main drift of the lectures
is the recognition and approval of the aspirations of modern
peoples towards civil liberty.

In modern progress the Church of Christ should know how
to guide the forward movement as well as to prevent reckless
imprudence. The principles of religion are not merely restric-
tive of error, but are mainly expository of the truth. In
Europe it has been too often the church's sad alternative'
either to be silent about man's liberty or be obliged to ally
herself with the delirium of anarchy. But in America the
standing order of society is rational liberty, liberty which is a
well-ordered development of man's God-given rights. Hence
Rome has often given unstinted praise to American institu-
tions, and has affixed her broad seal of approbation to the
sentiment of the Third Plenary Council, that American liberty
and Catholic dogma are in accord. Allowing for the legitimate
use of rhetorical adornment and amplification, Archbishop Ire-
land's lectures are no more than wholly consonant with these
Roman utterances.

THE SILENT POLICY NOT ALWAYS THE BEST.

In matters of patriotic interest, what a timid mind would
name a policy of prudent reserve on the part of the church's
representatives, the general public would condemn as silent dis-
approval of them, or at least as an attitude of indifference
towards the nation's interests. Any great institution in
America whose officials "mind their own business" to the extent
of keeping out of sight and hearing on occasions of national
interest is condemned as derelict of duty; it is sure to be hurt
by accusations of incivism. It is, therefore, not only lawful but
becoming, nay, it is obligatory, that prelates conscious of the
requisite gifts should seize proper occasions for discourses like
the ones printed in thfs volume.

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21 8 The Church and Modern Society. [May,

It is in this connection that such words as the following
are very appropriate : " The Catholic Church, I am sure, has
no fear of democracy, this flowering of her own most sacred
principles of the equality, fraternity, and liberty of all men, in
Christ and through Christ. These principles are found upon
every page of the Gospel. From the moment they were first
confided to the church they have been ceaselessly leavening
minds and hearts towards the full recognition of the rights and
the dignity of man, towards the elevation of the multitude, and the
enjoyment of freedom from unnecessary restrictions and of social
happiness mingled with as few sorrows as earth's planet permits.'*

THE church's best INFLUENXE ON THE CIVIL SIDE.

Such sentiments, and other instruction, directly in the inter-
ests of public order, are all the more needed, because the
Catholic people are made up in some part of comparatively re-
cent immigration. It is, therefore, the church's duty to at least
not retard the national assimilation of her foreign-born members.
Every thoughtful citizen perceives this, and looks for the church's
active measures in that direction. Unassimilated populations
in a country are like undigested food in the human stomach,
painful and weakening to the body politic. They are composed
of immigrants who will not learn the national language ; who
will classify themselves only according to racial divisions ; who
become naturalized mainly for racial ends ; who are here for
temporary purposes and hope to return to the old world ; who
pride themselves more on their foreign traits than on their
American adoption ; who are not off with the old love nor on
with the new. All these are a grievous pain to the American
nation, and they are an element of weakness, whether they are
ignorant and stupid, or have the clever ways of educated men to
help them weaken our political unity. Now, since multitudes
of the immigrants are Catholics, it is the opportunity of the
church to smooth and hasten the process of Americanizing — to
favor the national language in church and school, other things
being equal ; to expound the principles of our national liberty in
an attractive manner, to lessen racial antagonisms in strengthening
American unit}' of spirit, to lead off conspicuously in praise of
national institutions, to supplement the " naturalization mill "
by a nationalizing process instinct with religious principle, to
help our immigrants to love the country of their adoption at
the same time that they retain a fond affection for that of their
nativity. All this is no easy task, and there is no institution

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1 8970 The Church and Modern Society. 219

that can bring it about so readily as the Catholic Church. It
can hardly be done without bitter opposition and unpopularity,
even suspicion of secularism, against the Catholic prelate or
publicist who undertakes it. But it must be done, or the church
does not exert her best influence on the civil side. Archbishop
Ireland has accomplished this task, as delicate as it was impera-
tive in the full measure of a patriotic citizen's duty, and has
not hesitated to bring to bear the influence given to him by
his position and authority in the church.

If it were possible to place this book in the hands of all
non-Catholic public men just now, so that they might read it
and read it again, yes, and study some portions of it, they
would easily perceive that not only can the church assist
modern society in its mission of progress, but that both are
necessarily associated in the divine plan of human betterment.
What a gain this would be in the present juncture !

IRELAND ON EDUCATION.

There are two lectures in this volume on education, and we
think that in the main they are soundly Catholic. But there
are some sentences in them which go beyond our estimate of
the American system of public schools. We believe that the
Archbishop over-praises the American public-school system.
Some of his utterances are to us the high-sounding rhetoric of
an enthusiastic admirer rather than the judgment of a thought-
ful publicist. Yet these are faults of over-coloring, in a picture
whose general effect is that of a masterpiece. We have never
read a clearer statement of the essential defects of the secular
or non-sectarian school than the following :

" The state school is non-religious. There never can be posi-
tive religious teaching where the principle of non-sectarianism
rules. What is the result ? The school deals with immature,
childish minds, upon which silent facts and examples make
deepest impression. It claims nearly all the time remaining to
pupils outside of rest and recreation. It treats of land and sea,
but not of Heaven ; it speaks of statesmen and warriors, but not
of God and Christ ; it tells how to obtain success in this world,
but says nothing about the world beyond the grave. The pupil
sees and listens, and insensibly forms the conclusion that religion
is of minor importance. Religious indifference becomes his
creed ; his manhood will be as was his childhood in the school,
estranged from God and the positive influences of religion.
The brief and hurried lessons of the family fireside and the

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220 The Church and Modern Society. [May,

Sunday-school will be of slight avail. At best the time is too
short for that most difficult of lessons, religion. The child is
weary after the exacting drill of the school-room, and does not
relish an extra task, of the necessity of which the [school] teacher,
in whom he confides most trustingly, has said nothing. The
great mass of children receive no fireside lessons and attend
no Sunday-school, and the great mass of children in America
are growing up without religion. Away with theories and
dreams: let us read the facts. In tens of thousands of homes
of the land the father hastens to his work at early dawn, be-
fore his children have risen from their slumbers, and at night
an exhausted frame bids him seek repose, with scarcely time to
kiss his little ones. The mother toils all day, that her children
may eat and be clothed ; it is mockery to ask her to be their
teacher. What may we expect from the Sunday-school ? An
hour in the week to learn religion is as nothing, and during
that hour the small number only will be present. The churches
are open and the teachers are at hand, but the non-religious
school has engrossed the attention and the energies of the
child during five days of the week; he is unwilling to submit
to the drudgery of a further hour's work on Sunday. Accident-
ally, it may be, and unintentionally, but in fact most certainly,
the state school crowds out the church. The teaching of reli-
gion is not a function of the state ; but the state should, for
the sake of its people and for its own sake, permit and facili-
tate the teaching of religion by the church. This the state
does not do ; rather, it hinders and prevents the work of the
church. The children of the masses are learning no religion.
The religion of thousands who profess some form of religion
is the merest veneering of mind and heart. Its doctrines are
vague and chaotic notions as to what God is, and what our re-
lations to him are. Very often it is mere sentimentality, and
its teachings are the decorous rulings of natural culture and
natural prudence. This is not the religion that built up our
Christian civilization in the past, and that will maintain it in the
future. This is not the religion that will subjugate passion and
repress vice. It is not the religion that will guard the family
and save society " (pp. 204-6).

It is this common Catholic sentiment, alive in the Arch-
bishop's heart and eloquent upon his lips, that has made him
in his entire career as priest and prelate and publicist a stren-
uous defender of parish schools. The flourishing state of Cath-
olic education in his diocese shows this practically ; and all who

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1 897-] The Church and Modern Soc/ety. 221

really know him and have carefully followed his sermons and
speeches are quite sure that, if he sometimes overdoes his
praise of the public schools, his principles of education are ab-
solutely Catholic in the universally received meaning of the
term. As a promoter of Catholic schools in his diocese he has
been unwearied and successful.

As to practical attempts of adjustment and co-working of
the state and church in education, no one knows better than
Archbishop Ireland that the church does not compromise with
the state in matters of faith, or of principle. But it is equally
certain that she has always been willing to settle differences with
the state by yielding some of her rights as to methods and
processes. Sound policy often demands this, even when the
state is dominantly Catholic. Much rather is this the case when
the desired adjustment is between a Catholic minority and a
non-Catholic majority, jealous and suspicious in the extreme.

THE CLAIM OF RELIGION IGNORED IN AMERICA.

We think the Archbishop quite mistaken, however, when he
says that, considering all the circumstances of the country, the
American state is not blameworthy for leaving out the teach-
ing of religion from the public schools. He says "the state is
doing all that the conditions of the country allow." He main-
tains that the state cannot to-day do otherwise than have its
schools " unsectarian " (pp. 229-30). To this we cannot agree.
We are persuaded that the state — that is to say, the American
people — have allowed themselves to be deceived by their own
prejudices against the Catholic Church, and to be misled by
doctrinaires and anti-Catholic bigots. That all this is partly the
misfortune of Protestant training may be very true, but it is
also the glaring fault of a people sound to the core in politi-
cal principle, but superficially instructed in ethical and religious
principle. In dealing with the problem of education our repub-
lic is notoriously behind all the European nations, except
France and Italy, whose governments are squarely anti-Catho-
lic. That this condition is culpable — that is to say, is more or
less wrongly motived, is notorious to all Catholics thoroughly
acquainted with politicians, Protestant ministers, and other
non-Catholic leaders. Many ministers privately admit that the
Catholic principle of religious schooling is sound, and ought to
prevail for all denominations ; but only a few have had the
courage to say this publicly, and the Protestant churches have
done almost nothing practically for religious education. As to

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politicians, they are known over and over again to secretly con-
fess the justice of the argument for religious schools, and in the
same breath to avow their terror of the bigots who oppose it.
In fact the religious claim has been culpably ignored and the
present unreligious system maintained largely from motives of
jealousy, timidity, hatred of Catholicity, selfishness — all in addi-
tion to the religious apathy which characterizes so large a por-
tion of our non-Catholic fellow-citizens. Therefore we believe
that the American people are to blame for allowing themselves
to be misled on this all-important question of the schooling of
the people.

TEMPERANCE DISCOURSES.

We are glad to see Archbishop Ireland's best temperance
lectures in this volume. They are powerful discourses, full of
matured thought, and yet radiant with his native enthusiasm.
As pieces of oratorical composition they are not inferior to any .
of his other lectures or sermons. They are mines in which all
our Catholic temperance advocates have profitably delved for
the reform of drunkards and the arraignment of the liquor-
traffic. They have been the most fruitful temperance literature
which the Temperance Publication Bureau of the Catholic
Total-Abstinence Union has distributed, and they yet remain
unrivalled among its publications.

It was Archbishop Ireland's open hatred of drunkenness
and opposition to the saloon that first made him acceptable to
the American public. Wherever he went he sought occasion
to praise total abstinence, to condemn convivial drinking, to
picture the horrors of drunkenness, and to assail with most
powerful invective those foremost law-breakers of every com-
munity — the saloon-keepers. This made him a public benefac-
tor. This won him favor with all good citizens. It may be
the same with every priest. He can favorably introduce himself
and his church to the general public if he will fully perform
his duty as the guardian of public morality.

Christ and his church must have much to do with the pub-
lic life of a redeemed race. And the more independent the
spirit of a race, the nobler response shall it make to Christ's
appeal when uttered by the clarion tones of such a prelate as
John Ireland. He addresses all, both Catholics and non-Catho-
lics, with a commanding voice, winning allegiance by his power-
ful personal influence, presenting the Catholic inspiration of
human liberty and the Catholic guarantee of peace, order, and
obedience to lawful authority.

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i897-] " Unless a Man be Born Again—'' 223

*^ UNLESS A MAN BE BORN AGAIN—"

Chapter I.

''HERE, Jenkins; don't say no more about it.
You do talk so when you get started. I'll go
right 'long an' tell him he kin hev the room,
long ez you're willin' to take the risks. Ef jedg-
ment comes o' this it won't be me it'll be to
blame anyhow." And Mrs. Jenkins went in all speed, for fear
the prickings of her strict, orthodox conscience might again at-
tempt to circumvent her plans to rent her long unoccupied
" spare " room.

The house was somewhat remote from the main road in the
little town of Bleakville, and students from the neighboring
college racely came that way in quest of rooms. It was almost
a mile, too, from the college buildings, and that would take
about twenty minutes off a drowsy student's morning doze.

" My husban' says you kin hev the room for them terms."

" Yes ? Thank you. I'll send my trunk up sometime before
evening."

" Shall I hev it kerried up ter the attic ? " Mrs. Jenkins
had been inwardly making calculations as to the size of the
trunk by measuring the narrow space between the door-frame
and the shoulders of this tall, large-limbed fellow as he stood
at the threshold. Anticipations of scratched paint, big-footed
expressmen, and lumbering baggage began to unsettle her
nerves.

" Just as you fike. You say it's perfectly quiet here ? You
do not regularly take boarders, I understand. I'll be the only
one?"

"Yes — well, that is — you see we don't hev no college folks
here. But the operator at the station, she boards with us.
She's away all day, though. Her mother likes her to be here
because they ain't no men folks round " (Jenkins didn't count).
"She's 'way from the Cape, you know, an' ain't got no one
here ter take care o' her but me. We keep the house het up
good an' warm, in winter, an' it's awful nice an* quiet here with
only me an' Jenkins."

"H'm! And this prude operator psalm-singing every even-

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224 " Unless a Man be Born Again—'' [May,

ing in high soprano, probably," he added to himself. " Well,
all right," he said, turning shortly on his heel and passing out
through the low porch and down the moss-grown path with,
however, a slight look of disappointment on his face. He had
espied this small cottage that morning in the distance as the
train slowed up within about a mile from the station, and had
surmised the unlikelihood of its being filled with boarders on
account of its situation.

Yet this calm-faced young man was neither a pessimist nor
a dreamy-eyed theosophist fleeing from the haunts of men. It
was simply that an unaccountable longing had suddenly beset
him in .the midst of a gay, busy life to go away alone for
awhile and take time to think to his heart's content.

He sauntered along as far as the main road, turned in the
direction of the college, then suddenly faced around again with
a little, impatient jerk, saying half aloud : " Might as well ship
that baggage up from the station now, and send Marie word at
the same time that IVe arrived."

He wrote the message in his deliberate way : " To Miss
Marie Courtncay, Convent of St. , Washington, D. C. Bro-
ther's all right, dear. First-rate quarters. Hal — " conscious
that the operator was standing there waiting to receive it — and
watching him, too, he thought with the natural conceit in his
physical development that a youth who has " trained " for col-
lege sports is addicted to.

The tall, quiet-looking girl on the other side of the office
window was not watching him, however. Her drooping gaze
had not been raised once from the little square of yellow paper
to the writer thereon ; and when he slid it under the opening
she turned away with an imperturbable face, and began to tick
off the message without so much as a parting glance at 'him.

Mr. Courtnay was not flattered, and almost every one flat-
tered Courtnay, at least with a second look. " It was on Ma-
rie's account anyhow that I came to send the message," he
boyishly argued to himself, though he knew his devoted little
sister usually had to wait for a letter, not a telegram, informing
her of his whereabouts.

One would easily say that a life full of a purpose and re-
stricted by time and circumstances in carrying it out was not
discernible in the appearance of this young man. Though he
had come many hundreds of miles to pursue a special course
in his favorite science at one of the Eastern colleges, it was be-
cause it was a favorite with him, and in thus devoting himself

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I897-] " Unless a Man be Born Again—'' 225

to it he was merely following out one of his unaccountable in-
clinations.

Courtnay, it is needless to say, had been endowed with the
wherewithal to indulge his inclinations ; and his responsibilities
were all centred in the taking care of himself, for Marie, the
only other living member of his family, was still sheltered, and
probably would always be, in the convent home where she had
been almost from her cradle.

There was nothing then at first that seemed to threaten the
equanimity of his life in the coming to Bleakville ; yet a
shade of irritation again became visible in his manner that even-
ing after supper. During the afternoon, after some benevolent
reasoning, he had resigned himself to the prospect of having
the studious solitude he had been anticipating marred by the
presence of this other boarder. " What a lonely life hers must
be," he thought — " alone all day in that stuffy little office." He
made up his mind that he would, at least, try to be companion-
able ; and when Mrs. Jenkins introduced him across the tea-
table he looked up at her with his bright, ready smile, and met,
only for an instant though, a pair of shy gray eyes, full of a rare
sweetness of expression, but in which were reflected neither the
smile nor any recognition of her visitor of the afternoon. Sure-
ly it was uncomplimentary enough. Yet Courtnay had long
since convinced himself that a surfeit of such compliments as
he had expected on making this new acquaintance had destroyed
his appetite for them.

In a few days he discovered another reason besides the cur-
tailment of a morning doze for the long vacancy of the " spare "
room. . His scrupulous landlady possessed in an eminent degree
the cardinal virtue of the New Hampshire housewife, cleanli-
ness ; but also her cardinal fault, a meagre table. However, the
former quality outweighed the latter with him, as there was a
streak of asceticism in his nature, besides the habits acquired
by those periods of training. " A little fasting occasionally when
the menu is surcharged with lardy pie and salt pork will do
me no harm," he reasoned philosophically. " Marie would tell
me to offer it up for the souls in purgatory." He smiled,
though half sadly. " Poor little heart ! wasting itself away in
prayer and mortifications that I may come back again some
day to believe in such childish things."

Henry Courtnay had been a Catholic — would claim to be
one still if asked what were his faith. There was a loyalty in
his warm Southern nature, and a germ of inherited Irish faith
VOL. Lxv. — 15

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226 " Unless a Man be Born Again—'' [May,

at the bottom of his heart, that held him still as a slender but
unbreakable cord to the Mother Church. But his intellect had
long since repudiated the doctrines of faith and denied the
obligations of religious belief.

It was owing rather to negative influences though, this alien-
ation from the faith of his childhood, than to any deliberate
departure on his side. Years of study in secular schools, that
would have been far less dangerous had they assumed a posi-
tive antagonism to Christian belief, had worn away his moor-
ings, and he was drifting slowly down the broad stream of re-
ligious liberty of thought, that somewhere breaks at last with
spent energy upon the dreary, echoless shore of infidelity.

He found God's place assigned to Him in the university,
but as was the place of science, philosophy, or literature. De-
nial, antagonism or unbelief in his existence 'would have roused
the loyalty of his nature and saved him from the apathy that
had grown upon him unawares.

Months of quiet, absorbing study in the little farm-house at
Bleakville passed by. Courtnay had so far met with but one
problem which his astute brain had vainly tried to solve; and
this was how to interpret the character of his unobtrusive
fellow-boarder. After his first failure he had tried no more to
elicit appreciation of his distinguished presence from the shy,
lovely eyes that rarely sent a glance the length of the table
to where he sat opposite her. He saw her only at meal-time.
Mrs. Jenkins always supplied talk enough to relieve the embar-
rassing silence that would otherwise reign.

Of course the latter had long ago given him the history in
detail of Miss Hope Netterville ; though how in the world she
had amassed such a quantity of information on the subject was
for awhile a mystery to Courtnay. He could never imagine
the reticent Miss Netterville giving of her confidence to the ex-
tent that this history would warrant. But " Marm " Jenkins pos-
sessed a faculty of news-gathering and news-giving that would
coin a fortune for a modern reporter.

During her convolutions around Courtnay's room in the
morning " tidyin' up," she gave out an incessant chatter on
many and diverse subjects that sometimes annoyed, but more
often amused him with its ridiculous digressions and queer al-
lusions.

" Ez I tell Jenkins," she began one morning, " he*ll never
be born ag*in 'less he keeps up more reg'lar 'tendance at meet-
in' — never ! But Hope Netterville — there, you can't even men-

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I897-] " Unless a Man be Born Again--'" 227

tion sich things to her. She looks as cold like when any one
talks o' meetin' an* revival. She'll never get religin at this
rate, I expect. And her family I heeard wuz ez good Metho-
dists ez they wuz on the Cape. Mrs. Gedding's brother-in-law's
wife came from the same town ez her, an' knows all her folks.

" Hope's mother kinder spoilt her though, I expect. She's
been a-workin' at operator work ever since her father had to
give up the sea on 'count o' losin' his eyesight, an* I expect it's
made her feel ez if she could take care o' her religin ez well ez
herself. I've spoke to our min'ster 'bout her time an' ag'in, but
I wouldn't hev her know fer anything. Her family wuz all
baptized when they wuz infants 'cept Hope ; the Methodists
b'lieve in infant baptism, you know. I b'lieve her great-grand-
father " — with a furtive glance at Courtnay — " I b'lieve he wuz
Irish.'* She meant Catholic, but it was all the same to her
mind. " But the rest o* them on her m'other's side from way,
way back wuz all Puritans. Hope's great-grandfather— the one
who wuz Irish, you know — wuz wrecked off the Cape, an' settled
down an' married there afterwards. His wife wuz a Hopkins.

" Ez I wuz sayin', Hope's mother didn't b'lieve in infant
baptism. She thought she'd let her grow up an' jedge fer her-
self. I s'pose now ef she wuz baptized she might exper'ence
religin an' hev a change o' heart. But there, they ain't no
calklatin 'bout them awful quiet folks 'et says nothin' 'bout
what's inside o' them. Mr. Courtnay, er — I'm a-goin' ter ask
you, ef you don't mind, what's that there thing over back o*
you?"

" What ? " asked Courtnay, losing the direction of her gaze.

"That there thing that's a-holdin' out its arms."

It was a small, exquisite statue of St. Francis of Assisi ; a
rare bit of sculpture that Courtnay had picked up in a journey
through Italy one time, when a boy. He had loved the grace
and tenderness expressed in the attitude of ecstatic worship,
and the yearning of the uplifted face. This small, white figure
was often to him as a link connecting his empty life with those
early years of boyish faith and ardent ambitions.

" Oh ! that's a — poet," he said with his inscrutable smile.

" A poet ? " incredulously.

"Yes. He lived a long time ago. Used to go out into the
fields and woods and make up songs about the birds and trees
and flowers. He always sang and prayed with his arms lifted
up like that. He was an Italian, you know."

"Oh-h-h! Queer, ain't it?" Courtnay had divined the mo-

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228 " Unless a Man be Born Again—"" [May,

tive of her questioning, and was enjoying the varying expres-
sions on her face immensely.

" That ain't what you call an image, is it ? " asked the suspi-
cious lady presently, with a narrow look at him.

"Yes, that's an image, sure enough."

" A graven image ? "

•* Yes ; pretty nicely graven too, isn't it ? " answered Court-
nay, with an aggravating twinkle in his eye.

" Didn't I tell you, Si Jenkins ? " she declared to that
worthy, with swelling indignation, as soon as she could lay hold
of him ; " didn't I tell you so ? I knew my sespicions was 'krect
the minute I looked at bis eyes the first day I saw him.
Them Garrity young ones hez the same provokin' way o' look-
in* at me through the fence-rails when I drive 'em away from
vny currant-bushes."

" Gosh darned ef I'd care *s long ez the money wuz paid
yer reg'lar," drawled Jenkins.

" No, I know it. You — you " — but her righteous soul had
swelled to such proportions that speech failed her. Jenkins, an-
ticipating the cloud-burst, was making the most of his chances
to beat a retreat, taking with him as a final denunciation,
" I'd be af eared to see you get religin ; 'twould make you
wickeder 'n you ever wuz before."

"Go inter John's on yer way back from the village an' see
ief he ain't got one o' them city papers his cousin sends him.
I ain't heeard a bit o' news fer a week."

" They wuz an' awful shockin' thing in the paper Jenkins
brought home last night," she said to Courtnay at the break-
fast-table next morning, before he had taken his first sip of
coffee.

" Indeed ! Another railway accident, I suppose."

" Worse'n that. Jenkins, get the paper an' read about that
raid ag'in."

" What on earth is coming ? " vainly conjectured Courtnay
to himself, with some nervousness, as he noticed a sudden
straightening of the slender figure opposite him and that
familiar droop of the eyelids.

Obediently, after much ceremony and throat-clearing, Jenkins
began :

" Big raid at a South End Theatre. Long under the vigi-
lance of the police. Has at last — "

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1897-] " Unless a Man be Born Again—'' 229

" I think Miss Netterville would like the cream."

" Oh ! excuse me ; of course, yes. It's all right. Go on,
Jenkins."

" — Has at last been exposed to public condemnation. The
facts as gathered are as follows — *'

"No, thank you, no more coffee."
. There was a suppressed accent of mortification and disgust
in Courtnay's deep voice; and as the reading continued, giving
in hackneyed newspaper phrase details of vulgar criminality, he
quietly slipped his chair back from the table, and with a curt
" Excuse me " strode out of the room.

Mrs. Jenkins looked fluttered. " What do you s'pose he
went out for?" she said, appealing to Hope, and not noticing
the pained look on the latter's face. Hope only raised her gray
eyes, dark with slumbering indignation, and looked an impeach-
ment that she would have shrunk from uttering.

It was strange that this little incident, that had unspeakably
shocked her gentle soul and made her shrink into still greater
reserve with the Jenkinses, brought out by degrees a confidence
in Courtnay that betrayed itself at times in look and tone with
almost childlike innocence.

Courtnay could now interpret one phase in the character of
this sweet Puritan maid : a great unbounded horror of the
wicked world as she had learned of it in her simple, sheltered
home life in the quiet little fishing village, down on the
" Cape " in Massachusetts. But allied to this old-fashioned
Puritanism in her was an infinite longing for the pure and the
true, for something to satisfy the depth of religious craving
in her nature which seemed to have stamped that impress of
sad wistfulness on her countenance. Only truth, only a draught
from the fountain of living waters, could satisfy a soul of this
rare type.

Her childlike intuitions had made her recognize that clean-
ness of heart and nobleness of soul which made Henry Courtnay
pass as a giant among his fellows for more reasons than his
physical strength. And, with his passionate love and loyalty for
the highest ideals of purity and beauty *in human nature, he was
quick to appreciate the rareness and loveliness of such a charac-
ter as Hope Netterville's.

Hope had one idol on earth that absorbed the devotion and
tenderness of her pure little heart ; and this was her mother.
With that strange kind of affection which is peculiar to the
American girl, she had, as it were, changed the place of the

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230 " Unless a Man be Born Again— ^' [May,

child for that of the mother. All the soothing and petting and
care was lavished by her on this dear parent, till the cruel cir-
cumstances of their life had separated them just as their com-
panionship had become most dear. Her mother was an in-
valid, a frail creature, from whom Hope had inherited all her
singular reticence, though none of the calm, strong will that
showed itself only in the depression of her firm, sweet lips,
and sometimes deepened the gray of her soft eyes.

Courtnay would sometimes venture now to take his morning
trip to the post-office at the same time that Hope went to her
office in the railway station. Her spontaneous confidences during
these morning walks would often provoke a smile from him,
when he remembered the demure maiden of a few months
back. If Henry Courtnay was to find the goal of his happi-
ness in the. heart of a woman, the unspoiled nature of Hope
Netterville would have claimed from Jxim an affection that had
never been won by another of her sex. He wondered at times
why he did not love her. There was all that in her which
would make him susceptible to love of the pure womanliness
expressed in her every look and tone, and in the sweet tender-
ness of lips and eyes and brow. Was it that he could hold a
greater love than all this would inspire, which would absorb
all lesser ones as the ocean does the wave that beats for a
moment on its bosom?

Chapter IL

Winter had gone at last. Not with the slow, faltering step
of age, but with a sudden burst of intemperate passion that
his reign was over, he threw the white folds of his winding
sheet around him in great, swirling wreaths of blinding snow,
and departed with a final roar of impotent wrath.

Courtnay awoke one morning and pushed open the creaking
shutters. A shower of icy feathers covered his hands and head,
and melted nextnnoment into glistening dew-drops under the
warm spring sun. A robin whistled on a bare twig above his
head. It was a greeting to the dawn of spring, and' a saucy
fling at the conquered* tyrant who had so long held her at
bay.

'* Well, Hal, we paddled through those mid-year exams
pretty decently after all, didn't we ? " remarked a class-mate of
his that afternoon.

** Say, you old mole, what in the name of the commonwealth
are you stacking up such a pile of mental pabulum for, any-

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i897-] " Unless A Man be Born Again—"' 231

way ? I've often wondered. What are you going to do with
it?"

" Don't ask me. Any one else could tell you better."

" George ! Wish I didn't know what I've been digging for
in this old hive for the last four years. This time next year I
suppose ril be quill-driving ten hours a day for my daily
bread. Oh ! it makes me tired now to think of it "; and
Charlie Raemon rolled over onto a pile of sofa pillows with a
lazy groan.

Courtnay smiled down at the recumbent figure. " With
what Bossuet calls ' that inexorable weariness that lies at the
bottom of all our lives ' ? " he asked in mock sympathy.

" It seems to be troubling you lately just the same. I
haven't seen you pass the house early mornings of late, on
your way to the post-office, with the pretty operator."

" No," answered Courtnay sadly, ignoring other allusions in
his friend's retort. "Since the death of her mother the poor
little thing has shut herself up so completely with her grief
there is no getting near her to offer even a bit of sympathy."

"' I noticed she was in black and looked paler than usual."

"What eyes she has, though, if you can only get a glimpse
of them ! But she'd make you think of a vestal virgin pure
and cold."

"H'm; vestal! Say rather a nun with her white soul."

"Indeed! I'd like to see any one make a nun out of her.**

There was a peculiar accent on the words, and a drooping
of Raemon 's frank eyes as he met the searching gaze of Court-
nay turned full upon him.

" And why not ? " queried the latter with a cool tone of
challenge in his voice.

" Oh, never mind ! " replied Raemon half doggedly, and
dodging the challenge by turning the conversation.

He loved Courtnay with a boyish kind of worship for that
great strength of his, and hated to associate him with what
early prejudice and teaching had made him believe of the other's
religion.

'* How worse than pagan darkness this cruel, blighting sus-
picion of brother and sister in the same human family ! " com-
muned Courtnay with himself that evening during a lonely walk
out under the silent stars. "Why, we might as well have emi-
grated from yonder fiery planet for aught they know regard-
ing us."

These thoughts dwelt with him now day and night. He was

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232 " Unless a Man be Bohn Again—'* [May,

beginning to associate himself with the cause of his Mother
Church. In some deep part of his nature that slumbering
loyalty was stirring.

Stronger than these influences, though, was the sight of
Hope Netterville's unspoken, helpless grief, as day by day he
watched her pathetic figure as she wearily went to her daily
work. The blind father and old grandmother were still left to
forbid her the luxury of an unoccupied grief.

The curtain seemed to have fallen on all that was of joy
and love and sweetness in her young life when the last tick of
the message bringing the news of her mother's sudden death
came over the wire one dreary day in mid-winter. It had come
with such a cruel shock, as she was sitting there idly in the
quiet of the day thinking of her home, and, as was her wont,
conjuring up the picture of this dearly loved one as she had
• last seen her. The slender fingers had dropped nerveless from
the keys, then were interlaced in a convulsive clasp ; across her
eyes, wide open and startled, there shot an expression of awful
pain. But no one saw her or ^ heard the little moan from the
drawn lips. All went on in her life as before.

Mrs. Jenkins's crude efforts at sympathy only seemed to
bruise her poor heart still more. She would walk out of the
room with tightly closed lips when the other would venture
some of her inopportune suggestions about calling in the minister
to pray with her, or coming with her to meeting the next time
she went.

"He kin pray awful movin' like," she argued one day; "you
ought ter heeard him at Uncle Lige's 'morial services. He
took the text * Blessed is them that mpurn,' an' we wuz all — "

" Mrs. Jenkins, don't, please ! I — " Poor Hope tried to sub-
due her heaving heart and keep down the shivering sobs.
Then, seeking to hide the agony in her face, she went quickly
out of the room into the quiet and gloom of the little parlor,
and stood by the window there till the sobs died away into an
occasional halting sigh, while her thoughts seemed to brood with
a bitter sweetness over the memory of the lost one.

"To think I shall never see her once again. Never/'' The
words came with a sudden gasp from between the quivering
lips in a thin, agonized whisper that pierced the heart of Henry
Courtnay for an instant with a keen pain as he felt the sense
of their utter hopelessness. He had been reading in the further
corner of the room when she entered, unconscious of his
presence. It brought back to him the memory of his own

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I897-] " Unless a Man be Born Again—*' 233

mother*s death, his childhood's idol, and the passionate outburst
of boyish grief that had been wrung from him when this real-
ization first came upon him, that he would see her no more ;
but then, like a gleam of light over the troubled, darkened
waters, like the voice of an angel in the beating of the storm,
had faith whispered of that other and eternal meeting that
would know no death.

He sat watching her for a few moments with these memor-
ies surging up in his brain. " Unless a man be born again — " ;
why should this oft-repeated text of Mrs. Jenkins keep repeat-
ing itself in his mind ? The busy clock on the mantel-piece
ticked noisily on. Courtnay rose up with a strange, full sense
of something swelling up from his heart. " There is nothing
that can. cure a grief like that," he thought, turning his eyes
from the sight of her face — "except time, time, time, time,"
cruelly ticked the little tlock — " except, O God, faith and love
for thee!"

He knew she did not hear him pass softly out, for the
drooping face laid against the window-pane had not changed its
expression of absorbing grief when he glanced back at her from
the hall.

That night Courtnay said the prayers of his childhood once
more, stammering out the half-forgotten sentences, " I firmly
believe ^z// the truths the Holy Catholic Church believes and
teaches " ; while the white image of the sweet saint of penance
stretched out its supplicating arms above his bowed head.

Chapter HI.

A decade and a half had passed since that hour of Divine
conquest over a soul wrestling long with itself and God.

In one of the crowded parish churches of New York a great
Lenten mission had just been brought to a close. For four
weeks a surging throng of people had poured morning and
night, night and morning, through the narrow doors.

The atmosphere in the deserted galleries and empty nave
was still heavy from the human breath of thousands who but
an hour before knelt there for the final blessing. Not a soul
of all that sighing, praying, fervent multitude was left behind in
the silence and the shadows that had deepened and crept around
pillar and shrine, till only the flame of the altar-lamp stirred in
the darkness like a living, watching thing.

It had been a grand mission. Harvests of sin-laden souls,
seared and weather-beaten in the maelstrom of misery and

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234 " Unless a Man be Born Again— ^' [May,

crime and woe, had been brought to God's feet, some for the
first time, many for the seventieth times seven. Thousands
more had been roused from the inanity of a weak faith by the
contagion of religious fervor, only to lapse again, perhaps, into
the vacuity of their worldly lives when the magnetism was
withdrawn.

The tired missionaries had returned home for a few days*
rest before the opening of a second mission in another of the
city churches the following Sunday. The superior, who was on
this band, had set to work with his usual tirelessness, the first
evening of his arrival home, to get rid of some of the accu-
mulated correspondence that was awaiting his attention.

There was a knock at the door. " No peace for the wicked,"
he sighed, patiently laying down his pen. The eyes that were
lifted to welcome the intruder, however, lighted up a face in
which strength and goodness blended in singular harmony.
And yet at moments an observer might notice a flash and an
eager look in those quiet eyes as of one full of restlessness to
be up and doing, for the call was pressing and the hours too
quickly fled.

The caller delivered his message: "Mrs. Sullivan, who had
charge of the sodality table at the fair, wants to see you about
the returns, father ; and two of the singers from our choir have
been waiting for you to come back to settle a little difference
they had with the organist. They are in the room on the
left."

That meant nearly an hour in the parlor. It would be too
late for mailing any letters after that. He could run through
them when night prayer was over and finish answering them in
the morning. He pushed them back into a pile, not noticing
one that lay at the bottom of all the rest, marked " Urgent,"
addressed in a strange, irregular hand, and bearing the post-
mark, Montana.

Two hours later he was still sitting at his desk, not writing,
but with his head bowed deep in his hands. Near him lay an
open letter written as follows, in scrawling, broken sentences:

" Dear old Hal — I believe they call you Rev., or worshipful,
or something like that now ; but it*s all the same to me. I heard
of you not long ago ; a fellow out here on our ranch, a regular
scorcher, was telling us one day how an enemy of his escaped
his vengeance by his, the scorcher's, going into a revival meet-
ing, I suppose you call it, and hearing a sermon by — you. I
found out it was you by an accidental connection of circum-

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.1897-] " Unless a Man be Born Again—"' 235

stances, too long to tell, but it was you right enough : he
quoted some of the things said in the sermon — you all over.
He wrote to one of his priests in the East and got your ad-
dress for me.

" So that's what you're at, old chap, is it ? * Going about
doing good.' And I ? Ah, Hal ! the weariness of life proved
too much for me. They tell me I have only a few more pufifs
of the breath of life left in me. The malaria caught me in this
beastly place last year, and I am now just hanging on by the
gills to this miserable existence. Am glad I got the chance to
scrawl this to you, though, before I drop. When I heard you
were a priest it shook me a little. I always believed they were
a roughish set ; but I know you, with your clean soul, would
never set up with anything of that stripe. Those dirty sus-
picions — but, Hal, there has been much besides the natural
nourishment imbibed from the maternal breast. You'll forgive ;
do you remember the pretty operator with the vestal — no,
nun-like eyes ? and the trout in that sunny pool down back of the
woods ? They were a jolly set, that crew of — of — is it fifteen
years ago ? How my mind is wandering back ! I met a young
chap over in Boise City last year who was from our college.
He said the old place was just the same. There's an old maid
operator at the station, though, that the boys call Neitleville.
Can it be she has grown into a forlorn Hope? Inexorable
fate, and weariness. There will be little strength left in me
after this effort. Am glad I gave the last of it to you. These
brutes here think it manly to die like a fighting cur — game to
the last — but, Hal, I wish I knew what to say to the great
Judge — I believe I have one to meet.

" You will not tremble and grow sick with unknown horrors,
as I often do lying here alone, when your turn comes. Your
calm eyes will not flinch at death. I saw you stare him in the
face once when he seemed so near in that canoeing accident
on the lake, when Ridgway . . . you remember Ridgway

. . . what a stroke he had . . . and Prince of . . .
of . . . and Courtnay . . . my great, strong friend
. . . if he were near . . . but Montana and New
York—"

The letter was signed and addressed by another's hand, with
a rough postscript explaining that the weak fingers of Raemon
had tried in vain to add the final word.

The priest laid the letter down before him, and then sat
gazing long at the old, familiar handwriting coming before him

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236 " Unless a Man be Born Again—'" [May,

like a face out of the past. Charlie Raemon — Hope Netter-
ville — the old class-mates — how the names, coming thus to him
suddenly and unexpectedly, stirred memories within him as with
a magic power, seeming with a few swift strokes to conjure up
a vision so vivid that it was almost as substance to the eye of
his mind ! How rapidly was this picture from the past filled in
with associations stretching far backward and far forward into
his life, even to the present moment. Yes, was not this very
present moment, this place he was now filling in the great world
— was it not bound so closely to a day, an hour in that now dis-
tant past, as to seem part of the same day, the same hour? —
that hour when he realized, by a soul revelation so strong as
to make all other things about him seem as dreams and shadows,
what it was to be without faith. Was it not this knowledge,
gained not in the schools, but seen by the flash of one ray of
divine grace, that had brought him to where he now was ; and
which daily, nay momentarily, fed the fires of that energy that
made the arduous labors of his missionary work seem like child's
play to him, so strong was that ever-growing desire to bring back
to others what he once too had lost and found again, the light
of faith?

Are such vocations rare ? No ; in many a life, whose pur-
pose we do not know or understand, there has been a moment
in which the problem of its existence, long a vexed and
complicated one even to itself, was worked out unknown and
unseen of others, and by no merely human reasoning or cal-
culation.

Thus had it come to Henry Courtnay. His life, up to that
time, had been a full one, as the world saw it ; but to him, as
he looked back at it now, it lay a blank waste in which his
memory traced only the shadows of those who had come and
gone through it, leaving no trace of their presence. But those
who had come close to him during that short and seem-
ingly uneventful period at Bleakville, though merely accidental,
as it were, how much a part of him had the memory of them
become ?

Though sudden and strong had been the change that was
effected at that time in his interior being, yet not so suddenly
did he allow it to work itself outwardly in his life. For a few
more years he let that deliberate judgment of his have its way
in persuading him to wait and ponder, and test himself and
his powers, before the final resolution was reached. Impulse
was a mighty power in his nature ; but he knew it, and there-

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1897O " Unless a Man be Born Again—'' 237

fore kept so tight a rein over it as to curb its outbreaks. He
had apparently settled down to business, after his term at the
college was completed, as coolly as though a long life of finan-
cial success lay before him. He listened pleasantly to the
adulations of his friends who congratulated him that such a life
seemed now so assured to him. This for a few years, and then
a sudden and complete exit from it all. A little loosening of
the rein, a moment's yielding to the irresistible leading of that
long-repressed impulse, was all that was needed to bring him to
the taking of the final step.

And he sat there this evening going over all this in his
memory again, still leaning with bowed head over the letter of
his dying, perhaps dead friend ; that letter which seemed to
have come to him as a fresh summons to greater effort,
yet deeper faith in the mission he had chosen for his life's
work.

In the memento for the living at his Mass next morning
the name of his friend Raemon was breathed by him with a
faint yet lingering hope. But involuntarily, when the memento
for the dead came in turn, an impulsive plea for his departed
soul rose to his lips with a passionate appeal for mercy.

And yet once more, when with closed eyes and silent lips
he offered his fervent thanksgiving at the all-absorbing moment
of Communion, the thought of this strayed soul forced itself
again into his mind. " O Eternal Love," he murmured, his
hands close-pressed against his heart in a sudden energy of
grief and self-abasement, "why am / here, while my fellow-
creatures lie dying without Thy fold, thick as the scattered
leaves of the forest ? O dearest Lord \ is Thy hour not yet
at hand?"

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LIFE'S MEED.*

BY A. OAKEY HALL.

|NE summer day the Wise Man of the East
(When Juda's splendor at its grandest shone)
Walked with a Youth along the Lebanon plains
And 'neath an Orient sky.

Afar they saw
The Hebrew Temple, with its spacious dome
And shining gates of gold aiid> precious gems,
All shaded by tall cedars, whose perfume
Filled all the amorous atmosphere which gave
Unto King Solomon his languorous hours.

'Twas he that walked with regal step beside
His young companion ; who seemed proud to be
Honored with such high royal company.
No pride, however, flecked the kingly face,
For reverent thoughts and looks there beamed.

The twain paused 'neath an olive-tree whose shade
Seemed grateful to the now conversing pair:
Where broke the Wise Man into solemn tone,
As, gazing on the freshness of the Youth,
He took the other's palm within his own
And said : ** Remember thy Creator, ere
Thy days find evil in them; and before
Thine age approach the yet afar three score,
When thou shalt cry * No more I pleasure take
In any of Life's hours * ; for ah ! the day must come
When thy lithe limbs — thy body keepers — bend
And tremble ; when thy 'own proud frame must bow ;
When at the feast thy grinders cease their meed,
Because they are so few ; and when thine eyes
(Those windows of thy soul) wax dark and dim ;
Or when thine ear shall vainly grasp at sound ;
And when no burden can thy shoulders bear ;
Or terrors, as thou walkest, bar thy way :

* A poetic paraphrase of the last chapter of Ecclesiastes.

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1 897-] Life's Meed. 239

And when whom thou may'st meet shall point at thee
And say, *• He goeth toward his long last home
With silver cords loosed round his throbbing heart,
While breaks the golden bowl that holds his brain,
While fountains of his life all sluggish flow,
And wheels that moved his body at his will
Slowly revolve.'"

'Tis these, my son, foretell
Thou must return to dust from whence Man sprang.
And unto God thy spirit, which God gave.
Shall soon return. Next in a new abode
Shalt thou discover how all Life was vain,
And vanity of vanities its prize..
Wherefore, in youth sow virtue's seed : and ne'er
Withold thy hand from grasping righteousness.
Rejoice thee now in youth ; but yet reflect.
Dark days may dawn, and all around thee prov.e
What vanity of vanities Life is.

Remember, for the deeds thou dost through life.
Amid all joy and cheer of thy young heart,
God at thine end toward such shall judgment bring.

Put evil from thy flesh ; for youth (that prime
Of Life) is Vanity of Vanity.
Fear God and his commandments keep. Therein
Read the whole duty of all men who live."

So hearing: then the Wise Man's comrade bowed
His head and said : " O king ! thy wisdom words,
Though goads, or nails well fastened to my soul.
Shall never from my memory depart :
And when those evil days of Age draw near
(That thou in burning words hast just portrayed)
My days of Youth, which Vanity have shunned.
Shall in remembrance bring me no remorse."

Then, as the twain retraced their steps, the breeze —
Which 'mid the cedars and the olives played —
Echoed o'er Lebanon's plains this one weird cry :
Life's meed is Vanity of Vanity.

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Lake Katherine, at the Nashville Centennial.

THE CENTENARY OF THE SOUTH-WEST.

BY EDWARD J. McDERMOTT.

ROM the appearance of Uncle TonCs Cabin until
after the war the people of the North and of
England derived most of their knowledge of the
South from that novel, from the poems of Whit-
tier, and from the passionate speeches of Wen-
dell Phillips, Charles Sumner, and Henry Ward Bcecher. Very
few Northern or European travellers penetrated into that in-
teresting country. The soldiers and statesmen of the South
excited admiration for their abilities everywhere, but the most
civilized part of the world condemned slavery, and the South
had to bear the odium. For years after the war the South was
poor, uninviting to new-comers with or without money, misrep-
resented, almost friendless. In late years a gradual but great
change has been wrought. Nobody now can dispute the enter-
prise or the unprecedented recuperation of the South. The
Expositions at New Orleans and Atlanta were most admirable
and most interesting ; and the Centennial, which is to commem-
orate the admission of Tennessee into the Union in 1796, will
be a golden opportunity for outsiders to see what a typical
Southern community is — how the people appear in their fields,
shops, and homes ; how they use their resources in creating
wealth, and what the extent of their culture is.

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i897-] The Centenary of the South-West. 241

The benefit of this celebration of Tennessee's progress dur-
ing a century of freedom and the incidental commemoration of
her illustrious men in the past will be great. The Greeks/
especially the Athenians, in their palmy days, understood this
well; hence their elaborate and gorgeous festivals and exqui-
sitely beautiful public buildings ; their wreaths and trophies and
statues to the victors in literary or athletic contests and in
war; their honors to those who died bravely in battle.
*• The love of honor," said Pericles in his funeral oration
in Athens over the soldiers that had died in defence of the
city, " is the only feeling that never grows old ; and, in the
helplessness of age, it is not the acquisition of gain, as some
assert, that gives greatest pleasure, but the enjoyment of honor.
. . . Where the greatest prizes for virtue are given, there
also the most virtuous men are found among the citizens."

Tennessee and Kentucky resemble each other as much as
twin-sisters, though they are in fact first-cousins, for the former
was the child of North Carolina, while Kentucky was the well-
beloved daughter of Virginia. From these two States came the
hardy pioneers who at first sought hunting-grounds and then
homes west of the Appalachian Mountains, and who there found
lands as rich and as beautiful as any on the wide globe. Daniel
Boone was the typical pioneer of Kentucky, though he was born
in Pennsylvania and was raised in North Carolina. John Sevier
was the typical pioneer of Tennessee, though born in Virginia.
The first settlers in Tennessee came from Virginia through Cum-
berland Gap ; but most of those who followed came from North
Carolina; and the streams of immigration long continued to
flow from the same sources. Few foreigners have entered into
the population of Tennessee; not more than one-fourth of
the population of Kentucky has come from foreign-born immi-
grants, and nearly all of such foreigners and their descendants
have remained in the cities on the Ohio River. The people of
those two States are, therefore, nearly akin in origin, of nearly
equal social condition, alike in tastes and belief, with almost
the same laws and political institutions, ' and very similar to
Virginia in everything.

Tennessee slopes from the Cumberland Mountains on its
eastern side to the Mississippi River, its western boundary.
In the eastern third of the State there are great deposits of
coal and iron, good building stone and beautiful marbles, prime-
val forests of valuable timber. The middle third of the State,
while having rich minerals and much useful timber, is note-

VOL. LXV.— 16

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242 The Centenary of the South-West. [May,

The Administration Building.

worthy mainly for its rich soil and serviceable streams, its beau-
tiful rolling meadows of blue-grass, its multifarious, valuable
agricultural products, its almost universal thrift and comfort.
The level western third is warmer and more tropical, but fertile
and populous to an extreme degree. Cotton, corn, tobacco,
and early vegetables thrive there prodigiously. The chief city
of that section is Memphis, which, from its imposing, command-
ing bluff, overlooks the broad, majestic Mississippi and the low-
lands of Arkansas beyond. For awhile Memphis withered and
drooped under the scourge of yellow fever in 1878 and 1879 ;
but, after her citizens realized their danger, the remedy, and
their duty, they cleansed and purified the city, provided it with
good sewerage, and thus stopped, probably for ever, the rav-
ages of their dreaded enemy.

Hardly any State in the Union can surpass Tennessee in
variety of crops, minerals, navigable streams, in beauty of
scenery, or in historical interest. Its growth in wealth has
been rapid, and almost every foot of its soil has been enriched
by the blood of brave men in battle. Here the rigorous, numb-
ing winters of the North, and the torrid, enervating summers of

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i897-] ^^^ Centenary of the South^West. 243

the more distant South, are unknown. Men can work and the
fruits of the earth can grow without intermission for ten months
in the year. While the husbandman of Massachusetts or Michi-
gan is driving his cattle over the frozen earth to their folds for
food, the farmer of Tennessee is working with comfort in the
balmy spring air and his young lambs are romping in rolling
meadows of rich blue-grass. The heat of a Tennessee summer
is not so great as that of New York or Boston, but the sum-
mer season in Tennessee lasts about twice as long.

Tennessee is, primarily, an agricultural State. Of its two
million people less than twenty per cent, live in towns and
villages. The only cities of large size are Nashville and
Memphis. The census of 1890 says that the population of the
former was 76,168, nearly double what it was in 1880; that the
population of Memphis was 64,495, practically double what it
was in 1880. The native-born population of Tennessee in 1890
was 1,747,489 ; its foreign-born population, 20,029. The colored
population in 1870 was 322,331 ; in 1880, 403,151 ; in 1890, 430,-

IN THE "Auditorium" all the Festivals and Congresses will be held.

678. The white population in 1870 was 936,119; in 1880, was
^138,831; in 1890, was 1,336,637. In other words, the white
population in twenty years has increased 42 per cent., while
the negro population has increased about 33 per cent. Hence
the whites are steadily gaining on the blacks. This is, no doubt,
largely due to the fact that the colored people have been flock-
ing to the villages, towns, and cities, and have not thriven as

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244 The Centenary of the South^West, [May,

might have been expected. Besides, the negroes of Tennessee
and Kentucky have been scattering into all parts of the Union.
But it is not in the ways of Mammon alone that the "Vol-
unteer State " has gained just fame. It spends annually in its

The Commerce Building is one of the most striking of all the Exhibition

Structures.

public schools $2,500,000 for white and for black children, dis-
tributed according to school attendance of the two races,
which is 538,621 white children and 182,302 colored children.
In addition to these common schools there are many private
schools, Catholic and Protestant, and also colleges for men and
women. At Sewanee, on the mountains in the east, is the Uni-
versity of the South, which has 400 students, and which, for the
benefit of Southern boys, is open in the winter and has its
vacation in the summer months. At Nashville is Vanderbilt
University, which has a large faculty of able professors and
about 700 students, handsome buildings, a beautiful campus, and
the usual equipments of such an institution. In another part
of the city is the University of Nashville, which has 1,500 stu-
dents. At Memphis the Christian Brothers have a fine high-
school for boys. Virginia and Tennessee, among the Southern
States, deserve especial praise for their efforts in behalf of a
general diffusion of elementary, collegiate, and university edu-
cation among the people.

From the first settlement in Tennessee, about 1 754, to the
time of its admission into the Union in 1796, its history is
made up of a record of important and stirring events. The

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1 897-] The Centenary of the South-West. 245

pioneers, pouring in from Virginia and North Carolina through
Cumberland Gap, followed the courses of the Tennessee and
the Cumberland rivers; waged bloody and incessant warfare
with the fierce Cherokees until the latter were driven away;
and finally, in August, 1784, as North Carolina and the federal
government hesitated and vacillated in considering the request
of the settlers for the right to form a new commonwealth,
those hardy men impatiently set up the independent State of
Franklin; but on March i, 1788, after their leader and gover-
nor, John Sevier, was tried for high treason and was saved only
by a daring rescue, they returned to their allegiance to North
Carolina, which in 1790 ceded the territory in dispute to the
federal government, and in 1792 the northern part of the State
of Franklin, which embraced the territory of Kentucky, but had
never been recognized by the Kentuckians, was received into
the Union as the State of Kentucky, and in 1796 the southern
part entered the Union as the State of Tennessee. Those dar-
ing men were impatient of control; they were quick to attack
any authority or power that obstructed their rights or wishes.
It did not seem to make much difference to them whether they
were opposing the Indians, the English king, or the American
Union. Here was the first sign of that impatient, indomitable,

The Products of the Field are an important part of a Nation's Wealth.

unyielding spirit to which we may ascribe the Resolutions of
1798 and the Rebellion of 1861. It is an interesting fact that
slavery never throve in the mountainous parts of Tennessee or

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246 The Centenary of the South-West. [May,

The Transportation Building is remarkable for poetic simplicity.

Kentucky, which lay along the borders of Virginia and North
Carolina. The white people of those upland regions, though
i\ot as prosperous or progressive as the white people of the
lowlands, synjpathized with the Union, and furnished a large
quota of loyal troops to the arnriies of the North. As slaves
were profitable only in the rich agricultural districts where
large frfantations were owned, there were very few slaves in
the eastern part of Tennessee and Kentucky, and, therefore,
slavery had few ardent champions there, and consequently
secession was not popular.

The early period of Tennessee's history is typified in the 1
lives of those eminent and well-known frontiersmen, John
Sevier, Andrew Jackson, and David Crockett. Sevier, a colonel
in the Revolutionary War, the first governor of the short-lived
State of Franklin and later the first governor of the State of
Tennessee, was a handsome athlete, an Indian fighter of re-
npwn, and, an able, picturesque executive of a pioneer common-
wealth. Andrew Jackson, born in North Carolina in 1767 of
Irish parents, was a soldier in the Revolutionary army before
he was fifteen years old and began to practise law in Tennessee
before he was twenty. He settled in Nashville in 1790, and
soon married the charming grass-widow who was ever after the
chief object of his love. He was the first representative of
Tennessee in Congress and was several times her senator. His
career as a soldier, not only in his campaign against the Southern
Indians, but also against the Spaniards and the English, is well-

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i897-] The Centenary of the South-West. 247

known. His victory at the battle of New Orleans on the morn-
ing of January 8, 1815, two weeks after peace had been agreed
on in Ghent, but before it was known in America, made his
fame secure. On that day the Tennessee and Kentucky rifles
were his mainstay. His races for the presidency with Henry
Clay, the idol of Kentucky, and his memorable controversy
with Calhoun over nullification in South Carolina, arid over
the charter of the Bank of the United States, then before Con-
gress, are important events in the history of our country, and
will make many visitors to Tennessee seek, with great interest
and respect, the Hermitage where the old hero spent the best
years of his life, and where he now lies buried.

Davy Crockett, " the crack shot of the wilderness," was a
gallant soldier in the War of 1812, under Jackson; a generous,
witty, bold frontiersman, and a unique member of Congress
who, at fifty, was killed at the storming of the Alamo, at Bexar,
while fighting for the independence of Texas.

President Polk was born in North Carolina in 1795, but be-
came an adopted son of Tennessee when he was eleven years

The History of a People inspires Patriotism.

old, and, though he was not a brilliant man, he was a valuable
representative in Congress for ten years, twice speaker of the
House, governor of Tennessee, twice an unsuccessful candi-
date for re-election to that office, and at last, in 1845, was
elected President of the United States.

In later days Andrew Johnson, the tailor, who was taught

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248 The Centenary of the South-West. [May,

to read by his wife when he was twenty-six, and who became
senator, governor, vice-president, and, by Lincoln's assassination.
President of the United States, was a notable son of Tennessee ;

The Woman*s Building is modelled somewhat after *' The Hermitage."

and so was the brave Union admiral, David Farragut, and
so too was the dashing rebel general, Nathan B. Forrest. The
greater part of the fame of the brilliant Felix Grundy was
made as a lawyer, a senator, and a cabinet officer of Ten-
nessee, though he was born in Virginia in 1777 and removed
to Kentucky in 1780, and remained there till he settled in
Nashville in 1808. The boundaries between Virginia and 4he
Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee, have ever been shadowy.
We are bone of one bone and flesh of one flesh.

Both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were born in
Kentucky, which strove at the beginning of the Civil War to
be neutral, and thus for awhile acted as a buffer for Tennes-
see ; but, before long, Kentucky was compelled to take sides
with the Union, and then the southern part of the State and
the whole of Tennessee became a grand theatre of war where,
for about three years, there were hostile marches and counter-
marches, innumerable skirmishes, and great pitched battles of
vast forces. Tennessee furnished to the Union 34,cxx) soldiers ;
to the Confederacy 115,000 men, one-sixth of its forces; and
in her borders were fought the memorable battles of Fort
Donelson, Shiloh, Lookout Mountain, Chickamauga, and Mis-
sionary Ridge. Nearly one-fifth of all the men buried in

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I897-] The Centenary of the South-West, 249

national cemeteries are buried beneath the soil of Tennessee.
When the armies of the South were compelled to retire from
her borders, and the Mississippi was opened to federal gun-
boats, the Confederacy was doomed. In fact, when Albert
Sidney Johnston, that modest, refined gentleman, that gallant,
brilliant leader of armies, fell at Shiloh on April 6, 1862, and
the unyielding Grant was saved by the timely arrival of rein-
forcements, the star of the Confederacy began plainly to fade
away and Southern hope grew faint ; but the indomitable peo-
ple of Tennessee never faltered in their course till borne down
by overwhelming forces.

From the close of the war in 1865 to the adoption of the
new constitution in 1870, Tennessee passed through the terrible
ordeal of Reconstruction. The leading men of the State were
disfranchised ; United States military officers and State militia
oflRcers, under the orders of Brownlow, dominated elections ;
the enfranchised blacks, not yet prepared for self-government,
were put in control of the ballot-box; the corrupt " Alden
Ring" saddled a debt of nearly a million dollars- on the small
town of Nashville, which had about thirty-five thousand inhabi-
tants; the colored people, in their secret, oath-bound Union

The Children of the State erected their own Building.

League of America, and some foolish whites, in the night-
riding Ku-klux-klan, sought for mastery by underhanded means
which rendered party discussions of little consequence and gave
power to unworthy leaders; the State debt was increased to

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250 The Centenary of the South-West. [May,

nearly seventeen millions by the issue of bonds which were
sold at prices ranging from 17 to 40 cents in greenbacks, then
greatly below par ; and the whole course of public affairs was
disastrous and terrifying in the extreme ; but since 1870 the

The Parthenon, exactly reproduced.

recuperation has been marvellous in speed and wonderful in
results.

Classic taste runs high in the South, and therefore it is no
wonder that in the buildings of the Centennial we find splendid
specimens of the best art of Athens in her days of glory. It
was a happy thought to reproduce exactly for us the Parthenon,
that our eyes might see what our imagination has long striven
in vain to body forth. In modern Athens the noble ruins of the
Parthenon, which was dedicated 435 years before the birth of
Christ, now stand upon the Acropolis ; only the scholar of vivid
imagination can picture it to himself as it really was ; but in
Nashville this monument of the genius and the imperishable
fame of the architect Ictinus and of the sculptor Phidias is to
be seen as the Greeks beheld it from all parts of Athens. The
exterior is a perfect copy ; even the dimensions are identical ;
and the interior, which is to be used for the art exhibit, is
sufficiently like the original to make ais understand its majestic
beauty. Pericles, who inspired this dream of art, Phidias and
Ictinus, who gave it being, and Demosthenes, who gloried in it
as a proof that his countrymen loved honor and beauty more
than money — all those immortal men excite our gratitude anew

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j897-] The Centenary of the South-West. 251

as, under the porticoes of this re-created temple of Minerva,
goddess of needle-work, wisdom and peace, we stand entranced .
and gaze with unfailing delight on the fountains, flowers, and
beautiful, imposings buildings wherein Tennessee has gathered
together the wonders of modern commerce and Christian civil-
ization. When Byron renewed the ancient glory of Greece
by his splendid bursts of poetic eloquence, and popularized
the aspirations of her patriotic sons for independence; when
seventy-three years ago he gave up his life in a vain effort to
hasten the dawn of a new day over the mountains and valleys
of Ilium, he would have died in some sense satisfied if he could
have foreseen that, toward the close of the century, the people
of the United States would be reproducing, for their edifica-
tion and delight, the Parthenon, while all Greece, united and
respected, was proving itself worthy of its ancient fame, was
not only growing in strength, riches, and refinement, but in war-,
like spirit, and was able to strike a manly blow for its kindred
in "the Isles of Greece" against the hated Moslem foe.

To the intelligent visitor no part of the Centennial will at-
tract more attention than the building in which will be dis-
played the progress of the negro from degradation in Africa to .
servitude, and then freedom, in America. Though slavery is :
wrong, it must be said that, but for the presence of the negroes .
in the South and their improving environment there; but for
the enlightenment which they received from their Southern
masters, who were generally intelligent and humane, they could
not, in any reasonable degree, have been prepared in a few
generations for the rights and privileges of citizenship in the
highest type of government on the globe. Much has been done,
but much remains to be done in the upward movement of the
race. In an address by a most intelligent negro, Edward Reed,
of Detroit, in behalf of the National Catholic Industrial School
for colored youths, he lately said :

** The race is paying taxes on $370,000 worth of property.
We have 57 college presidents, 30,000 school teachers, 25,000
Protestant ministers who have studied theology, 100 authors on
different subjects, 1,000 lawyers, 800 doctors, 250 newspapers, 2
dailies, 4 magazines, 4 banks, and several ' building and loan
associations.' . . . The colored Catholics of the United States
number 250,000, 2 priests and 30 young men studying for the
priesthood, 3 convents, 200 sisters of various orders, and a num-
ber of orphan asylums."

The colored people now have equal rights in the courts and

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252 The Centenary of the South-West. [May«

at the ballot-box. If they use those rights as intelligent, thrifty,
patriotic citizens, the South's future will be marvellously bright ;
if they neglect or abuse those rights, her future must be full
of disappointment and bitterness. They may handicap her in
the race for eminence, but their own chances of success must
be best in her domain.

When the people who visit the Centennial see the Parthe-

A Type of Roman-Doric order op Architecture.

non they will, no doubt, admire its simple grandeur, and pro-
bably wonder at • the high state of civilization reached by the
pagan Greeks four hundred years before the birth of Christ;
but that eloquent monument of the past should also inspire
other thoughts. It should teach us that a nation of many
sterling virtues and happy opportunities may rise to greatness
and enjoy freedom in glory for a hundred years, and then de-
cay, fall into slavery, and, for centuries afterward, be utterly
\vretched and despised.
As Byron wrote :

" There is the moral of all human tales ;
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past :
First freedom, and then glory. When that fails.
Wealth, vice, corruption — barbarism at last."

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CALCULATING LOVE.

BY WILLIAM P. CANTWELL.
I.

;a fell in love with a snow-
;e sail

I the storm king's arms;
id low, spoke a vow, I trow,
1 rest on the strong, loving

her charms.

11.

wooed her away
From the sea with its depth of love ;
Inconstant, she sped where the flaming lights led,
Nor wist for the moan of the sea, sad and lone —
The sea making moan like a dove.

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254 .A Glimpse of Biology. [May,

A GLIMPSE OF BIOLOGY.

BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D.

HEN we look upon a tree or an animal, wonder-
. ful as the object appears, we yet do not realize
how vastly more wonderful it becomes when we
delve into its innermost parts, and examine it
through the eye of the microscope ; when we
behold, as it were, the secret machinery which is being moved
by the mysterious presence called Life. Let us take a tiny
piece of leaf, or a bit of our own skin, and looking through a
microscope we discover a cluster of cells separated each from
the other by a cell-wall ; each cell is composed of a grayish,
jelly-like substance, which thickens toward the centre and forms
a nucleus, and mixed with it are a number of extremely fine,
lucid globules. Now, this grayish,, jelly-like substance is Proto^
plasm. We know this marvellous substance only as we see it
alive — growing up, breaking down, renewing itself ; chemical
analysis destroys it. We know, however, that protoplasm is
not a simple chemical substance, and, so far as we have yet dis-
covered, it consists mainly of the chemical compounds known
as Proteids, into which enter oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen,
carbon, and sulphur ; and it contains also a great deal of
water.

Now, the first surprising fact about living protoplasm is that
it has the power of motion ; it is in a state of ceaseless activity.
The' tiny, lucid globules scattered through the grayish, gelati-
nous substance, are at one moment moving toward the nucleus,
at another moment they are moving away from it, while the
shape of the cell is constantly changing. The second surprising
fact about protoplasm is that it is irritable ; it responds to
stimuli. Its movements may be' retarded by the slightest pres-
sure ; they may be quickened by electric shocks ; while a
warmth of 45° Cent, stops all movement. Its activity, too, is
very much affected by surrounding conditions — by food, light,
etc. But, besides having the power of motion and of response
to stimuli, protoplasm absorbs nourishment : it breathes, it
grows, it reproduces, it excretes. Indeed, this magical sub-
stance would seem to be at the very physical basis of life ; and

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1 897.] A Glimpse of Bio log y. 255

we may add that, however highly organized a plant or an animal
may be, its body is simply a vast agglomeration of protoplasmic
cells, and every power it exerts in growing, in feeding, in mov-
ing is the result of the combined efforts of numberless indivi-
dual cells whose vitality is due to protoplasm.

And here it may be asked. How is this material, which is
seemingly inseparable from life, as we know life, built up ? How
is protoplasm derived from the inorganic world? Well, let us
first observe that the flesh-eating animals, whose existence
largely depends on the grass-eaters, obtain their protoplasm
from the protoplasm of their prey ; then the grass-eating ani-
mals get their supply from vegetation ; while fish, too, many
of whom prey on one another, in the last analysis — in the lower
aquatic forms — procure their protoplasm from the myriad micro-
scopic plants which abound in the water. Here, then, we have
come down to vegetation as the primary source of protoplasm.
Now, vegetation, which we thus find to be the very starting
point of the food-supply of all organic life, is .mostly green.
Hence the answer to the problem is, that protoplasm is built
up from green vegetation. But bear in mind that the green
coloring matter of plants depends on what is known as CA/oro-
phylL And right here we come to something transcendently
marvellous indeed : chlorophyll may be said to put us in touch
with the sun — that God-given luminary, more than ninety mil-
lion miles away. If we dissolve the green coloring matter of
plants by soaking a few leaves in alcohol, we obtain a clear,
bright green solution, and this solution is fluorescent^ and from
what the spectroscope reveals — from certain absorption-bands in
the spectrum of this solution — it seems not unlikely that there
is a connection between certain rays of the sun and the vital
properties of chlorophyll. Hence it may be said that the living
cells of animals and plants which are filled with protoplasm —
whose formation from inorganic materials depends on chloro-
phyll — perform in the sunlight chemical action : they decom-
pose and assimilate carbonic acid, and form organic compounds.
The oxygen is returned to the air and the carbon is retained,
not pure but probably combined with hydrogen and oxygen,
and in the combining energy is given out in the form of heat.
Therefore, through chlorophyll it would seem as if the radiant
energy of the sun were converted into potential energy ; and
this potential energy, imparted by chlorophyll to protoplasm,
makes protoplasm a centre of force for all living things.

Is it any wonder, then, that flowers and vines creep and turn

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256 A Glimpse of Biology. [May,

toward the sunbeams ? And may not every human being be
called a child of the sun ?

But now let us turn from Protoplasm and consider Life as
we see it manifested in the animal and vegetable kingdoms.
And here we may ask, What is the exact distinction between a
plant and an animal — say, between a horse and a cabbage ?
Well, in one respect they are absolutely alike : they both take
in oxygen and give out carbonic acid, for this is the property
of all living protoplasm ; and if, during the day, in the sunlight,
the cabbage (being a green plant) does the very reverse, namely,
takes in carbonic acid and discharges oxygen, this is merely
owing to the working of chlorophyll, and after the sun goes
down the green plant begins to respire normally, to take in the
needful oxygen and to discharge carbonic acid. But this like-
ness apart, there is certainly a marked difference between a
horse and a cabbage. One is able to move from place to place,
and has special organs for breathing and circulation ; while the
vegetable is rooted to the earth, and breathes through its whole
surface exposed to the air.

But when we come down to the simplest forms of life in
the two kingdoms, the distinction between an animal and a
plant is indeed, at first sight, far from being clear. All the mi-
croscopic plants and animals consist of a single cell. Now,
among uni-cellular animals we have Vorticella and some others,
which, as a rule, in the adult form, breathe, digest, and excrete
fixed to one spot ; while among uni-cellular plants we have
Protococcus, Spirogyra, and others — whose habitat is fresh water
ponds — which at certain periods swim freely about, drawn along
by the wavy movements of a pair of threads which project from
the cell.

But on a closer examination we find that these single-celled
plants, like the higher types of the vegetable kingdom, have
rigid cell-walls composed of a substance called cellulose, which
is nearly allied to starch and sugar; they have, moreover,
neither mouth nor stomach, and they are either nourished by
solid substances in a state of solution in water, or else they ab-
sorb nourishment as gases, while water and the carbonic acid
of the air give them the needed starch to build up the pro-
teids of their protoplasm : although how the simplest plants get
rid of waste is not yet known. But when we examine the single-
celled animals we find that their cell-walls are composed, not of
cellulose but of a nitrogenous substance called Chitrin. We
find, too, that they cannot manufacture starch as plants can,

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1897 •] A Glimpse of Biology. 257

and they require as food organic matter, which is taken in
through an opening which may be looked upon as a mouth ;
and this organic matter is digested in a special structure called
the food vacuole, while the waste is gotten rid of through an-
other special structure — the contractile vacuole. But having
noted these differences between animals and plants, it is inter-
esting to know that in the lowest forms of both kingdoms re-
production takes place by a simple division of the nucleus of
the cell into two nuclei: when the plant-cell and the animal-
cell have attained their maximum growth, the nucleus divides,
and presently we behold two single-celled plants and two single-
celled animals formed out of the original cell.

Cell-division has been the subject of much study, and it is
now ascertained through the microscope that this division takes
place in one of two ways. The simpler, rough-and-ready way
is by the constriction of the nucleus, which becomes separated
into two more or less equal parts, and around each daughter-
cell about half the protoplasm of the original cell winds itself.
By the other method, which is far more difficult to follow, the
nucleus of the cell before dividing goes through a series of
peculiar changes too elaborate to be described, but which re-
suit in each daughter-cell obtaining in the end a more equitable
share of that portion of the nucleus known as Chromatin than
it obtains in the more direct, simpler way ; and let us add that
this most important substance — chromatin — is generally believed
to be the bearer of inherited characters.

Turning now from the simplest forms of organic life, we find
that the bodies of the higher plants and animals are merely
structures built up out of innumerable cells ; their growth
is a process of cell-multiplication. But in every case this or-
ganized community of cells is the outcome of cell-division ;
every cell springs from and perpetuates itself through a divi-
sion of a pre-existing cell. And hence this unending cell-
division may be said to form a chain of cells which links
every existing plant and animal to the ancestral single-celled
animal and plant to which the Creator gave life in the begin-
ning.

And now, without dwelling on certain plants devoid of chlo-
rophyll and the few. but very interesting green, insect-eating
plants, which possess exceptional powers to take in and digest
food, let us pass on and study briefly the animal kingdom.

To begin, the animal kingdom is divided into two well-
marked groups, namely, the Protozoa and the Metazoa. To the

VOL. LXV.— 17

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2S8 A Glimpse of Biology. [May,

protozoa belong all the simplest forms, such as Vorticellay which,
as we know, consist of a single cell, and which, as a rule, live
attached to one spot ; and in these simplest animals reproduc-
tion — as we have said — takes place by a simple division of the
nucleus of the cell into two nuclei. It sometimes happens
among single-celled animals that when reproduction has taken
place, the two new animals, instead of living apart, stick to-
gether and form by still other divisions what — for want of a
better word — we might term a community. But in every such
community the individuals composing it are never arranged in
such a way as to form' definite organs ; each single-celled mem-
ber of the community would seem to exist for itself alone.
This fact it is very necessary to bear in mind, for it sharply
distinguishes the simplest forms of animal life from the higher
group of the animal kingdom, namely, the Metazoa — to which
group Man belongs — and which are forms composed of a num-
ber of cells arranged in layers, and all the cells pull together,
as it were ; they combine to serve special ends for the good
of the whole animal.

The first of the higher forms of which we shall speak is
called Hydra, whose habitat is watery, muddy places. The
shape of this little animal is cylindrical ; a mere hollow body
less than an inch long, surrounded by two layers of cells. At
one end of it is a pedal disc by which it attaches itself to ob-
jects, and at the other end of the animal we perceive a number
of tiny, string-like, hollow protrusions grouped around an open-
ing which leads down into the body. Hydra creeps along by a
series of caterpillar-like movements ; and when one of the
string-like protrusions or tentacles touches something it wishes
to devour — a water-flea, for instance — we see the water-flea stop
short in its gyrations. What has happened ? Well, hydra has
thrust into it a deadly dose of poison. And now it is very
interesting to see the tentacle bend and draw the flea towards
the opening or mouth, through which it is pushed well down
into a part of hydra's cylindrical body called the enieron.
Then after awhile, when digestion is completed, a minute ball
— the remains of former fleas — is discharged through the same
opening — for hydra swallows and excretes by one and the same
passage-way. This animal, which is a continuous mass of
protoplasm without blood-vessels or nerves, may during several
generations multiply itself asexually — by budding, or, as we
might express it, by vegetative reproduction : that is to say,
other and smaller cylindrical bodies, under certain conditions,

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1 897-] A Glimpse of Biology. 259

may grow out from any part of the parent body. But while
the new body may often remain attached to its parent, it is to
all intents and purposes an independent hydra. And after-
wards from this bud other buds may sometimes grow out, until
at length the whole assumes a branching, tree-like aspect ; yet
each branch is in reality a separate animal, which may at any
moment break off and live by itself. But hydra may also —
indeed as a rule does — increase by sexual reproduction ; it may
even shed into the water at the very same time both male and
female sexual cells. This, however, seldom happens ; for while
in some of these animals we do indeed find produced both
the male and female reproductive organs, they hardly ever dis-
charge simultaneously ; for when they do the marked benefits
of crossing are lost — the progeny are not so hardy. Now, in
hydra cross-fertilization is brought about by one of the male
cells (a spermatozoon) propelling itself by the vibrations of its
tail through the water; and so it goes twisting along until by
and by it meets and touches an exposed egg on a hydra,
whereupon conjugation takes place by the nucleus and a micro-
scopic bit of the protoplasm of the spermatozoon penetrating
into and fusilng with the nucleus of the egg-cell. Then after a
brief space the impregnated egg-cell divides into several egg-
cells, which finally become arranged in a hollow ball or sac
composed of two layers of cells, an inner and an outer layer,
and this hollow ball is called the Blastula. And in this condi-
tion what may now be termed an egg, drops out of the parent
hydra to the bottom of the pond.

Having said that the animal kingdom falls into two groups,
viz., the Protozoa and the Metazoa, and having briefly dwelt on
hydra, one of the little animals belonging to the higher group —
the metazoa — let us burden the reader's memory with still an-
other fact, namely, that the higher division is itself subdivided
into two well-marked types — the Ccelenterata and the Coelomata.

Hydra and many similar forms, such as coral-polyps, jelly-
fish, etc., belong to the simpler subdivision — to the ccelenterata.
Of course these simpler forms differ a good deal in size and
shape ; but, as we have seen, they may be broadly character-
ized as animals composed of only a stomach lined with two
layers of cells, and with an opening at one end of the stomach
for swallowing and for excreting.

Now, we might feel inclined to pass over, to despise, as it
were, these lowly creatures — merely free-living stomachs. But it
was necessary to dwell a little on hydra, for it is in studying,

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26o A Glimpse of Biology. [May,

the changes which it and other simpler forms undergo, that we
afe able to work our way up intelligently to the structure of
the higher animals belonging to the more specialized subdivi-
sion of the metazoa, viz., to the ccelomata.

Now, in the higher subdivision, in the ccelomata, we find
the open sac or stomach of the lower subdivision changed, we
might say improved, into a body lined not with two but with
tAree layers of cells. The outermost layer are the protective^
cells ; next to them come the nerve-cellSf while the innermost
layer form the fnusc/e-cclh, with long, contractile fibres passing
under the nerve-cells. By this admirable arrangement the mid-
dle or nervous layer can register impressions received from the
outer layer and transmit them to the fibres of the muscle-cells ;
thus, as it were, telling the muscles what to do, whether to
contract or to expand. But besides having three layers of cells,
the sac or stomach of the higher subdivision of the metazoa
(the ccelomata) is markedly longer and oval-shaped, and at
one end of the long, oval-shaped sac is an opening which
serves specially for a mouth, while at the other end is another
opening which serves specially for excretion. Here, then, is a
more specialized animal than hydra ; that is to say, an ani-
mal with particular organs serving particular purposes ; and
this animal with two openings in the sac marks another advance
in the life-system. But more than this : not only has the higher
subdivision of the metazoa three layers of cells (the inner-
most layer forming the inner wall of the body) and two open-
ings to the stomach, it has also a hollow space or cavity within
the innermost layer, and in this hollow space runs the alimen-
tary canal — which is the primitive digestive cavity — while in the
region of the mouth is a slight thickening as well as a special
development of nerve-cells; and this thickening and concentra-
tion of nerve-cells at the front end of the body may be viewed
as an incipient brain. And it is interesting to know that as
low down in the scale of animal life as leeches and earth-
worms we find this concentration of nerve-cells at the front
end, specially developed all along the under surface of the
animal from the mouth to the posterior opening ; and as the
majority of animals without a backbone have this development
of nerve-cells along the under surface of the body, they are
called invertebrates ; that is to say, they belong to the inver-
tebrate type of the nervous system. And these animals are
the earliest to appear in geological time; while vertebrates,
or animals with a backbone — such as fishes, reptiles, birds.

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i897-] A Glimpse of Biology. 261

mammals — which appear later in the earth's history, have this
special development of nerve-cells, not along the under but
along the whole upper surface of the body, and this is known
as the spinal cord.

Having mentioned the earth-worm as belonging to the inver-
tebrate type of the nervous system, let us dwell briefly upon
it. The student of organic life will find no living creature
more interesting to examine and to practise dissection upon
than this humble invertebrate. The earth-worm is generally
easy to procure, and armed with a magnifying-glass, some
pins, a sharp knife, a plate, and a little methylated spirits, he
will find his first work in anatomy very useful in preparing him
for the study of the higher animals — the vertebrates. The food
of the worm is organic matter, which it obtains by taking in an
astonishing quantity of earth and passing it through its alimen-
tary canal, in which process the nutritious organic matter is
absorbed by the canal, and what is not nutritious is excreted
and left in little heaps known as worm-castings. And let us
observe that these tiny heaps of earth, which we scarcely no-
tice when we walk abroad, have played a mighty part in oblit-
erating the works of Man : give a colony of worms time enough,
and they can undermine and bury out of sight Nineveh and
Babylon.

This little elongated invertebrate, pointed at both ends, is
found as a rule in touch with its burrow by its flattened end,
which is the tail. And now, if we examine it closely, we dis-
cover something about it which we have not observed in other
and simpler forms of life : we see here an animal outwardly
bound together, as it were, by a number of rings, and this is
known as segmentation. Now, segmentation is something that
we plainly see in crustaceans (shrimps, lobsters, cray-fish) and
in insects, while in man we also discover this phenomenon, al-
though it is very irregular in most parts of -his body, but dis-
tinctly enotigh revealed on the nerves, fibs, and backbone.
Having, taken note of these rings, let the student run his .finger
along the under surface of the w:orm and he will feel that it is
not s^iooth like tlie -upper surface, /but rough,' and a glance
through his magnifying-glass . shows him a number of horny
points, and these horny points— which "are attached to the body
by strong muscles — form the machinery by which the animal
moves along the ground. And now, continuing to look through
the glass, the student will see the blood-vessels ; and the five
more plainly distinguishable ones, with contractile muscular

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262 A Glimpse of Biology. [May.

walls, are the five hearts. After looking well at these hearts,
we discover that the earth-worm may by its own self propagate
its kind. But, unlike some of its near allies, it has not the
power of budding — of vegetative reproduction ; it possesses both
sexual organs and its normal mode of reproduction is sexual.
Nevertheless, it also has the power of cross-fertilization, and
this is brought about in a strangely complex manner, by the
agency not of two but of three worms. But in the earth-worm
we look in vain for a special organ of respiration, for it is able
to take in, along with the soil from which it extracts its nour-
ishment, a sufficient quantity of oxygen, and this oxygen is
absorbed by the blood-vessels of the intestinal canal, while car-
bonic acid is discharged by the cells of the canal; and let us
add that the circulation of the animal's blood is through a per-
fect system of blood-vessels, and the pumping is done by the
five contractile hearts above mentioned.

With these few remarks on the earth-worm we bring to a
close our Glimpse of Biology. Let us hope that it may induce
some of the readers of The Catholic World to take up and
to pursue this absorbingly interesting study. It is the study of
the machinery of life. And in taking to pieces and in examin-
ing this machinery — from the simple, single-celled animal up to
Man — the student becomes more impressed than he does by any
other study with the mysterious power of Him who first put
the machinery together and then set it in motion.

It did not make itself ; it did not start itself. Almighty
God was the machinist, and his hand was on the starting-bar.

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to, Perugia, and Spoleto. His administration of these places, as
the executive officer of the temporal sovereignty, displays a
rare combination of strength and suavity. There is an anecdote
told of the way in which he awed a great noble who thought
himself outside the law, if not above it. Pecci was putting
down brigandage at Spoleto, his first government, and for the
purpose his agents invaded the ^eignorial rights or franchises of
this noble to make arrests. The latter stormed in to complain
of the delegate's police ; Pecci failed to see how iiT these days
of civilization any man could put himself above or outside the
law. The noble, in a fury, threatened to go to Rome and re-
turn with the dismissal of the delegate. " Go, by all means,"
replied Pecci ; ** but please to remember that in order to get
to the Vatican you will have to pass the castle of St. Angelo.*'
The other knew from this that Pecci was aware of acts more
distinctly criminal than a claim to exercise exclusive jurisdic-
tion within his own domains. The marquis, for this was his
title, did not go to Rome.

While nuncio at Brussels he impressed King Leopold, the
most sagacious of European sovereigns, with a high opinion of
his judgment and tact. The attitude of the Liberal party was
hostile to the church, and it was so especially on the subject
of national education. The country was only a few years old —
only just, as it were, separated from Holland — and it was the
aim of secularizing policy to get hold of the young by a
system of education that would place the future generation in
the hands of Liberalism. Mr. McCarthy passes over this mat-
ter as one not within his province to discuss, but he allows us

• Pope Leo XIII, By Justin McCarthy. New York : Warne & Co.

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264 Talk about New Books. [May,

to infer that the difficulties it involved show that Gregory XVI.
must have had great confidence when selecting Pecci for that
mission ; and the popularity he acquired in Belgium proved
that he was worthy of that confidence. It is, however, to be
regretted that one like Mr. McCarthy, who could so well pre-
sent a picture of the influences and embarrassments round the
nuncio, has not done so. We should have liked to hear some-
thing about the remarkable men who were then in Brussels,
Montalembert, the De Mer6des, and the rest, and to hear the
views of their friends in France and England.

Of the charm of the style it would be impossible for us to
speak too highly. It has the delicate fragrance of what is
called the Oxford manner, but concerning which we have a
theory, namely, that it began with Swift and Steele, was made
familiar to America and England by Burke and Goldsmith, and
finally, after the Union, was transplanted to England and be-
came naturalized there. The secret of this style is in the way
we see the thought — as in a transparency. Burke's wealth of
imagination never obscured his political philosophy; the fierce
rage of Swift only made his invective more pointed, his illus-
trations more telling. In Moore's prose we see his images as
we see things reflected in a clear river, and in our own day we
have the best of this gift in the words of light and harmony
that wait upon the thoughts of Edward Dowden, and, in a day
only past, in the throng which sprang up about Thomas Davis
— that band which seemed in its passion and its grace to be-
long more to Grecian skies and air and mountains than to the
hills and clouds and showers of Ireland.

Be that as it may, gi-fted with such a style, Mr. McCarthy
can best tell the story of Leo, who is as essentially the man
of the age as any one of that syndicate of nineteenth century
thought which claims a monopoly of knowledge of the age,
but which mistakes statistics for principles, social science for re-
ligion, and looks uppn man as nothing more than a bundle of
co-operating functions and nervous activities. Now, man is
something more than such an exquisitely wrought machine ; and
because Leo knows he is, he was able to grasp problems which
caused the syndicate to wonder. The idea of a priest, trained
in twelfth-century metaphysics and the eternal circle of the
syllogism, reading society in our highly complicated civilization
as if it were an open page, pronouncing its laws with the ex-
actness of mathema,tical formulas, referring mischiefs to their
roots, and suggesting remedies with care and caution united

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I897-] Talk about New Books. 265

to the greatest boldness, is outside of all experience. They
could not get at him by an induction ; and the syllogism, why
it is only a petitio principii. The reason is that they know very
little about what constitutes society and very little about the
nature of man, and hence they could only vaguely guess at
what to Leo was very plain.

Nor do we mean that in laying down social laws — that is,
in expressing them — could he be unmindful of their particular
application. No one more distinctly realized the difficulty of
this than he himself ; but the laws which make society an or-
ganism, with a life of perpetual renewal in the parts and work-
ing to an end, he could declare as against the systems of
modern economists and sophists and calculators which would
make the state a camp, a horde, a tumultuary mob.

In the chapter on the organization of labor Mr. McCarthy
presents the mind of the Holy Father with great clearness,
and that means that he presents the labor question in all
its bearings with great clearness. In the chapter on the re-
cognition of the French republic he is excellent. The sub-
ject was not free from difficulty. Mr. McCarthy is an advanced
Liberal, and, perhaps more even than any Protestant Liberal,
who might have some regard to responsibility — there are
such Protestant Liberals — he dreads what are called reactionary
tendencies. We ourselves have no fear of them ; for there is
an illuminating spirit in the church which even under the worst
conditions of despotism or anarchy will prevent the world from
ever becoming what it was when our Lord came, but in this
fear he fully gauged the conditions confronting the Holy Father.
To local prelates there is no extraordinary difficulty in adopting
a new line of policy when expediency demands it and no para-
mount principle stands -in the way. But the infinitely varied
and conflicting interests upon which the Pope looks out lend
to every matter difficulties insuperable to any mind except the
wisest and best informed. For instance, in recognizing the
republic he was plainly at issue with the German Empire r with
all that was good in Spain, still a loyal power ; with the house
of Hapsburg, which had great claims upon his consideration;
with the dispossessed sovereigns of the Italian states, who bad at
least this title to it, that they suffered at the hands of his
enemies, and to some extent for the principle of succession for
which he was suffering, though not for the same fundamental
right ; so that at first sight he would appear to have been
bucklering the cause df the French republic against all Europe

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266 Talk about New Books. [May,

and his own rights. Again, for what — looking at the surface, —
for what was he brushing away the recollection of Henry V.
and the gallant gentlemen worthy of him, and, so far as
men can be, worthy of Holy Church ? Apparently for enemies
of Catholic liberty, for corrupt politicians and stock-jobbers, for
the republic of Freemasonry, fast becoming the republic of the
Panama Canal frauds.

Yet to the Holy Father his course was clear, though honor-
able men might not see it. To such Catholics as are still in-
stinct with the spirit of their fathers, inherited from the time
when the Christian life was a reality in the mind and conscience,
notwithstanding aberrations due to unfavorable social conditions,
we beg to point out that Leo's first predecessor saw in the
vision of the sheet let down from heaven all kinds of animals.
The beasts and reptiles are the children of our beloved Mother
the Church as well as St. Louis and Henry V.; and so Leo,
acting even in the temporal domain, had the light of Peter's
vision to guide him.

Dr. Lyman Abbott, in his Christianity and Social Problems^
gives us some very sound conclusions ; though how he derives
them from his premises is beyond our comprehension. The
fault is ours — possibly a want of the scientific mind of the
Naturalism school — but the truth of many conclusions we admit ;
so would every Catholic. For instance, when after a process
of what seems to be intended for reasoning he deduces the
proposition that we ought to be Christians, he says nothing
more than any little child in our parish schools would formu-
late as follows : We are followers of Christ and are bound to
imitate him. But when Dr. Abbott sees at most in our Lord
the founder of a school of philosophy, he does not say so in
plain terms — he does so by necessary implication ; but when he
sees in Him no more than the founder of a school of philoso-
phy, he goes too far in insisting that we should join the school.
We deny that we are bound to do anything of the kind.

As well might we hold ourselves bound to be Pythagoreans
on the grounds given. We know that Pythagoras formed the
conception of a society of men bound together by a moral dis-
cipline and a common belief. We know that his ideal was the
study of wisdom, for he is believed to have been the inventor
of the word philosophy, which expressed his view of rational
life most highly ordered : a life free from ambition, avarice, and

* Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

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I897-] Talk about New Books. 267

lust, in which his disciples should pursue the study of the na-
ture of things. He established his society at Crotona — a socie-
ty not of all men, remember — not of the wealthy and the poor,
the slave and the freeman, the great lady and her maid, the
noble, illustrious by descent and deeds, and the outlaw of so-
ciety, loaded with ignominy and crime — but a society of the
most highly cultivated men, devoured by a thirst for knowledge
and prepared to embrace the moderate self-restraint imposed.
The society died at the first breath of persecution, though no
doubt it has left its fame behind, for there is no period of
Grecian history in which distinguished individuals were not im-
bued with its tenets ; but the Church which Dr. Abbott would
lead us to suppose is nothing more than a system framed by
a sociologist was baptized in blood, cradled in storm, and grew
in strength and power and majesty in spite of persecution, or
rather because of persecution ; the blood of martyrs was the
seed of the Church.

We think he has sympathy with the cause of humanity ;
there is warmth in the tone with which he speaks of the col-
lossal fortunes of a few men endangering the stability of the
country by the enslaving of the many. A man may possess every
right of a citizen in a free country, but if his bread depends
upon another he is a slave. We take this as testimony from a
man belonging to a leisured class ; that is to say, it is the testimo-
ny of such a man to the existence of the fact that so large a part
of the wage-earners of the United States depends on the moods
of a few men, that practically the country is in the hands
of a few capitalists. For this evil there is a remedy; but it is
not in a fanciful Christianity, but in the genuine one which in
its infancy brought the slave from the ergastulum, where human
nature had been inconceivably degraded in him, to the room
of some patrician's. house which served as a church, where kind
words soothed his spirit and loving hands tended his wounds,
and his fellow-Christians prayed for all blessings for him.

He is very clear in the conclusion that wealth is in truth a
trust. The rich are trustees for the poor from their abundance,
and to this law they are bound by divine declarations in the
Old Testament and the legislation which aimed at checking ac-
quisition. Here again, while we recognize sound Catholic doc-
trine in the position that wealth is a trust, we fail to follow
the reasoning by which Dr. Abbott reaches that conclusion.
Looked at from one point of view, his arguments would carry
us to ultra-socialism ; looked at from another point of view, they

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268 Talk about New Books. [May,

would land us in the paganism which he over and over again
harps upon as the worship of vindictive or corrupt gods — quite
as though it were the refrain of a song far away in his mem-
ory — quite as if he discovered a modern paganism near at hand
in the echo of that refrain. We are not deeply affected by
this discovery ; so little, indeed, that we say to our readers : Go
to these lectures and papers if you have a fondness for fervent
but inexact rhetoric, for dogmatism without solid learning, and
a mode of thinking from which logic is successfully excluded.

Under the title of Our Martyrs* the late Father Denis
Murphy, an Irish Jesuit, supplies a record of the sufferers for
the faith under the Penal Laws in Ireland. We have in this
book a social history in examples that flood the mind with
vivid perception of a tragedy going on for three centuries in
the midst of European civilization. Great families disappearing
from their place and sinking into the mass of the people, the
spy and the informer constant to the objects of their watch as
shadows to the substance, judges merely the ministers of state
hatred, governors pursuing honorable men with the fury of
arbitrary power, and all inspired by cupidity as well as religious
rancor. All this we see in the confiscations, the outlawries, the
huntings from hiding-place to hiding-place, the massacres, the
imprisonments, the judicial murders.

As a specimen of the manner in which the ruin of Irish
Catholics was wrought we take the instance of Sir John Burke
of Brittas, County Limerick — a great landed proprietor in the.
last years of Elizabeth and the first years of James. Sir John
determined to sail with his wife and young family to Spain to
enjoy the religious freedom denied him at home. With touching
simplicity he looked to the Spaniards as kinsmen who would
protect him and his on account of his Milesian blood {sic) —
protect him on this account as well as for the sake of their
common religion. He was prevented from leaving Ireland by
the commissioners of the province of Munster, one of whom
was his father-in-law ; but in no way daunted, he continued the
practices of religion.

In the interval between the death of Elizabeth and the time
that the policy of James regarding the Catholics was declared,
the citizens of Limerick restored the splendor of public worship.
Sir John was accused before Lord Mountjoy, the viceroy, of being
a ringleader in this movement, when that official visited Munster.

^Our Martyrs, By the Rev. Denis Murphy, S.J. Dublin : Fallon & Co.

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I897-] Talk about New Books. 269

The viceroy sent him as prisoner to Dublin Castle, refusing
the unlimited bail for his appearance offered by his friends. A
plague, more merciful than government, opened the prison doors
and he returned home. There he openly followed the obser-
vances of the church, and employed himself in the offices of
charity, until his manner of life was carried to the ears of
Brancbard, lord-president of the province. The lords-presi-
dent of the provinces wielded despotic power. In that office
the functions of civil and military authority were so united and
confounded that no one could say what civil trespass was out-
side its jurisdiction. It embraced everything, even the most
ordinary transactions of life as well as the infinite variety of
offences against the peace. For a caprice, it dealt with a petty
assault at a fair as readily as with the levying of war against
the king. No right of the subject from statute, or custom,
or precedent seems to have been sacred from this comprehen-
sive jurisdiction.

Accordingly, Branchard, on hearing that Mass was to be
celebrated on the first Sunday of October, 1607, in the great
banqueting hall of Brittas Castle, sent a troop of horse to seize
Sir John and his chaplain and carry off the sacred vessels
and ornaments.

A vast crowd assembled, the Mass was about to begin, when
the troops came up. The people fled in all directions. Sir
John and the chaplain took into a strong tower adjoining the
house the holy things belonging to the service of the altar.
In the confusion they were followed by two or three servants.
The captain and his soldiers surrounded the tower. Sir John
was informed by the officer, if he were allowed to enter and
speak to those within no harm would be done them; the
answer was that the officer and his men might enter freely if
the former would make his confession and induce the latter to
do the same. The fact was that Burke would not trust their
promises, and he was determined at any risk to save the sacred
vessels from profanation. Every influence was brought to bear
upon him not to ruin himself and his family. His mother and
his wife ei^treated him, but all in vain.

As if to give a character of formal legality to these pro-
ceedings, the sheriff of Limerick came up with the posse comi-
tatus to sustain the lord-president's authority ; and in the man-
ner of the times burned the village that lay at the foot of the
castle. The siege had gone on for a few days when Sir John
resolved to make his escape, carrying with him the ornaments

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2^Qh Talk about New Books. [May,

of the altar. He had already sent off the chaplain to a place
of safety, and so now, with a shield on his left arm, a helmet
on his head, and sword in hand, he ordered the servants to
throw open the door and follow him. He crossed over to the op-
posite bank by a weir, the guards shouted, he ran and hid the
sacred burden in the brushwood.

Proclamations were issued against him ; he went from one
hiding-place to another, and finally was betrayed. Tried for
high treason, he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and
quartered. The viceroy offered pardon, the restoration of his
estates, and the dignities to which his social position would
have entitled him had he belonged to the state religion, pro-
vided even then he should acknowledge the supremacy of the
king. He refused in the terms of the ancient martyrs, and
expiated his fidelity on the gallows. Not the least suggestive
incident connected with the close of his life was the request
when the cart that bore him approached the place of execution
that he should be set down and allowed to make his way to
the scaffold on his knees. This meagre sketch into which we
have condensed the narrative taken from contemporary sources
very inadequately conveys the character of this faithful gentle-
man who through his life reverenced his Lord above all things,
and in his death endeavored, though at a long distance, to imi-
tate his Lord's death.

We have from K. M. Barry a sketch of Catherine McAuley
and the Sisters of Mercy.* In Mother McAuley's labor we have
the conception of a great enterprise, and we wonder how such
results could be accomplished by means so disproportioned. The
circumstances under which she was born and brought up and
her natural gifts placed upon the one side, and the work to be
done upon the other, would compel one judging by the ordinary
laws of life to exclaim that it was fantasy, mid-summer mad-
ness to think of it. Yet twenty years after her death there
were one hundred and fifty convents of the Order of Mercy at
work among the English-speaking peoples. The number has
since been steadily increasing, so that these institutions
represent a great instrument in the world-wide work of the
church.

Born about 1787, when her religion was proscribed, her early
girlhood was passed through a time of inconceivable horror and
suffering for her co-religionists. Two years after the day of

* Catherine McAuley and the Sisters of Mercy, By K. M. Barry. Dublin : Fallon
& Co.

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1 897-] Talk about New Books. 271

her birth the adjoining county of Wexford was given over to a
rule which anticipated the outrages that through this century,
and up to a day or two ago, have marked the dominion of the
Turks in south-eastern Europe and Asia. If there were men
of her creed possessing rank and station who escaped incredible
degradation, they only escaped it through exceptional influence
and fortune. Lust, rapine, massacre enacted in the light of
their flaming villages told what martial law meant for Irish
Catholic peasants.

The life-story of Catherine McAuley comes through such
recollections like the light of a better life. It steeps the mind
in a blessed forgetfulness of the unutterable ignominy and fear
and horror which surrounded its budding promise, it is later on
an instance of the power of grace to elevate and strengfthen
natural gifts until they compass things that intellect, wealth, and
purely human energy could not accomplish. We see that were
it not for such souls the world would be a jungle and a
forest, beasts of prey called men would devour other beasts
called men. It is these souls who pass on the torch our Lord
lit in the dying world ; these, and not the praters about the
great humanities, the pharisees of the Stock Exchange who build
hospitals out of the spoils of feebleness, and the good brewers
who re-edify ancient churches out of the lives, out of the havoc
wrought upon the poor — wrought through a hopeless struggle
that works like madness in the brain.

From the aspect of social improvement under the auspices
of the church presented in the work of the foundress of the
Order of Mercy, we pass to the relation of the church to science
as we find it offered in a volume of articles by Father Zahm.
His name is familiar to our readers as a man of science equally
at home in the laboratory and in the exposition of the natural
and physical sciences in the lecture-hall. Those who have heard
him state the results of searching inductive processes have en-
joyed a pleasure not often experienced. The singular clearness
of his language expresses the precision of his thought, while
the felicity of his illustrations displays a remarkable reach of
study over the domains of literature, art, and philosophy. In
treating of experiments of a complicated character and methods
of investigation, one is struck by his ease and simplicity ; but
they are the ease and simplicity of power and knowledge. We
have in the articles before us the same mastery, the same
clearness of style, the same power of rendering unfamiliar

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272 Talk about New Books. [May,

topics plain that we have just stated are the qualities to be
observed in his lectures.

We cannot in this '• Talk " afford more than a faint notion
of what Father Zahm says concerning the sympathy of the
church with every exercise of intellectual activity. No doubt
much of what he says has been the property of honest and edu-
cated Catholics all along ; the only Catholics who questioned
the church's patronage of learning are the ignorant, or worse
still, those semi-educated ones who sit at the feet of Protestant
or quasi-Rationalist opinion. The most subtle form in which
anti-Catholic influence presents itself is in the social tone which
assumes that there is no intellectual freedom in the church,
and that all the departments of scientific investigation are in
the hands of atheism. A moment's thought ought to have cor-
rected both of these views. Even if modern scientific investi-
gation had become an anti-Christian monopoly, it would mean
nothing more than that the natural and physical sciences were
pursued by men outside the church. But these are only a
small province in the realm of knowledge; useful, no doubt, in
the same way as tinkering is useful, plumbing is useful, carry-
ing hods is useful. Beyond those little arts of experiment lifted
to the dignity of science is the great kingdom of philosophy,
where all man's relations and duties, and correlatively to these
his powers, have been examined, sifted, analyzed, ascertained,
and directed until his place in creation became a law of the in-
tellect. Beyond the tinkering and plumbing and hod-carrying
of modern science is the world of the imagination and the
heart, reflected in poetry and eloquence, in painting, architecture,
music. All these were the church's care ; but so far from
despising, much less dreading, the inductive sciences, she has
been their patron.

How could she dread them ? She is the guardian of revealed
truth, and consequently the friend of all truth. There are not
two truths. The facts of science cannot contradict the truths
of revelation, because truth cannot contradict itself. If there
be a conflict, it can be only an apparent one, assuming that
what are called facts of science and the inferences from them
are established beyond all doubt. But *' facts " of science on
which great structures of irreverence have been piled have been
proved time and again the very reverse of facts. Bacon nearly
three centuries ago wrote that a little study in the experimental
sciences leads to atheism, while a profound study leads to faith.
We ourselves know that the most courageous atheists in Europe

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1897O Talk about New Books. 273

are English working-men and German working-men. The constitu-
ents of the late Mr. Bradlaugh, who could hardly read, were as
good atheists as Haeckel, who produces the infinites by spontane-
ous generation ; the factory-worker in a German town can tell you
with Buchner, and with as much authority, that "God is only an-
other expression for our ignorance." Now, we think that we are
not bound to accept as scientific the conclusions as to creation
and as to God which we have mentioned. It is not necessary we
should say that the late Professor Tyndall demonstrated by an
elaborate system of experiments, conducted with a care literally
unexampled, that there was no such thing as spontaneous genera-
tion. Even if there were what is called spontaneous genera-
tion, all it would amount to, in our poor opinion, is that God
had placed somewhere, or in some way, a potency which pro-
duced effects that might be taken or mistaken for spontaneous
generation. We should be slow, for our part, in accepting the
conclusions of men who, through prejudice, are unfit to make
useful inductions even if they had the knowledge, honesty,
and patience needed to collect, contrast, compare, and verify
the particular instances ; and we very respectfully decline to
take their opinion concerning the attitude of the church toward
science. Surely it is unreasonable to ask the church to believe
that every pretentious fool is a wise man; every tyro, every
dabbler in physics, is a man of science. This would not be de-
manded of one's ordinary friends, and it is too much of a good
thing to require it from that august society which can count
among her children, through nearly nineteen centuries, the most
luminous minds that have shed light upon mankind, from that
society which has set its seal on every department of knowl-
edge, and without whose care and encouragement a blank, dead
universal ignorance would rest upon the world to-day ; that
church whose sons, even on the subjects which modern science
calls its own, outnumbers the men of any single creed or form
of opinion. We remember to have seen it somewhere that the
Jesuit Order alone produced more mathematicians than all the
heretical sects and the modern schools of thought combined.
We think it was the astronomer Lalande who said so, but this
would a priori seem probable even to fair-minded enemies of
the church, because the mathematics had been studied all along
under her wing — we put aside the unfounded assertions concern-
ing indebtedness to the Arabs; the point immediately present
is: Does the church oppose or discourage those studies whose
progress is supposed to lead to results in conflict with received

VOL. LXV.— 18

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274 Talk about New Books. [May,

notions based on the inspired writings? We confidently an-
swer, no. Timid minds took alarm when Champollion's discovery
of the Egyptian hieroglyphics was announced ; it was feared that
Egyptian history would be employed, like that of the Chaldeans
and Assyrians in the last century, for the purpose of impugn-
ing the Pentateuch. The then Pope, Leo XII., had no such
fear ; he encouraged and sustained Champollion so fully that
the latter wrote to Cardinal Wiseman, " It is a real service which
His Holiness renders to science."

The same happened with regard to the first discoveries about
Quaternary Man. Anglicanism and Evangelical Nonconformity
got pale when the enemies of revelation shouted their triumph ;
but Pius IX., on the contrary, speaking the mind of the Catho-
lic body with respect to science, and interpreting the church's
spirit in the pursuit of truth, declared that the discoveries in
question, and all such discoveries, would illustrate and confirm
the divine records. Nor was it in words alone he showed this
confidence. Again, in 1867, a paper was read before the Con-
gress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology at Paris
which maintained the existence of Tertiary Man, and written,
above all men, by a priest, who not only received no censure
on account of this, but enjoyed the friendship all his life of the
most learned and holy ecclesiastics. This gentleman was mis-
taken and followed into error by the majority of European
archaeologists; but the value of the instance is in showing that
the church does not dread modern science, whatever way she
may look upon modern sciolism. We should be glad our readers
should spend a little time on these excellent essays of Father
Zahm ; they may correct some erroneous notions that ought to
be corrected, and they will certainly afford pleasure by the
lucid style in which they are written and the vigorous treat-
ment of the subjects.

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1 897-] Talk about New Books. 275

MAX MULLER'S mythology *

We must leave the detailed treatment of these volumes to
students (and there are not many) of the author's own rank,
and content ourselves with indicating the object and purpose of
the work. Professor Max Miiller is, if not the founder, at
all events the most distinguished defender of the linguistic
school of Comparative Mythology. The validity of its methods
is hotly contested by numerous writers, adherents of the
ethnological school of comparative mythology, of whom we
believe Mr. Andrew Lang is the most prominent. So assured
are these latter of their triumph that they declare Professor
Max Muller to be the only champion left of the opposing, and
in their eyes exploded, school. As to the real number of those
who" think with Mr. Lang, Professor Max Muller expresses
grave doubt. Mr. Coventry Patmore held that ten or so supe-
rior and inexhaustibly fertile periodical writers, with three or
four fairly good novelists, were the arbiters, and for the most
part monopolists, of fame. He quotes Mrs. Lynn Linton as
saying, of her own knowledge : " Of a work lately published
one man wrote sixteen reviews. The author was his friend, and
in sixteen * vehicles * he carried the flag of his friend's triumph."
Professor Max Muller intimates that he is somewhat of the
same opinion, and that the scientific method of which he is the
defender is suffering from the same mode of attack. " It is
easy to say such things [that I stand quite alone as the
defender of mythological orthodoxy] in a number of daily
papers, but they do not become true for all that. If, as happens
sometimes, the same critic is on the staff of many papers, and
has to supply copy every day, every week, or every month,
the broken rays of one brilliant star may produce the dazzling
impression of many independent lights, and there has been of
late such a galaxy of sparkling articles on Comparative Mytho-
logy and Folklore that even those who are themselves opposed
to this new science have at last expressed their disapproval
of the * journalistic mist ' that has been raised, and that
threatens to obscure the real problems of the Science of
Mythology."

This is the state of things which has forced the veteran
scholar, now seventy-three years of age, to publish these two
large volumes. His purpose is, himself to defend the principles

• Contributions to the Science of Mythology. By F. Max Muller. London, New York, and
Bombay : Longmans, Green & Co. 2 vols.

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276 New Books. [May,

and the methods of the older school of comparative mythology,
and also to make it plain that real scholars — at least large
numbers of them — are still walking in the old paths. It is, of
course, unnecessary for us to do more than call attention to
any work of Max MuUer, for profoundly and fundamentally as
in some things we differ from him, we recognize in him one
of the most learned men of the time.

MEW BOOKS.

Benziger Brothers, New York:

The Blessed Sacrament our God ; or, Practical Thoughts on the Mystery
of Love. By a Child of St. Teresa. Letters of St. Alphonsus Maria de
Liguori, Doctor of the Church. Edited by Rev. Thomas W. MuUaney,
C.SS.R. Vol. ii., Part ii.: Special Correspondence. Scripture Manuals for
Catholic Schools. Edited by Rev. Sydney F. Smith, S.J. Acts of the Apos-
tles. Chapters xiii.-xxviii. By Very Rev. T. A. Burge, O.S.B.— St. Luke.
The Formation of Christendom. By T. W. Allies, K.C.S.G. Vols, i., ii.,
and iii. Foundations of Faith. From the German of Father L. Von Ham-
merstein, S.J. Our Favorite Devotions. Compiled from approved sourccs.
By Very Rev. Dean A. A. Lings, Pastor of St. Joseph's Church, Yonkers,
N. Y. His Divine Majesty ; or, The Living God. By William Hum-
phrey, S.J.

John Murphy & Co., Baltimore, Md.:

Bound Together. Six short Plays for Home and School. By Rosa Mulhol-
land and Clara MulhoUand. Little Catechism of Liturgy. Translated
from the French of Abbe Dutilliet. By Rev. Auguste M. Cheneau, St.
Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, Md.

B. Herder, St. Louis, Me.:

Three Indian Tales : Namaha and Watomilka. By Alexander Baumgart-
ner, S.J. Tahko, the Young Indian Missionary. By A. V. B. Father
Rene's Last Journey. By Anton Huander, S.J.

Catholic Truth Society (Catholic Book Exchange, Paulists, New York) :
The Ember Days. By Dom Colomba Edmonds, O.S.B. \d. Remember Me.
Daily Readings for Lent. \d. The Drunkard. By Archbishop Ulla-
thorne. \d. The Catholic Library of Tales. No. 24. The Life and
Death of James, Earl of Derwentwater, A.D. i68g-iyi6. Compiled by
Charles H. Bowden, of the Oratory. 6d. The Value of Life. By C. E.
Burke ; with a preface by Aubrey De Vere. Father Cuthberfs Curiosity
Case. By Rev. Langton George Vere. Tracts : Chiniquy, The New Six
Articles, Catholic Progress in England, The Protestant Alliance.

Longmans, Green & Co., New York:

Longmans' English Classics : Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. Edited, with
Notes and an Introduction, by William Tenney Brewster, A.M. The Last
of the Mohicans. J. F. Cooper. Edited by Charles F. Richardson, Ph.D.,
Professor of English in Dartmouth College.

The Werner Company, Chicago :

New American Supplement to the latest edition of the Encyclopcedia Br it an-
nica. A standard work of Reference in Art, Literature, Science, History,
Geography, Commerce, Biography, Discovery, and Invention. Edited
under the personal supervision of Day Otis Kellogg, D.D. Enriched by
many hundred special articles contributed by men and women of interna-
tional reputation. Vols. iv. and v.

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1 897-] New Books. 277

Angel Guardian Press, Boston, Mass.:

A Child of Mary : or. Pious Practices for the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin
Mary. By Rev. Charles Warren Currier.
AzARiAS Reading Circle, Syracuse, N. Y. :

Catholic Education and American Institutions. By Rev. John F. MuUany,
LL.D.
H. L. KiLNER & Co., Philadelphia :

The Sacred Heart of Jesus. What it is. What it demands. What it gives.
By Rev. Pierre Suau, S.J. Translated from the French by Marie Clotilde
Redfern. Life of Our Divine Lord, briefly told for Children. Jasper
Thorn : a story of New York life. By Maurice Francis £gan.
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York :

Jesus Christ during His Ministry. By Edmond Stapfer, Professor in the
Faculty of Protestant Theology at Paris. Translated by Louise Seymour
Houghton.
Soci^T^ Belge de Librairie, Bruxelles:

Le Travail des Couturieres en Chambre et sa riglementation. Paf Hector
Lambrechts.
Charles Wilderman, New York :
The Catholic Library. 10 vols.
The Macmillan Co., New York:

A Woman of Thirty. By H. De Balzac. Translated by Ellen Marriage,
with a preface by George Saintsbury. About Catherine de' Medici. By
H. De Balzac. Translated by Clara Bell.
LuzAC & Co., London, 40 Great Russell Street :

Manual of Hebrew Syntax. By Rev. J. D. Wynkoop, Litt. Hum. Cand. ia
the University of Leyden. Translated from the Dutch by Rev. Dr. C. Van
Den Biesen, Professor of Theology Jit St. Joseph's Foreign Missionary
College, Mill-Hill.
R. Washbourne, London :

On the Sacred Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and Lave of Crosses. Bjft
Father Alexis Bulens, O.S.F., Monastery, Gorton, Manchester. Chatt
about the Rosary. By Margaret Plues. The Violet^Sellers. A Drama;
in three acts. By Theodora Lane-Clarke. Whittington and his Cat. By
Henrietta Fairfield. One or the Other. By Edith M. Power. St. Pat^
rick: His Life, Heroic Virtues, Labors. By Very Rev. Dean Kinane,
P.P., V.G.
University Publishing Co., New York :

Golden^Rod Books: Rhymes and Fables. Songs and Stories. A Fairy
Life. Ballads and Tales. Compiled by John H. Haaren, A.M.
M. H. Gill & Son, Dublin :

The Ancient Irish Church as a Witness to Catholic Doctrine. By John
Salmon, M.R.S.A.L St. Joseph's Anthology. Poems in Praise of the
Foster Father gathered from many sources. By Rev. Matthew Russell, S.J.

NEW PAMPHLETS.

Bulletin No. 37, U. S. Department of Agriculture : Dietary Studies at the Maine
State College in iSg^. By Whitman H. Jordan, M.S.

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every government — the question of religious education. The
way of compromises is looked for ; but the bitterness of Orange-
men does not readily yield to compromises, and the devoted-
ness of the Canadian to his race and his language is so intense
that inlstead of contenting himself with less he is striving for
more. Monsignor Merry Del Val has a dispute worthy of his
diplomatic mettle to settle.

♦
The Greeks have unsheathed the sword in earnest and the
end is not yet. Ten million Greeks, organized in secret military
organizations spread throughout all the countries of south-
eastern Europe, vowing vengeance against the Turk and deter-
mined not to rest till their foe of the ages is driven across the
Hellespont, is now the power that is to be reckoned with.
This tremendous power, backed by the Christian sentiment of
civilized Europe, becomes an irresistible force. Can the Turk,
with European officialism behind him, resist it?

The debate on the Financial Relations between Ireland and
Great Britain (really England) was opened on Monday, the
29th of March, by Mr. Edward Blake in a speech of great
power and completeness. He proved that the daily food of
thousands of Irishmen is shortened in order that England may
be paid ; and not only this, but the capital of the country is
melting away to pay British taxes. An admirable speech from
Sir Edward Clarke tore to tatters the flimsy reply of the
chancellor of the exchequer to Mr. Blake's statement. He was
happy in exposing the favorite government point, that Ireland
gets back in expenditure what she pays in excessive taxes.
From a Unionist point of view Sir Edward retorted, that if
the Irish are to be taxed excessively in order that there be
excessive imperial expenditure in Ireland, the sooner they are
left to manage their own affairs the better. The House voted
for Mr. Blake's motion to the number of 157 and against it to
the number of 317.

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28o

Authentic Sketches of

[May,

AUTHENTIC SKETCHES OF LIVING CATHOLIC

AUTHORS.

The Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy is one of our well-known
Catholic priests and writers. He is still a young man, being in
his forty-fourth year. He is a graduate of Maynooth College.
He made his studies there during the closing years of the presi-
dency of Dr. Russell, the uncle of Chief-Justice Russell of Eng-
land, and the friend of Cardinal Newman. Father Sheedy was
ordained in the Pittsburg Cathedral by the late Bishop Tuigg,
September 23, 1876. He was immediately assigned as pro-
fessor of theology and history
in Saint Michael's Seminary,
where he continued until the
closing of that institution. As
a successful pastor he became
widely known through his work
on educational lines with young
men. In Pittsburg the school,
hall, and free library that he
established were centres of the
very best influence, that made
itself felt in the whole com-
munity. He was the founder
of the Pittsburg Polytechnic
Society, and is an active mem-
ber of the Writers' Club, the
Academy of Science, the West-
ern Pennsylvania Historical
Society, and other literary bodies. He has always been one of the
leaders in the temperance movement, and for four years was the
Vice-President of the Catholic Total-Abstinence Union of America.
He has taken an active part in the development of Reading
Circles and the Catholic Summer-School. He was the first
president of the latter, and is at present the chairman of the
Directory of the Reading Circle Union. He has lectured for
the Academy of Science at the Champlain Summer-School, and
at the first session of the Catholic Winter-School in New Or-
leans. He is the author of Christian Unity ^ and of a work,
just published, dealing with the Labor Question, entitled Social

Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy,
Altoona, Pa.

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i897-] Living Catholic Authors. 281

Problems. He is a regular contributor to various periodicals.
Articles on labor and education from his pen have appeared
in The Catholic World. Father Sheedy is now permanent
Rector of St. John's Church, Altoona, Pa., but with the weighty
cares and many pressing duties of a large parish he still finds
time for literary work.

The data of MiSS Conway's life are by this time too well
known to need repetition. Born at Rochester, trained in the
religious academies of that city and Buffalo, supplementing her
graduation by a long and severe course of reading under the
direction of a great pioneer in educational development — the
Right Rev. Bishop McQuade— she arrived early at a point where
private life merges in-
to public. Her first
work in journalism be-
gan at an age when
most women are still
in the beginning of pre-
paration, and has lasted,
with constantly increas-
ing merit and honor, to
the present day.

It is seldom indeed
that the literary wo-
man of the period re-
tains the feminine qual-

- - , 7. 1 Miss Katherine Eleanor Conway.

ities of heart and feel-
ing so little impaired by the intellectual demands which time and
circumstance have made upon her. One would scarce credit the
somewhat slight figure and strongly-marked but still youthful fea-
tures, the big, dark eyes burning with enthusiasm and vivacity, as
having borne the strain already put upon them in the work of
the world. Her sound mental fibre and clear understanding,
polished by long training, are joined to a rare sympathetic
quality, and a sunny unselfishness that makes the interests of
others her own. To the temperament of the poet she adds a
sixth sense of practicability. So, while the pathetic strain in
which she sings would indicate the dreamer, her vigorous ad-
ministration as editor and organizer marks a new order of abili-
ty. In the circle of bright women among whom she stands it
is this union of strength and sweetness that makes her remark-
able and beloved. There could scarcely be chosen a better ex-

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282 Authentic Sketches of [May,

pression of what Catholic Womanhood may attain in rounded
symmetry of character and in personal influence.

Miss Conway acquires her shrewdness of judgment by hered-
ity as well as education. Those who knew her father and
mother can recall two fine types of intelligent minds in a
splendid bodily development. An elder sister has founded the
first college for girls in South America — ^thc CoUegio Americano,
of Buenos Ayres — and carried it successfully through the fierce
political changes of the last twenty years.

Considering the multitude of duties thrust upon her as
journalist and author, the impulse she has imparted to the
literary movement among Catholic women, from its very con-
ception, is new testimony to her fitness as leader. Besides the
individual attention which has made her especial work — the
John Boyle O'Reilly Reading Circle of Boston — foremost among
its kind in America, she has been " Guide, Philosopher, and
Friend " to a host of similar societies scattered throughout the
country. She is honorably identified with the progress of
the Summer-School of Plattsburg, and in the New England
Women's Press Association she has made a distinct mark as
framer of the literary programmes during a large portion of
her eight) years' membership. The esteem in which she is held
by this body of journalists has been honestly won. Whatever
mooted question may obtrude itself, or jar of opinions, her
influence has ever been foremost for that loving tolerance which
is the crowning grace of her sex. Yet she has never allowed
sympathy to swerve conscience ; and for this, no less than the
other, do her words carry weight in council

Her books, from the first volume of poems. On the Sunrise
Slope, "to the latest addition in the series of Home Ethics,
have been on an ascending scale of excellence, and met with
gratifying success."

A Dream of Lilies and Watchwords from John Boyle O'Reilly
continue in demand ; while the three editions through which
her later books have passed, in the short time they have been
before the public, appear only the beginning of increasing popu-
larity. Her tirelessness is evinced by the fact that A Lady and
her Letters, Making Friends and Keeping Them, and Questions
of Honor in the Christian Life have been published amid the
preoccupations of editorial duties during the last three years;
and that two others, A Social Success and The Heart of the
Home, are to be issued next season. A new volume of poems
is also to appear within the year.

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Living Catholic Authors.

283

Mrs. Henry Whipple Skinner (Henrietta Channing Dana)
IS the youngest daughter of the late Richard H. Dana, Jr., of
Boston, Mass., author of Two Years before the Mast. Her
grandfather was Richard Henry Dana, the poet, author of The
Buccaneer^ and other PoemSy and founder of the North American
Review, His father. Judge Francis Dana, was for many years
chief-justice of Massachusetts, and was the first United States
minister to Russia, in 178 1-3. He married a daughter of Wil-
liam Ellery, of Rhode Island, signer of the Declaration of Inde*
pendence, and granddaughter of Judge Jonathan' Remington*
Justice Richard Dana, father
of Judge Francis, was a sturdy
patriot of colonial days, a promi-
nent opponent of the "Stamp
Act," and figures in Hawthorne's
Grandfather's Chair. His wife
was a sister of Judge Edmund
Trowbridge, chief-justice of
Massachusetts in 17-,

Mrs. Skinner's early child*
hood was spent in Cambridge,
Mass., where the Danas were
near neighbors of the poet
Longfellow, and Henrietta, from
her seventh to her eleventh
year, received daily instruction
with the younger Longfellow
children from their English gov-
erness. " Craigie House " became her second home, and the friend-
ship of the families was further increased when in 1778 her
brother, Richard Dana, married the poet's second daughter,
Edith Longfellow.

In her twelfth year Henrietta attended a select school in
.Boston, and then went to Europe, where she studied the piano
for two years under Professor Pruckner, at the Artists' School
of the Stuttgart Conservatory, living in a German family, and
attending courses of study both in public and private schools.
She then went to Paris, where she studied music under the
famous composer C^sar Franck, and was at the boarding-school
of the Ladies of the Assumption. While here she wrote a
series of letters, descriptive of convent school-life and of the
young future Queen of Spain, who was her fellow-pupil at the
school. These letters were published in Scribners Magazine

Mrs. Dana Skinner,
Detroit.

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284 Living Ca tholic A uthors. [May,

of April, 1878, under the title of "A Queen at School," and
attracted much attention. They were translated into French and
reprinted in the Revue Britannique and the Paris Figaro^ and a
Spanish translation appeared in the Epoca of Madrid. Although
Miss Dana received offers to become a regular contributor to
the magazines and flattering letters from Dr. Holland, James
Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, the latter compar-
ing her letters to Walpole's and saying "Your pen belongs to
the public," yet many years passed before she wrote again for
publication ; her life, meanwhile, being devoted to the care of
an invalid mother and to the study of music and languages.

Miss Dana was brought up and confirmed in the Episcopal
Church, but in March, ' 1878, she was baptized into the Catholic
Church while on a visit to her sister iA Chicago, by the Rev.
Father Verdin, S.J. She received confirmation and first Com-
munion from the late Bishop Thomas Foley, of that city. She
soon after returned to Europe to live. In 1888, after many
years of travel, Mrs. Dana and her daughters settled in Cam-
bridge, and Henrietta took two years' courses in political econo-
my, history, and composition at the Harvard Annex, now Rad-
cliffe College. In 1891 she began to take up her pen again, writ-
ing an article on school-girl life in Paris, at the request of the
Ladies Home Journal. An article on "What French Girls
Study" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly of February, 1892.
In June of the same year Miss Dana was married to Mr.
Henry Whipple Skinner, of Detroit, Mich., in which city she
has since lived. Mr. Skinner is also a Catholic, his mother
having inherited the faith from her French ancestors, who were
among the first settlers in Detroit, in 1701. His father, an
officer in the Union Army, became a convert six years before
his death. Since her marriage Mrs. Skinner has contributed to
The Catholic World a poem, and articles entitled " Love
Songs of the Tuscan Peasantry " and " Italian Harvest Scenes."
She has written a number of articles for the Sacred Heart Re-
viezvy and a series of papers on the mediaeval schools. She has
also sent occasional articles to the Nation, the Ave Maria, and
other publications, and is at present engaged on a novel and
some short stories. She takes a leading part in many of the
musical, literary, patriotic, and charitable societies of Detroit.
Mrs. Skinner has one child, Richard Dana Skinner, born in
1893.

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1 897-] The Columbian Reading Union. 285

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

''PHE Champlain Assembly of Cliff Haven, N. Y., is the popular title of the
X Catholic Summer-School, which has been engaged in various forms of uni-
versity extension work for the past five years. Lectures and conferences are now
being arranged by the Board of Studies to cover a period of seven weeks, from
July 1 1 to August 28. The Chairman of the Board, Rev. Thomas McMillan, of
the Paulist Fathers, New York City, has received definite answers regarding
courses of lectures from the Rev. James F. Loughlin, D.D., Chancellor of Phila-
delphia, who is a specialist in Church History ; the Rev. Joseph H. McMahon, of
the Cathedral, New York City, a well-informed authority on the Liturgy of the
Church ; the Rev. Edward A. Pace, D.D., of the Catholic University, Washington,
D. C, who will discuss the phases of Mental Development ; the Rev. Edmund T.
Shanahan, D.D., of the same institution, who has made an exhaustive study of
Pope Leo's encyclical on Scholastic Philosophy. Rev. Francis W. Howard, of
Columbus, Ohio, in his studies of Social Science will deal particularly with the
principles which underlie the economic phenomena of the distribution of wealth,
together with wages, profits, interest, and rent.

Other lectures in preparation will be given by Henry Austin Adams, A.M., of
Brooklyn, N. Y.; Dr. C. M. O'Leary, of Manhattan College, New York City ; Hon-
orable John C. Maguire, of Brooklyn, N. Y.; Honorable John T. McDonough, of
Albany, N. Y.; Brother Potamian, of De La Salle Institute, New York City ; Rev.
Mortimer E. Twomey, of Maiden, Mass. The subject of Moslem versus Greek
will be treated by the Rev. Charles Warren Currier, of Baltimore, Md. Under
the general title of Philosophical Questions, the Rev. James A. Doonan, S.J., of
St. Joseph's College, Philadelphia, Pa., will deal with some of the important
topics discussed in educational literature. Considerable time will be given to
conferences in the practical work of the Sunday-school, under the direction of
the Rev. Denis J. McMahon, D.D., of New York City.

Special dates will be assigned for meetings of College Journalists, members of
Alumnae Associations, Reading Circles, and others interested in various lines of
charitable and educational work. One of the notable events will be the reception
to the Rector of the Catholic University, Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D., formerly
president of the Champlain Summer-School. The list is not yet completed of the
eminent^ church dignitaries and distinguished representatives of the Catholic laity
who are expected to be in attendance during July and August.

The advantages offered at Cliff Haven for combining healthful recreation
with profitable instruction are not to be excelled at any place in the Adirondacks,
or elsewhere. Some of the visitors are attracted by the delights of the social in-
tercourse, and the informal exchange of opinions, quite as much as by the vast
learning displayed in the lectures. A friendly welcome is extended to non-Catho-
lics, seeking to know the relations of the Catholic Church to scientific thought and
modem progress. Rustic thinkers from the rural districts find themselves on
equal terms intellectually with the residents of Boston and New York. City folks
can learn much to their advantage by observing the self-reliance and sturdy indi-
viduality developed by the environment of mountain scenery.

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286 The Columbian Reading Union. [May,

Briefly stated, the object of the Champlain Summer-School is to increase the
facilities for busy people as well as for those of leisure to pursue lines of study
in various departments of knowledge by providing opportunities of getting in-
struction from eminent specialists. It is not intended to have the scope of the
work limited to any class, but rather to establish an intellectual centre where
any one with serious purpose may come and find new incentives to efforts for
self-improvement. Here in the leisure of a summer vacation, without great ex-
pense, one may listen to the best thought of the world, condensed and presented
by unselfish masters of study.

* * ' *

Reading Circles should lose no time in encouraging the generous enterprise
of the Cathedral Library Association, 1 23 East Fiftieth Street, New York City, by
numerous orders for copies of Dante and Catholic Philosophy in the Thirteenth
Century t by Frederic Ozanam ; translated from the French by Lucia D. Pyschow-
ska, with a preface by John A. Mooney, LL.D. Handsomely bound in cloth, or-
namental side, stamped in gold, with profile of Dante, price $1.50.

Only a Catholic can, with full intelligence and perfect sympathy, comprehend
the philosophical views and theological tenets of the meditative religious poet,
who towers above all others in solitary grandeur. 0f English Catholic guides
through the intricacies of the Dantean labyrinth there has been a dearth. We
cannot doubt, therefore, of the success of this translation of a work received with
general applause at the time of its publication, and one whose utility has not been
diminished by the lapse of years.

The book has been published in fulfilment of a promise made to the late
lamented Brother Azarias, who, referring to its excellence in a lecture on Dante
before the Cathedral Library Reading Circle, lamented the fact that a publisher
could not be found for it. To remove that reproach the work has been under-
taken at considerable expense, and should receive encouragement from all
lovers of Dante and all students of literature.

It is printed in clear type, on excellent paper, is handsomely and strongly
bound, and convenient in size in spite of the fact that it contains 517 pages. The
notes have been. given in full. An analytical table of contents will be found
useful. The book embodies the lectures delivered by M. Ozanam as professor of
literature at the Sorbonne between 1847 and 1850. It is particularly adapted for
use as a manual for Reading Circles or Study Clubs, Special terms to Circles
ordering a dozen or more copies,

* * »i

It is announced that a Jewish Summer Assembly is now under consideration,
to be in charge of Dr. Gustav Gottheil, of N«w York City ; the Honorable Simon
Wolf, Washington ; Professor Richard Gottheil, Columbia University ; Dr. Joseph
Krauskopf, of the Jewish National Farm School, and Dr. Henry Berkowitz, of
Philadelphia, The Jewish Congregation at Atlantic City has tendered the use of
its large synagogue for the purpose. The proposed Summer-School grows out of
a branch of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, founded by the Metho-
dist Bishop Vincent and instituted as such branch, with Dr. Berkowitz as chancel-
lor, for the purpose of encouraging home reading in Jewish history. Professor
Gottheil, of Columbia, compiled the first course of reading. A second one covers
the era from the close of the Bible to the completion of the Talmud, and including
the origin of Christianity. This society has spread its membership throughout the
United States, Canada, and British India, and greatly increased the interest on

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1 897-] The Columbian Reading Union. 287

the part of young people in early Jewish and Bible history. So profitable is- it
that those not Jews are taking it up. At Atlantic City the attempt is to be made
to bring together leaders of the educational forces of the country, and to make the
assembly the bond of unity between such national organizations as the conference
of rabbis. Sabbath-school Union, Hebrew colleges, and councils of women. The
institute, which will be established first, will have classes for those engaged in the
religious schools of the country. Both Summer-School and Assembly are to be
open to persons of all creeds.

* « *

Dr. Henry M. Leipziger, Assistant Superintendent of Education in New York
City, has just completed his remarkable work for the free lectures given during the
past year. In a closing address to the lecturers Dr. Leipziger spoke of a recent
speech delivered by Lord Salisbury, in which that statesman referred to the
power which public opinion exerts in these days, and of the necessity for
public opinion being sound and sane — the importance of the holders of this power
wielding it in obedience to lofty ideals and pure motives. To give these ideals, to
furnish the inspiration to plain living and lofty thinking, to spread abroad the
truth that shall make men free, is the purpose of the University of the Busy — the
free-lecture course.

The speaker then went into a history of what had been accomplished during
the past season. Four new centres were opened, making thirty-three places
where lectures were delivered. Ten hundred and sixty-six lectures were given,
and the attendance reached the enormous total of 426,357. Seven years ago, with
186 lectures, the attendance was a little over 20,000. The large attendance at the
new centres and the maintenance, nay, increase of interest at the old centres,
proves beyond a doubt that this provision for adult education is one that responds
to an aspiration on the part of the mass of the people.

There are thousands of men and women who find at these lectures stimulus,
guidance, and who carry on by means of this stimulus their higher education in
connection with their every-day work. Education, we are beginning to see, does
not end at the grammar or high-school or college. It is a continuous process.
Nor is it limited as to high or low, to any age, to any sex, or to any condition.

The movement of which the free-lecture course is a part is known as uni-
versity extension. In many of the reports of the movement in other parts of the
country and in other countries it is stated that the working people do not attend
in as large numbers as they should. In New York City the audiences are almost
all composed of working-people. The lecture- halls are near their homes. These
lecture-halls being generally school-houses, the school by its use for this purpose
becomes an educational centre in a broad sense, and by use in this manner is pav-
ing the way for the time when in each assembly district of our city there shall be
a municipal meeting-house, with its library, reading-room, and assembly-hall,
where citizens can meet to discuss those broad non-partisan questions which
affect their general well-being.

The course of lectures during the past season has been more closely corre-
lated than in any previous year. A systematic arrangement was pursued — many
of the lectures were arranged in courses of six, and the syllabus was used with'
good effect. A quiz followed the lecture in several of the courses, and the inter-
est in the examination was lively. By this examination it was gratifying to find
how much reading was being done by the regular attendants.

The systematic course pursued during the past season was impossible seven

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288 The Columbian Reading Union. [May, 1897.

years ago. The mass of the people were not prepared for continuous study or
continuous thought. In fact, no lecturer has a harder task than he who has to
give a popular lecture to a mixed volunteer audience. How easy in comparison is
the task of the professor in his recitation room. No audience is more critical
than such audiences. And that they are held by the simple attraction of a man
who has a message to deliver speaks volumes for the good common sense of the
common people.

In the choice of subjects in the free-lecture course a combination has been
made of the utilitarian and the cultural. Stress has been laid on lectures on
physiology and hygiene. For this purpose alone the course justifies its existence.
The death-rate of great cities can be lessened not alone on the wisdom of the
authorities, but by the diffusion-of knowledge of the facts that protect life among
the masses. And with our heterogeneous population it may yet be advisable, as
has been done elsewhere, to give lectures on these important topics in other
languages besides English.

Intense interest has been shown in lectures on our own land — in American
history, and in courses of lectures on municipal government and municipal life.
A desire has been expressed by all classes for knowledge of the methods of the
workings of governmental machinery. This desire was met by a course of city
lectures. Why should not the chief officials of our city, or representatives of the
various departments, tell, through the medium of the lecture course, what the
various departments are doing — what progress is being made towards better
schools, cleaner streets, wiser charity, more beautiful parks, ampler justice }

The libraries feel the impetus that the demand for good books creates, and
as a result the public are being educated to the importance of the free circulating
libraries. The lectures on science enable the visitor to the Museum of Natural
History to look with different eyes on the collections, and those on art prepare
men and women for the proper appreciation of our collections of paintings and
sculpture. So an interest in life has been given to many. To some the lectures
have proven the only bright spot in a cheerless existence ; to others a social fac-
tor, and to others refining influences.

Mr. Arthur E. Bostwick, librarian of the New York Free Circulating Library,
spoke of the mission of the free library, and how it was broadening and increas-
ing, and he declared that the reading for the people must be educational ;
that if it was not instructive we would soon be going back to the days of Ro-
man decadence. As the great mass of people rule, the great mass should be edu-
cated. It is not the reading, but what the reading leads to. It is not the books
a man reads, but it is what it makes him think about. Fiction may lead a
man to right thinking, as much as works on science and art.

* * ♦

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THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

Vol. LXV.

JUNE, I897/;- No. 3j

y/ny nil I Q07

CATHOLIC EDUCATION

[ATHOLIC education in India compares
favorably with that of Protestantism.
From the Himalaya Mountains to the
Island of Ceylon, and from the Malabar
to the Coromandel coast, the vast Indian
Empire is dotted over with Catholic
schools and colleges, while Protestant in-
stitutions are notably scarce. This is the
more to be wondered at when we con-
sider the immense resources at the back
of Protestantism. Be it known that In-
dia is entirely a foreign missionary coun-
try. I mean that its religious personnel,
both Catholic and Protestant, is imported
from abroad — from Europe and America — ^there being no indige-
nous Christian priesthood to speak of. Almost fabulous sums'
of money are derived for the support of Protestant missionaries
from the London Missionary Society, the various English Bible
societies, the English Baptist and Methodist societies, and the
Baptist and Methodist funds in America. When compared with
these opulent resources of the Protestant cause, the support
given to Catholicism in India dwindles into insignificance. More-
over, the moneyed element in India is all on the side of Prot-
estantism : the Civil Service, the Educational Service, the offi-
ces of the army and the mercantile body, the four departments
in which Europeans in India engage — all belong to one or other
Protestant persuasion, and from these are drawn contributions
not to be unnoticed, for the English are very open-handed when

VOL. LXV. — 19

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290 Catholic Education in India. [June,

a call is made upon them for religion. The Catholic missionary
is dependent for his slender support on the Propaganda in
Rome. Why, therefore, is it that Protestantism with its riches
does so little, and Catholicism with its poverty does so much?
I shall explain.

ZEAL AS AGAINST MONEY.

The Protestant missionary has two distinct kinds of zeal :
zeal for religion and zeal for money ; but the latter is the
stronger. The climate of India is not inviting. This drawback
must be made up for in the shape of an alluring salary before
the missionary thinks of serving God there. He leaves his na-
tive land for India ; but with him come his wife and children,
or the possible advent of children. His exile, too, must be
made as pleasant as possible.* If he lives in the city, his dwell-
ing is a palace ; if out among the natives of his mission, his
bungalow must be attractive with the comforts of the city.
The climate is enervating, and the missionary easily develops a
hankering after oriental luxuriousness. He has not gone out
to India to die. Moreover, he has to pose as a gentleman
(a dignity so necessary to the English prestige in India),
his wife must appear a lady, his children must be sent back
to England to be educated, and something must be put
by for old age. He is not, therefore, prone to help from
his private purse to the building of schools jn his mission and
the spreading of education. Family cares, moreover, largely
occupy his time or distract his attention. The Catholic mission-
ary is actuated by no half-hearted zeal. He has gone among
the pagans with the sole aim of spreading truth and gaining
glory .to God. The climate has no terrors for him. He has
voluntarily chosen, from the noblest of motives, to spend his
strength and end his life in diffusing light among his brothers
in darkness. He has vowed to be theirs entirely. No thought
about material comfort, no anxiety from family ties, no desire
for social recognition, no striving to hoard for the future, im-
pedes him. His eye is single. With barely the necessaries of
life, he enters on the field allotted to him, wherein his purity
of aim and generosity of heart carry him to results far beyond
the scope of his Protestant competitor. With the very limited
means at his disposal he erects schools in convenient localities
of his district, where the children of his converts gratuitously
receive the learning suitable to their sphere in after-life ; work-

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i897-] Catholic Education IN India. 291

shops to fit them for gaining their livelihood, and dispensaries
to relieve their bodily ailments.

EDUCATION MOSTLY OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE.

The education of the Europeans in India is left to private
enterprise, the government helping with grants of money only
when a certain state of efficiency is reached, tested by the ex-
amination of the government inspectors of schools. The Euro-
pean element is too intent on trade and money-making to give
thought to the education of the rising generation. This duty,
therefore, devolves upon the missionary bodies. Catholic edu-
cation is entirely in the hands of the Catholic missionaries. So
efficiently do the priests and nuns fulfil the duty which has
thus, of necessity, fallen on them, that our schools and colleges
in India are the just pride of Catholicism. Our institutions are
not mixed. The boys are taught by priests and the girls by
nuns.

Among the greatest of the female teaching orders in India
are the Sisters of Loretto, the Sisters of Jesus and Mary, and
the Nuns of the Visitation. The Sisters of Loretto occupy the
east, north-east, and centre of India; the Sisters of Jesus and
Mary, the west and north-west ; and the Nuns of the Visitation,
the south. So widely known is the education given by our
nuns, so highly esteemed is their training of the mind, heart,
and hand, that the convent schools draw the majority of their
pupils from the Protestant and rich native classes of the com-
munity.

The education of Catholic boys in India is in the hands of
the Jesuits. There are a few small schools directed by the
Capuchin Fathers, and a few by the Christian Brothers. The
Jesuits have five large colleges in India: in Bombay, in the
west ; in Mangalore, in the south-west ; in Trichinopoly, in the
south-east ; in Calcutta, in the north-east ; and up in the Hima-
laya Mountains, in the extreme north. These colleges, by their
situation and reputation, tap the whole of India, and in number
are more than sufficient to supply the educational wants of the
Catholics residing there.

The brilliant reputation as educators won by the Jesuits in
the seventeenth century, and since so ably maintained in many
countries, is equally brilliant in India — in fact more so, consider-
ing the circumstances. For in happier lands they had not
to struggle against the enervating effects of a burning sun and

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292 Catholic Education IN India. [June,

the insidious dangers of a tropical climate; against the almost
total want of pecuniary resources in which they found them-
selves; against the loneliness and hostility which faced them—
a handful of men in a strange, foreign, and uninviting land.
They had nothing but the courage of their hearts to begin
their work upon.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA.

From their size and the complete instruction afforded by
them, these Jesuit colleges are what would be called universities
in this country. The only difference is that they have not the
power to confer degrees. In India a university is a collection
of independent, rival colleges in a province, all modelled
alike and all submitting to the same examination test. For
instance, the University of Calcutta comprises all the colleges
— about a hundred — scattered over the province of Bengal.
The term " University of -Calcutta " is only a term, not a
reality, except once a year, when the university holds an ex-
amination which the students of the various colleges must pass
before they can secure their degrees. The University of Cal-
cutta has been affiliated to the University of Oxford, which
means that the standard of knowledge required by the latter
must be that offered by the former. The examinations of the
University of Calcutta are conducted by boards of examiners,
composed of professors of different colleges who have a wide
reputation for learning and ability. When the examination
questions are drawn up they are printed in England for the
sake of safety. But this precaution does not always secure
safety. The Indian student exhibits a wonderful degree of
ingenuity in ferreting out the examination questions before the
proper time. Once the questions were printed in India and
the greatest precautions taken to guard their secrecy. The
compositor, a native, whose literary knowledge went only so
far as to enable him to make out the English alphabet, grew
suspicious at seeing all this care. He sat on the type and
escaped to the outer world, where he sold the seat of his
garment for a large sum to expectant students. When the
professors who are to set the questions are known, the attend-
ance at their lectures is immense. Students flock from all the
colleges, hoping to get an inkling of the character of the
questions they will have to answer. The favorite authors
of the examiners are studied, their favorite passages learnt by

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1 897-] Catholic Education IN India. 293

heart. Often do the professors mischievously enjoy putting
their excited listeners on the wrong scent. But often their
listeners are too quick for them. They will closely watch the
movements of the professors, notice every package that is
brought into their houses, bribe their servants, extract the ex-
amination papers from their safes and cleverly replace them.
The knowledge spreads till some indignant student prints the
questions in the newspapers a few days before the examination,
when the poor professors are thrown into confusion. A Hindu
student is more anxious about his success in an examination
than, perhaps, any other student. A degree is to him not only a
proof of his proficiency and a possible passport to a livelihood,
but a sure pledge of success. In marriages among the Hindus
the boy is bought, not the girl. Moreover, the girl's family
must support the husband as long as the latter likes. It is
considered a great honor to hold a university degree. The
houses of the richest families are open 'to the fortunate holder ;
and the higher the degree the higher can he fix the price at
which he shall marry a girl. The universities have been appro-
priately called the marriage-markets of India.

COLLEGES MANAGED BY THE JESUITS.

The Jesuit colleges in India are divided into two depart-
ments : a school department and a college department. In the
school department are taught the elementary branches up to
the entrance examination degree, which nearly corresponds to
the matriculation at Oxford. In the college department is
given a full university training in a course of five years. After
the entrance examination the student enters the college depart-
ment and pursues his studies for two years, when he passes
the first arts examination, corresponding to the " Smalls " at
Oxford. Two years after this he takes his B. A. degree,
and in another year the M. A. The Jesuit fathers teach all
the courses themselves, and the success that has attended their
efforts has been very satisfactory all along. The competition
among the colleges has been very keen, but the Jesuits have
always kept ahead of this competition. For a long time
they suffered from prejudice and from indirect attempts of
unfairness to discourage them. The fact that the fathers are
foreigners, Catholics, and, above all, Jesuits, has gone very much
against them. The other colleges, that are not native colleges,
have Protestant staffs. Of these men the boards of elc-

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294 Catholic Education IN India. [June,

aminers were for a long time exclusively formed. For many
years the Jesuits were excluded from these boards, though they
had men among them brilliant in every branch, and for a long
time it was felt that the success of their pupils in the examina-
tions was tampered with. But of late years things have in a
degree changed ; the Jesuits have made themselves felt as a
power not to be treated with contempt. In consequence their
pupils now hold some of the highest places in the examinations,
and they themselves are being admitted to the privileges of the
universities. Almost all the Protestant colleges that were
formerly the successful rivals of the Jesuit colleges have shrunk
up and almost disappeared before the energy of the latter.
Their only real rivals now are the colleges largely subsidized by
the English government.

WHO THE CATHOLICS ARE.

The Catholic population of India consists of three classes:
the native Christians who have been converted from Hinduism ;
the Eurasians or half-castes, the offspring of European fathers
and Indian mothers; and the pure Europeans, who are called
Anglo-Indians. Of these the Eurasians are by far the most
numerous in our colleges. The Eurasian boys have the de-
fects of both parents : the insolence of the European and the
supineness of the native. Yet there are many among them
that are energetic and successful. By their numbers they are
the leaders in the college play-grounds ; the Anglo-Indian freely
mixes with them, and is often proud of their patronage. It is
only when college days are over that he tries to keep aloof
from the Eurasians. The Eurasians, feeling that their color
will stand against them in after-life, usually work hard and
head their classes. The Anglo-Indian lad is careless, and ex-
pects a government position to fall into his hands because of
his white skin. It is said that the children of the second
generation of a European family in India have lost all back*
bone, and have become entirely listless. The Eurasians contemn
the Indians, and the Indians equally contemn the Eurasians.
In our churches the largest part of the congregations is made
up of Eurasians. They differ in color from the black of the
Africans to the light olive of many Europeans. The lighter
their color the more arrogant and foolish they are. Their
temperament is capricious. At one time they are all fervor in
religion ; at another, they abuse everything holy ; now they

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will give their all to the church; then not a penny; to-day
they are loud in praise of their parish priests ; to-morrow they
revile them. It is the greatest trial in the lives of their priests
to avoid offending their changing humors. The great number
of Eurasian Catholics is explained by the fact that they are
remote descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese settlers of
early times. Such famous names as. De Cruz, De Mello, and
Murino are borne by descendants who have very little of what
distinguished their ancestors.

NON-CATHOLIC STUDENTS IN CATHOLIC COLLEGES.

In the Jesuit, colleges the vast majority of the students are
non-Catholics. Of these non-Catholics the Protestants and
Hindus are the most numerous. The Hindus principally attend
the classes of the college department, in preparation for their
B. A. and M. A. degrees. They make very apt and clever
students, and almost always head the list in the university
examinations. They more than equal the white students in
almost all the branches, but especially in philosophy, mathe-
matics, chemistry, and physics. Philosophy and mathematics
flourished in India long before the European gave up naked-
ness and paint; and chemistry and physics are nearly enough
related to the two preceding sciences to attract the same men-
tal aptitudes. But the Hindu is greatly handicapped in the
English branches. He does not seem to take kindly to the
English language ; and the blunders he often makes in speak-
ing and writing it are comical in the extreme. This is the case
of the average native student ; there are some of them, how-
ever, who have acquired a command over our language and
use it with great correctness and fluency. The reason why
the native students are so backward in English is to be traced
to the primary schools. These schools are conducted by native
teachers, whose knowledge of English is usually very limited.
The scholars are not obliged to speak English during the hours
of recreation ; they naturally speak their own language out of
school, and even the English text-books are often explained in
the vernacular. The consequence of this is that when they leave
these schools to pursue higher studies in colleges, where all in-
struction is conveyed in English, they are reduced to the
greatest difficulty to understand their professors. Yet the
native students generally contrive to stand first in English in
the examinations. They are endowed with a wonderful memory

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296 Catholic Education IN India. [June,

and a great capacity for hard work when put to the push.
Two or three months before the examinations they will be at
their English text the whole day and far into the night, learn-
ing every word it contains by heart, often leaving the meaning to
take care of itselL Owing to the influence of the native pro-
fessors on the board of studies, the Indian universities have
by degrees submitted to the system of appointing a large num-
ber of English text-books; and this system has, in great mea-
sure, brought about the pernicious cramming. It was between
1834 and 1839 that the government of India, then revising the
code of instruction for Indian colleges, determined on introduc-
ing the literature and science of Europe, to broaden the senti-
ments and deepen the character of the natives, and to prepare
them to meet the exigencies of modern life. The idea was a
very good one, but had inevitable drawbacks when put into
practice. Unfortunately, these drawbacks are becoming more
apparent every day.

BRAHMANISM DECAYING.

With the bringing in of European literature, science, and
customs there were also brought in many of the evils of Euro-
pean civilization. English translations of the filthy trash of
Europe swelled the already sufficiently large amount of filthy
Indian literature, and added the attraction of novelty; Euro-
pean science brought with it its atheistical tinge, and European
literature its praise of freedom and its revolutionary blasts to
disturb the minds and influence the hearts of the most religious
and meekest people in the world. Nine-tenths of the Indian
students no longer believe in Brahmanism, and will not accept
Christianity as they see it depicted in the conduct of the Eng-
lish officials and in the differences and rivalries of the mis-
sionaries. Brahmanism, with its superstition for every act of
their lives, had exercised over the natives an all-pervading in-
fluence. Now they laugh at what they reverenced before, and
the void in their minds and hearts has not been filled. They
are scoffing atheists.

THE BENGALESE.

The love of freedom and hatred of subjection with which
they see their English text-books filled have implanted in them
the novelty of the spirit of unrest. Our colleges turn out hun-
dreds, of young men every year who cannot find employment.

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The education they have received has puffed them up and has
sown in them ideas which are beginning to bear fruit. As they
can get nothing to do, they put the blame of it on their English
masters, and rush about the country posing as political dema-
gogues : " Representative government " (a thing absolutely im-
possible as yet in India), '' India for the Indians/' are the cries
on their lips. As yet their efforts have not had much effect ;
but the time is coming when these fire-brands will do as much
harm in Indiia as the self-interested revolutionists have done in
Europe. Especially in Bengal is this spirit stirring. The Ben-
galese are the cleverest, the craftiest, the glibbest, and most
cowardly of the races of India. They therefore are the best
fitted for plotting and for stirring up the races around them.
If the Bengalese have a multitude behind them, they are loud
and impudent ; if they are unsupported, they are meek and peace-
ful. It is only in Bengal that the English rule is not liked. It
is only the Bengalese that Englishmen cannot like. They are
the opposite of each other, and there can never be between
them that rapprochement which exists between the English and
the other races of India. The Bengal government is fully alive
to this fact, and tries its best to soften the friction by garden
parties, conversaziones and other social gatherings, and by
patronizing with its presence the social reunions of the Ben-
galese. But it is feared that these efforts are attended with
only apparent success, and that they convincingly show the
hollowness of the seeming good feeling that exists between
the two races. The worst specimen of the Bengalese is the
young man who adopts the outward forms of western civili-
zation. He discards his picturesque Indian dress for coat and
trowsers made on the latest London pattern, smokes cigarettes,
twirls a cane, sneers at his gods, uses strong English expres-
sions, wears patent leather shoes, and is a very silly young man
indeed. It may seem strange that education has made very
little progress among the women of India. Not twenty per
cent, have even the slightest trace of it. The Indian woman's
aim in life is to clean pots and pans and to remain hidden in
the house.

JESUITS NEW AND OLD.

In Bombay the Jesuits have their largest college — perhaps
the largest in the whole of India. St. Xavier's College was
founded in 1867 and grew rapidly in reputation, until it now has

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29* Catholic Education IN India. [June,

an attendance of fourteen hundred students. It admits only
day scholars, but has an annex, St. Mary's, for Christian board-
ers, with a roll of two hundred pupils. The government college
is close by St. Xavier's, but the youth of Bombay seem to pre-
fer the teaching of the fathers.

St. Aloysius' College is in Mangalore. It was opened but a
few years ago and has an attendance of over four hundred
students, mostly Hindus of the highest Brahman caste. In
Trichinopoly is St. Joseph's College, the oldest of the Jesuit
colleges in India. It has over eight hundred students. Situat-
ed in the Madura province of the Society of Jesus, it forms,
as it were, the connecting link between the old and the new
society. Before the suppression of the society Madura was one
of its most successful provinces. It was here that St. Francis
Xavier's influence was felt, that Blessed John de Britto toiled
and was martyred; it was here that De Nobili astonished the
proud Brahmans by his austerities and holiness, and Beschi
composed his heroic poems in the vernacular, that hold to this
day the highest rank in its literature. Nowhere else in India
is the difference between the castes so rigidly observed ; no-
where else are the Brahmans prouder of their distinction of
being the highest class, the ** twice born."

THE HINDU CASTES.

Broadly speaking, the Hindus are divided into four castes or
systems, formerly strictly religious distinctions, but now almost
entirely social : the Brahman, or priestly caste ; the Kshatriya,
or warrior caste ; the Vaisya, or trading caste ; and the Sudra, or
menial caste. The Brahman considers himself sprung from the
head of Brahma, the chief of the Hindu trinity, and that the
Others are from inferior parts of Brahma's body. Though he
may acknowledge the acquaintance of the Kshatriya and Vaisya,
the Brahman will have nothing to do with the Sudra ; he con-
siders himself contaminated by contact with the latter. The
two other classes avoid the Sudra too. The fathers have to be
mindful of these distinctions in caste in order to have some
influence for good over this proud people. In the class-rooms
of St. Joseph's College these distinctions must be rigorously
observed. Each caste occupies its own part of the class-room,
and these limits must not be crossed. The Brahman students
sit first. As priests, the fathers are considered Brahmans. When
giving a book to a student of one of the other castes they

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must avoid touching him for fear of contamination. The
Jesuits submit to these puerilities, for they are the life and soul
of this people. In the seventeenth century the Jesuit mission-
aries who were converting the Sudras had to cut themselves off
entirely as outcasts from their brethren who were working
among the other classes. One of the chief causes of the infe-
riority of the Sudras to the other castes is that the former eat
meat — an abomination not to be forgiven.

"DA MIHI BELGAS."

St. Xavier's College, Calcutta, is the most famous of the
Jesuit colleges in India. It is celebrated for its teaching and
training throughout the land, and draws students from almost
every part of the East. It was founded in i860 by the Belgian
Jesuits, and now numbers over eight hundred students. Most of
these are Hindus and Mohammedans ; among the Christian
students the Protestants are almost as numerous as the Catholics.
The Belgian Jesuits, in spite of being foreigners, have achieved
wonderful success in Calcutta, as attested by the crowds of all
sections of the community who attend their college. The
Belgian Jesuit is admirably fitted to succeed in India. His
robust constitution, together with his prudence, carries him safely
through the dangers of the climate ; he is naturally well gifted,
and the assiduity with which he develops his gifts, and the
ease with which he learns the English language, make him a
splendid teacher ; while his wonderful tact in dealing with others
and his generosity in giving up his own customs and modes of
thought to adopt those of the people among whom he has
come to work, make him a very agreeable companion. The
petition of St. Francis Xavier, when out in India, "Da mihi
Belgas '* — Give me Belgians — is as well founded to-day as it was
in the sixteenth century.

ALL CLASSES UNITED.

There is not a foreign people with qualities better adapted
to win the hearts of the English and the native races in
India. St. Xavier's College, in Calcutta, is a striking proof
of the hold that the fathers have on the mixed population
of the empire. The sight presented to a visitor during one
of the recreation hours is as varied as any sight could be,
and would delight the heart of the most intense yearner
after the universal brotherhood of mankind. Europeans, Catho-

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300 Catholic Education in India. [June,

lies, and Protestants of every shade of difference, Eurasians
of every color, Hindus, Mohammedans, Persians, Burmese,
Assamese, Jews from many countries, Armenians, Japanese,
Greeks, and Chinese — all these, different in character, manners,
and dress, and in many cases naturally hostile to one another,
mix amicably together, bound by a common language and by
the kindly spirit of their Alma Mater. In this varied crowd
the black-robed fathers mingle, passing from group to group
with a cheerful word and smile for each, instilling and
strengthening that feeling of forbearance and good-fellowship
which in India is nowhere seen outside a Jesuit college. Every
student is on an equal footing, or, if there is any preference
shown, it is only for those whose conduct and application are
what they should be. It is owing as much to this liberal spirit
of the Jesuits as to their proficiency as teachers that their
colleges are frequented by such various types of humanity.
The native students were quick to perceive the difference
between the Jesuits and the other teachers in Calcutta. The
contempt or coldness with which they were treated in other
colleges was agreeably changed to kindness and warm interest
in their welfare in St. Xavier's ; hence the college was success-
ful from the beginning. If the ancient enmity among the dif-
ferent peoples of India, if the conflicting prejudices and interests
of the many castes and creeds, will ever disappear and these
peoples ultimately unite as one nation, it will chiefly be owing
to the efforts of the Jesuit fathers. Their non-Catholic pupils
are grateful for the kindness and care shown them. Whenever
a name day of one of the professors or a feast day comes
round, the non-Catholics are the most eager to celebrate it ;
whenever money contributions are desired for holiday sports,
it is they who give most freely. In their missionary journeys
throughout the country the fathers very often meet some
former non-Catholic pupils and are hospitably received and
helped. In after-life these pupils are proud to own St.
Xavier's as their Alma Mater, and are generous in offering
medals for deserving students and founding scholarships in the
college.

THE GOANESE PRIESTS.

Besides their education and work in Calcutta the fathers
have charge of the parishes in the city. Owing to the scarcity
of secular priests in India this duty necessarily devolved upon

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the Jesuits. When they first came to Calcutta, in 1859, the
parishes of the city were served by native clergy from Goa,
known as Goanese priests. These men were in open opposi-
tion to Rome, and shocked the Christians by the looseness of
their lives. The Pope sent a delegate to bring these men back
to their allegiance to the church, but they refused to receive
the delegate, and were, in consequence, excommunicated. As
the Jesuits were the only priests then in the city, the parishes
were confided to their care. It took time and a great amount
of tact on the part of the fathers to win back to the church
their erring flocks, and to wipe out, by the purity and auster-
ity of their lives, the scandal caused by the Goanese priests.

But the chief aim of the Jesuits in India is the conversion
of the natives to Christianity. For this purpose they have
missions all over India, and the success that has hitherto at-
tended their labors is very consoling. The missions are away
in the country parts, removed as much as possible from the
influence of the cities ; for proximity to cities is one of the
great hindrances to Christianity in India ; the nearer the natives
are to a city the more wicked they are, and the more they
fear to lose caste by becoming Christians. The missionary
lives out among his converts, in one of their hamlets, in a hut
like their own, and in the same poverty. He studies their
language and character, and adapts himself to their customs and
manner of life, until he becomes one of them. It is only in
this way that he can convince the shy and timid natives that
he has their welfare at heart, and hope to get them to receive
the faith he brings them.

IN CHOTA NAGPORE.

Perhaps the most flourishing of the Jesuit missions in
India is the one they began last. It was about the year
1880 that they began to evangelize Chota Nagpore, a dis-
trict in western Bengal. The inhabitants of this part of India
are aborigines, and are called Khols and Mundaris. It is sup-
posed that they were driven by the early invasions of the
Aryans into this part of the country, and have remained there
ever since. The Khols were the first to enter, but were soon
followed by the Mundaris, who, it seems, conquered them, for
they are a tribe superior to the Khols. This people is very
simple and honest, readily embraces Christianity, and makes
much better Christians than any other race in India, except the

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302 Catholic Education IN India. [June,

Madrases, who, perhaps, are the most fervent Christians in the
world. The greatest difficulties the fathers have to meet in
this mission come from the German Lutheran missionaries, who
are trying to spread their heresy there too, and from the Hin-
du and Mohammedan landlords, who found it easy to enter the
district and take the land from the simple inhabitants. By re-
sisting the injustice and tyranny of these landlords, the fathers
have made themselves the protectors of the defenceless Khols
and Mundaris, and have won their hearts. The labors of the
fathers have been repaid by solid conversions to the faith ; in
four years more than fifty thousand have been baptized, and the
whole nation would now be Christian if the fathers were more
numerous. One would think that the days of the great Fran-
cis Xavier had come again, so large is the number of the con-
verts and so zealous their attachment to Catholicism. But, un-
fortunately, the missionaries are too few adequately to work
the large field committed to them. Every priest has an area
of over two hundred square miles to attend to, and must be
travelling a good part of the year to see his converts. He has
to do all his travelling on foot or on a sorry horse, over
rough paths, through dense jungles, where he is continually ex-
posed to the Bengal tiger and other fierce beasts that infest
that part of India. The little country of Belgium is sending
her brave sons and her alms to the rescue of Chota Nagpore ;
and when, in the course of years, the Jesuits in Chota Nagpore
shall make so near a reproduction as the times will allow of
their celebrated Reductions in Paraguay, Belgium, not Spain,
shall have the glorious distinction of being the mother of the
movement. In Chota Nagpore and their other missions the
main hope of the fathers lies in the children. These are care-
fully instructed and trained in the mission-schools until the last
trace of idolatry is removed from them and there is no fear
that they will return to their gods.

FEW CONVERSIONS IN THE SCHOOLS.

It is sad to think that, outside of their missions properly so
called, the fathers succeed in converting but a comparatively-
small number to the church. In the schools of the cities
some Protestant children are converted ; this is especially the
case in the convent schools. But among the vast numbers of
Hindu and Mohammedan students who attend the Jesuit colleges
no advance in this direction has been made. All the ingenuity

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1 897-] Catholic Education IN India. 303

which Jesuit zeal could devise has hitherto proved useless. The
Mohammedan is too proud of the superiority of his prophet to
become a follower of Christ ; the Hindu is too fickle and too
much engrossed by the pleasures of life to accept the renun-
ciation of the cross. Yet the Jesuits must keep open their
colleges, even at the expense of their missions ; for it is neces-
sary to our religion to maintain in the opinion of the European
and native in India that prestige which she has acquired,
mainly by her educational institutions ; it is only by so doing
that she can hope to reach those that live in or near cities.
It must, however, be said that the effort to convert the city
population is but of recent origin. It began with the arrival
in Calcutta of the Jesuits, who quickly perceived that the only
way to make an impression on the educated classes was to
raise the church in their eyes by making her the channel of an
education at least equal to any that could be procured outside
her. Before that time Catholicism was contemned and pointed
at as an ignorant superstition by the Protestant missionaries.
It cannot be doubted that the efforts of the Jesuits have made
a very favorable impression on the native mind, and that they
have overcome the first great obstacle to the conversion of
the educated portion of the population. The time fixed by
God cannot be very far off when the suggestions of a religious
character conveyed by the Jesuits with their secular teaching,
together with the example of their humble and devout lives,
shall no longer be wasted on these stiff-necked peoples, but a
rising generation shall bend to a gentle sway and our holy
religion be enriched by the adherence of a vast multitude of
intelligent and clever followers.

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304 At Sunset. [June,

AT SUNSET.

BY L. MARION JENKS.

OWN those rich aisles where all the long, fair day
The sunbeams, coming thro' the violet panes,
Made the white marbles' garments like to kings',
He came, with eyes and head bent low, to pray.

There, in the" shadow of advancing night.

He knelt, and pondered o'er his life's dark stains,
And brought out all his heart's hard, bitter things

Before the starlike, shining altar-light.

" I am not worthy to be called Thy child ! "

But was not he who cried the sad words first
Forgiven from a generous father's heart,

Met not with harshness but with mercy mild?

What bud of hope was his in that dark hour
Which in his father's smile to blossom burst !
He knew the taunting demon must depart.

He knew of love the gladness and the power.

Now, shall this other say it is too late.
And rising, go into the fretting street
With a remorseful and despairing groan —

Straining to break the iron chain of fate ?

Not from that Presence ! Rather out of pain
And many sighs, to have the knowledge sweet
That by God's tender grace, by it alone,

His Christian courage has been born again !

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The Wonders of Finoal's Cave are never-ending.

ST. COLUM-CILLE AND HIS FOURTEENTH '
CENTENARY.

BY M. A. O'BYRNE.

*' lona, O lona ! all summer swallows stay
About your towers : the sea-£:ulls to Ireland take their way ;
And would I cry with weeping, the sea-gulls' road were mine,
To hear and see the lowing, the kind eyes of the kine.
lona, O lona 1 "

E may well imagine the saintly Abbot of lona giv-
ing vent to his feelings of sorrow and longing
for Ireland in his self-imposed exile from his be-
loved land in the above words of one of our
poets of the Neo-Celtic revival. St. Columba's
intense love for Ireland is one of his chief characteristics, and
as such he is a fitting type of the hundreds of thousands of
his fellow-countrymen whose fortune it has been to leave the
land of their birth and live under foreign skies. He is, there-
fore, pre-eminently the patron of the scattered children of the
Gael ; and on the approach of his fourteenth centenary, on the
9th day of June, it behooves the entire Irish race to commem-
orate his memory in a, becoming manner. The learned and
patriotic Bishop of Raphoe, St. Columba's native diocese and
the scene of his earliest labors in the church, has pointed out
to us how his memory should be honored. In his Lenten

VOL. LXY.— 20

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3o6 57-. CoLUM'ClLLE. [June,

exhortation to his flock he recommends the practice of the
virtue of temperance and practical patriotism in the cultivation
and preservation of the Irish language as some of the objects
to be attained in celebrating his festival.

In giving a synopsis of St. Columba's life and labors, the
writer is at the outset confronted by the difficulty of select-
ing from the mass of authentic material, both of a religious
and national character. There is, perhaps, no other of the
" countless thousands of the saints of Erin," to use the words
of Aengus Ceile De, of whom there is so perfect and so minute
a record, as there is no other whose life has been so fruitful
in winning souls to God, and whose influence has been so
potential in shaping and directing the religious character of
the entire Celtic race. On this account, and because of his
connection with some of the most important political events
of his day, he stands forth as the most prominent and strik-
ing character in the entire drama of Irish history. He is,
moreover, in every respect the most typical character of his
race — typical in his intense faith, by virtue of which he
lived and labored in the service of the Creator, imbued, as
one of his biographers informs us, " with a continuous ap-
preciation of the supernatural " — typical in his ardent love of
nature, and of his native country, as we learn from some of
his poems still extant which he addressed to his beloved Erin
from his barren island home in lona — nay more, typical in his
very faults and passions, which by the grace of God he eventu-
ally overcame and subordinated to the most perfect service of
God. Born of the kingly race of Niall of the Nine Hostages,
through Conal Gulban, renowned in Celtic story, on his father's
side, and through his mother a scion of the Leinster line of
kings, he would in due time, according to his life in the Book
of Lismore, have become the monarch of all Ireland ; but the
sceptre he rejected for the cloister, and the honor of the high-
kingship of Ireland he cast aside for the glory of God and
the conversion of his brethren.

St. Columba, or Colum-Cille, as he is usually called, was born
at Gartan, in the barony of Kilmacrenan, County Donegal, on
the 7th of December, in the year A. D. 571. It pleased Provi-
dence that he should have for his biographer one of his own
kinsmen, a saint and abbot of lona like himself, the illustrious
St. Adamnan, who in his capacity of successor to Columba, and
only a few generations removed from him (he was che ninth
abbot of lona) had extraordinary opportunity of authenti-

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1 897-] ^'^' CoLUM'CiLLE. 307

The great Ocean's Waves boom and reverberate through its Arches.

eating the many details and interesting events in our saint's
life, which he faithfully and vividly portrays. This life, writ-
ten by St. Adamnan and in the Latin language^ is specially
valuable as illustrating the domestic life of the Irish people of
the day. It gives a minute and detailed account of the daily
routine of life of the monks at lona : how they amused them-
selves, how they ate and drank and worked and prayed, pre-
senting us a glance, as it were, behind the curtain of domestic
life in their monastic home, and, through analogy, a picture of
the homes and household scenes in Celtic Ireland of the day.
There are several other lives of our saint. The most important,
however, is one in the Gaelic language and compiled by Mar-
ius O'Donnell, chief of Tyrconnell, a kinsman of the saint, in
the year A. D. 1532. This life is largely a compilation of all

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3o8 57-. CoLUM'CiLLE. [June,

lives hitherto written of the saint, and contains everything ap-
pertaining to his lineage and the history of his family that could
be gleaned from all available MSS. at the time. What Dr.
Reeves regards as an autograph copy of this work is to be
found in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It is gratifying to
learn that, as a result of the advancement which the movement
for the preservation of the Irish language has made during the
past few years, this great work is likely to be published in
a short time by Father Henebry, the recently appointed pro-
fessor of Celtic in the Catholic University at Washington, from
photographic fac-similes kindly supplied by Dr. Whitley Stokes.

Father John Colgan, a Franciscan friar who took up the.
work begun by the Four Masters and supplemented by Fathers
Fleming and Ward of the same order, published in Louvain, in
1645, his famous work entitled the Treis Tkaumaturgoi, which
contains five separate lives of St. Columba. These lives seem
to be translations and compilations into Latin of all the lives
from the Gaelic and Latin which he was able to find at the
time, and contains even a translation of O'Donnell's life alluded
to above. In this work he was probably assisted by Father
Luke Wadding, another illustrious member of the same order
who was contemporary with him. I have dwelt perhaps rather
too long on this part of our subject, but I have done so pur-
posely to suggest what a large treasure of literature, even in the
department of hagiology, still remains practically unexplored to
the vast majority of the Irish race, and which, let us hope, un-
der the impulse which Celtic studies have recently received, is
destined at no distant date to be brought within the reach of
all by being published.

The several lives of our saint are unanimous in testifying
that from his earliest years the young Columba evinced pro-
found piety and wisdom. He received his early education from
a holy priest called Crinthnecan, who founded an ancient church
at Kilmacrenan, and who in his various lives is called "the
foster-father of Colum-Cille." In due season he came from Kil-
macrenan to the famous school of St. Finnian of Moville, near
Strangford Lough. Adamnan informs us that during his stay
at Moville he devoted the most of his time to the study of the
Sacred Scriptures under the able professorship of St. Finnian.
It was probably at this period that he made the furtive copy
of Finnian's Gospel which subsequently led to the controversy
as to whom the copy thus made belonged, and which was the
occasion of the battle of Cuil Dreimhne, County Sligo, in the

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1 897-] St. ColuM'Cille. 309

year A. D. 561. From Moville he proceeded to Leinster and
placed himself under the tutelage of a celebrated bard called
Gemman, under whom he studied his native language and the
art of poetry. He seems to have become quite an adept in
Gaelic poetry, as there are several poems still extant which are

The rugged Headlands are typical of the harsh Climate.

probably attributable to St. Columba. It is easy to understand
from his poetic temperament, and his proficiency in the bardic
art, how in after years he espoused the cause of the bards when
they sorely needed a valiant defender. During this period, too,
he studied theology and the ascetic life under another famous
saint, Finnian, abbot of Clonard, Meath. In fact, it was at the
college of Clonard that he received the most of his education,
as we find him called in one of the ancient chronicles '* one of
the twelve apostles of Erin who were trained up together in
holiness and learning ** in this far-famed college. His object in
studying at Clonard was to fit himself for the priesthood.
We may easily picture to our minds the placid and holy life
which the young levite spent at this period within the sacred
halls of Clonard. Here he had the opportunity of intercourse
with the holiest and most learned men of Ireland of the day ;
amongst them St. Kieran, founder of Clonmacnoise in the
Shannon, and here, with all the surroundings of one of the most

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3IO St. ColuM'Cille. [June,

beautiful of nature's landscapes, he had ample opportunity of
imbibing that love of nature which was one of his chief charac-
teristics, and to which he gives such appropriate expression in
some of his poems which have come down to our day. The
following translation of one of his poems addressed to Ben
Edar and the Hill of Howth, which commences " Is aebhinn a
bheith i m«Beinn Eadair," illustrates both of his two most strik-
ing characteristics in his two-fold love for Ireland and for the
charms of nature. The translation is by Dr. Douglas Hyde,
and in imitation of Gaelic metre :

** Delightful it is on Ben Edar to rest
Before going over the white sea ;
The dash of the wave as it launches its crest
On the wind-beaten shore is delight to me.
Delightful it is on Ben Edar to rest
When one has come over the white sea foam,
His coracle cleaving her way to the west
Through the sport of the waves as she beats for home."

St. Columba seems to have completed his education — at
least his religious or monastic training — at Glasnevin, under St.
Movi Clarainech, abbot and founder of this ancient religious
house. Here he had as his companions three other great saints,
St. Cannech, St. Ciaran, and St. Comgall, and we are told that
a tender friendship sprang up between the three saints which
continued during their lives.

He was now a priest, having been raised to that dignity
during his stay in Clonard, by Bishop Etchen, of Clonfad, and
an opportunity presented itself to him of founding a church
amongst his kindred in an offer of land made him by his first
cousin, Ainmire, prince of Ailech, who afterwards succeeded to
the high-kingship of Ireland. He hesitated, however, in taking
this step, as he had not as yet received a commission to found
a church on his own responsibility from his preceptor, St. Mobhi
of Clonard. At this juncture two of the disciples of St. Mobhi
reached Donegal and presented to him the stole of St. Mobhi,
who had already died of a plague which had raged throughout
Ireland. This he accepted as a token of permission, and he
immediately proceeded to found his first church and monastery
of Derry. The exalted dignity of the saint, his royal lineage,
the beauty and commanding aspect of his person, the fame of
his sanctity and learning, his wonderful mortification, for we
are told by Adamnan that " he lived on one meal a day, and

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1 897-] St. Colum-Cille, 311

that less than the meal of a pauper," that he arose three times
every night to break his slumbers by prayer, had, we may well
suppose, the effect of attracting to him a vast host of followers

•x

\': '■''■

« I i'i

and kinsmen, who, stimulated by the example of the saint,
sought admission to his monastery to participate with him in
the spiritual advantages of the religious life. What wonder.

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312 Sr. COLUM CiLLE. [June,

then, that his spiritual family grew to such large proportions
that it was necessary within a short period for him to found
other churches and monasteries. The monasteries of Durrow
in the King's County, and Kells in Meath, followed in quick
succession, both of which were destined to be as important re-
ligious centres as Derry. In fact Kells, after the destruction of
lona in 807 by the Danes, became the mother-house of the
" family of St. Colum-Cille/' as his spiritual children were after-
wards called.

What avocations the "family of St. Columba" followed we
are told by his biographers. Of course a great portion of their
time was spent in prayer and meditation. Manual labor also
formed a portion of their routine work ; for, as Adamnan says,
" labor is prayer if performed in the proper spirit." A good por-
tion of that labor was intellectual, and consisted in the study of
the Latin, Greek, and Gaelic languages, and especially the copy-
ing of valuable MSS. such as the sacred gospels. In each of the
houses founded by St. Columba there was a copy of the Sacred
Scriptures written by himself. The famous Book of Kells, the
oldest and most beautiful of all MSS. of mediaeval times, so
beautiful and artistic in its illumination that tradition ascribes
it as having been written by an angel, was in all probability
transcribed by the saint himself. The Book of Durrow, a MS^
copy of the Sacred Scriptures, is also supposed to have been
written by St. Columba. So great was his zeal at this early
period of his life that he had already presided over the
foundation of no less than thirty-seven churches in Ireland.
We cannot here enter into a detailed account of all the inci-
dents of his life prior to his departure for lona. It is essen-
tial, however, to make brief mention of the events which were
the immediate cause of his departure from Ireland for the bar-
ren and desolate isle in the Scottish main.

We have already alluded to the copy of the Psalms which
Columba had furtively copied during his stay at Clonard from
an original copy owned by St. Finnian. This copy St. Finnian
claimed as his own because it had been copied from his orig-
inal MS. Columba vehemently denied the justice of the plea.
To settle the matter they agreed to leave the question of
ownership to Diarmait, who was then reigning at Tara as Ard
Righ of Ireland. The judgment of Diarmait, delivered in that
trite saying which has come to be a proverb in the Irish lan-
guage " Le gach boin a boinin, le gach lebhar a labhran/' and
which in English means " To each cow (belongs) her calf, and to

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1897.1 Sr, COLUM^ILLE. 313

To BE BURIED IN '* lONA OF MY HEART " WAS THEIR LAST REQUEST.

each book its copy," awarded the MS. to St. Finnian. Colum-
ba, full of indignation, denounced the judgment as unjust and
threatened to avenge himself. Shortly afterwards an incident
occurred which fanned into a flame his smouldering passion. A
young prince, son of the King of Connaught, accidentally killed,
in a game of "hurling," a son of Diarmait's chief steward. Trem-
bling with fear, he rushed for protection to the arms of Columba,
who chanced to be present at the festal games then celebrat-
ing at Tara in honor of the king. Diarmait seized the fugitive
and put him to death on the spot. This so incensed the
saint that he summoned his kinsmen of the north and
west to avenge the insult to his person. The result was the
battle of Cuil Dreimhne in the County Sligo, where Diarmait
was completely vanquished and over three thousand of his fol-
lowers left dead on the field. When Columba had time to re-
flect on the result of his anger, compunction seized his heart
and he sought the advice of his confessor, St. Molaise of Inis-
murray. Molaise imposed as a penance on him that he should
leave Ireland, and gain to God as many souls as lives had
been lost in the battle. This incident is instructive as illustrat-
ing the great political influence wielded by the Church of Ire-
land in those days. It also illustrates a feature in the character
of the saint ; for although he was naturally of a proud and vin-

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314 St. ColuM'Cille. [June,

dictive spirit, he by the aid of divine grace knew how to make
amends for the scandal he had given ; for we are told he will-
ingly submitted himself to the performance of the penance im-
posed by St. Molaise, though it meant separation from home
and kindred and all that he held dear in this world. He leaves
Derry accompanied by his twelve principal disciples, turns the
prow of his currach to the north, and strikes out to the Scot-
tish coast, in the year A. D. 563, and the forty-second of his
age. Onward he speeds till he reaches the Isle of Colonsay,
one of the most southern of the Scottish islands. Here he
disembarks and, seeking the summit of the highest hill, he looks
back in the direction of Ireland. The hills of Innishowen are
still dimly visible ; he must still away, and re-embarks in his
currach, still striking due north, past the jutting headlands and
fiords of the western coast of Scotland, past the rugged cliffs and
sloping sides of Mull. The low-lying shores of lona, gray and
sombre, at length come in view. Here disembarking, he makes
the same test, and finding no trace as he scans the horizon
southwards of his loved native hills, he finally determines to
stay, and here he establishes a monastery which is destined to
be in after years the great centre of religion and learning
for Scotland and North Britain. Here he enters on his new
sphere of labor for the conversion of Scotland, and here he
is destined to remain for the rest of his life. Here he de-
voted himself entirely to the service of God. His sacrifice of
self was complete. His intense love of country and kindred
was entirely subordinated to the will of the Master. Exercises
of penance, meditation, prayer, fasting, and mortification, his
biographers inform us, were the order of the day. Continuous
journeyings in his currach, accompanied by his chief disciples,
to the surrounding isles and the neighboring coasts of Scotland,
preaching the gospel and baptizing the natives, formed his
constant round of duty. Scotland at this period was occupied
by two warlike and powerful tribes, the south-western portion
by the Scots, and the entire north and east by the Picts.
The Grampian Hills, called by Adamnan Dorsum Britannica —
the backbone of Britain — and the fiords of the south-west,
which with their tortuous windings seem to penetrate into the
very heart of the country and almost form a union with the
inland lakes, whose wild, majestic beauty supplies the theme of
many a poetic effusion to Sir Walter Scott, marked the boun-
dary of these two tribes. The Scots inhabited the territory
called Dalriada, and were indeed descended from the same an-

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1 897-] 'S'r. CoLUM-CiLLE, 315

cestors as the saint himself — a colony of this people having
migrated from the territory of the same name in the north-
east of Ireland about half a century before the birth of our
saint. In fact the reigning monarch of the Scotch Dalriadians,
King Connal, was a cousin of Columba's, From him he re-
ceived a grant of the Island of lona and permission to estab-
lish his monastery, and from this people he received many
postulants for the religious life in his monastery. Neverthe-
less the vast majority of the people had fallen away from the
faith of their ancestors, who had been converted by St. Patrick,
They were not, however, averse to the teachings of St. Colum-
ba, and in a comparatively short time the entire nation entered
into the true fold, stimulated by the teaching and example of
the saint. Several churches and monasteries were established
throughout the land and in the neighboring islands, from
whence other missionaries went forth to preach the Word, and
all subject to the jurisdiction of lona.

Columba's zeal did not confine itself to the conversion of
his kindred, the Scots, but he thirsted for further spiritual con-
quests, and accordingly he directed his apostolic labors to the
conversion of the Picts north of the Grampian Hills. The Picts
are mentioned by Tacitus as a bold, warlike, and intrepid race-
Emerging from their mountain fastnesses and the glens and
forests of the north, they presented the first obstacle to the
onward march of conquest of the Romans ; and having defeated
Agricola and his cohorts and finally driven them from Britain,
they held sway over the entire island till the coming of Hengist
and Horsa. Modern research has established the fact that they
were a Celtic race having the same traditions, the same folk-
lore, and claiming the same anonymous ancestors as the Celts
of Ireland, and speaking a kindred though not closely allied
tongue. It was to this fierce and haughty race that St. Colum-
ba brought the good tidings of the gospel, and though un-
conquerable in battle, they readily yielded to the *' whisper-
ings of grace " conveyed them through the instrumentality of
our saint. We cannot enter into a detailed account of Columba's
labors in the conversion of the Picts, as it would be outside
the scope of this paper. It will suffice to state that before his
death he had the happiness of beholding the entire country of
Scotland within the fold of the true faith. Adamnan recounts
many incidents in the life of our saint which go to prove the
hold he had acquired on the affections of the people ; how he
was wont to go to their homes, visiting the poor as well as the

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3i6 St. ColuM'Cille. [June,

rich, partaking of their hospitality, and entering into their sor-
rows and their joys. He became as one of them, and was to
them "all to alt for the sake of Christ."

During all this period and amidst all his evangelical Jabors
he never ceased to love Ireland and take an active interest in
her welfare. At the time of his departure from Ireland, as we
have already seen, the high-kingship of Ireland was held by
Diarmait, of the northern branch of the Nialls. He was shortly
afterwards slain in battle by Aedh, chief of the Antrim
Dalriadians, who still held sway in Dalriada after the departure
of a portion of their clan to Scotland. A few years later on
the chief sovereignty of Ireland fell to another Aedh, a
descendant of the southern branch of the Nialls and first
cousin to St. Columba, viz., Aedh Mac Ainmire. One of the
first acts of this new monarch was the summoning of the
celebrated convention of Drumceat, at which the question of the
fate of the bards of Ireland was decided.

The bardic institution of Ireland dates back to the earliest
period of Irish history. To the bards of Ireland was assigned
the duty of preserving the historical records of the country. At
the earliest period of Irish history those records, and indeed the
laws and the greater part of the literature of the people, were
written in verse and consigned to the custody of the bards.
They thus gradually came to be looked upon as a national
institution and part of the political system, and as such ample
laws were passed for their maintenance and independence. We
can readily understand, therefore, what an influence they wielded
over a people naturally prone to esteem and honor men of
learning and poetry, such as the bards undoubtedly were. The
bards, however, not content with the legitimate influence which
their position and profession thus assured them, became proud
and arrogant, and by the vast increase in their numbers, and
their exorbitant exactions from princes and chieftains in payment
for their poetic laudations, they became a public nuisance.
An example of their exorbitant exactions and disreputable
conduct at the palace of Guar^, King of Connaught, is given
in the bardic tale entitled " Immeacht na Tromdhaimhe,'* when
they are represented as quartering themselves in great numbers
and uninvited on the hospitality of the king. In short, so un-
popular had they become that a universal demand seemed to go
forth from the entire nation for their total abolition. In this
exigency they appealed to St. Columba to save them. Columba,
by nature and education, as we have already seen, a bard him-

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1897.] 5^- COLUM'ClLLE. 317

self, willingly espoused their cause and proceeded to the con-
vention to defend them. This convention (of Drumceat) was
held in the year A.D. 575. At the convention there were as-

Basaltic Rock rising out of the Sea.

sembled all the princes of the line of Conn, with the chief king
of Ireland, Aedh Mac Ainmire, presiding. Thirty bishops, forty
priests, and a large number of the minor clergy were also
present. Dalian Forgaill, chief bard of Ireland, and a host of
his followers were there too. Aedh himself was their chief
accuser, and their doom seemed to be a foregone conclusion
till Columba rose up to defend them. Most eloquently and
eCFectively did he do so, as the result of the convention in their
regard proved. He admitted, indeed, that abuses existed in the
order, but such abuses were not an argument for their total
extinction. Let laws be passed restricting their power and
defining their prerogatives, but for the glory of Ireland and the
preservation of her historical records let not the order be
abolished. His wise counsel, couched in such eloquent terms, at
length prevailed and the bardic order was saved ; and to Ireland
was preserved much of what constitutes her chief glory, viz.,
her literature, which was the creation of these bards and their
successors. It is true we possess but a remnant of this literature,
owing to the spirit of ruthless destruction of the Danes, who

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3i8 St. Colum^Cille. [June,

burned all the MS. on which they could lay their hands. Later
on the work of pillage and barbarism was carried on by the
English invaders. But this remnant is, according to competent
authority, the most extensive and varied of any vernacular lan-
guage in Europe. What a debt of gratitude, therefore, does
not the entire Irish race owe to Columba for His timely action
on behalf of the bards!

We have outlined, too briefly perhaps, the principal events
in the life of our saint, and we now come to his death. His
relative and biographer, Adamnan, gives a graphic and touch-
ing picture of the last moments of the saint's life. Surrounded
by his brethren, he acquaints them of his approaching departure
from amongst them, and amidst their wailings and lamentations
he blesses them, blesses the monastery and the entire island of
lona, and predicts for it a glorious future in the Church of
God. His face seemed illumined with a heavenly light, as though
he was already in commune with the angelic hosts, and, with
his hands still extended in blessing his spiritual children, his
soul takes flight to her Creator. In him was truly verified the
words of Holy Writ : " Blessed in the sight of God is the life of
his saints."

Thus died St. Columba after he had accomplished the great
work for which God had destined him. So effectively did
he perform this work that not only the Picts and Scots» but
the entire British nation, felt the influence of his labors, and to
a great extent is indebted to him, through Providence, for the
gift of faith. "Aidan and Finan," says Archbishop Usher,
** both disciples of St. Columba, deserve to be honored by the
English with as honorable a remembrance as Austin the monk
and his followers." And again, Bishop Wordsworth : ** Truth
requires us to declare that St. Austin, from Italy, ought not to
be called the Apostle of England, and much less the Apostle
of Scotland, but that title ought to be given to St. Columba
and his followers from the Irish school of lona."

Of Columba it might be truly said that, though dead in the
physical sense of the word, his spirit still lived on in his spiri-
tual children. It was this same spirit of faith and'zeal which
characterized so many of them whose names enliven the pages
of Irish ecclesiastical history, and who, under the title of the
" family of St. Columba," shed such glory on the Irish Church.
It was this spirit which animated St. Adamnan, who, by his
holiness and learning, was a worthy* successor to St. Columba
as Abbot of lona. It was this same spirit that prompted Mari-

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i897-] -S"/-. CoLUM-CiLLE. 319

anus Scotus, another of his spiritual descendants in the eleventh
century, to leave Ireland and found the monastery of Ratisbon,
in Bavaria, where, surrounded by his brethren, he devoted him-
self to the editing and transcribing of the Sacred Scriptures, and
by the learning which he displayed was regarded as one of the
greatest scholars of his day. It was this same spirit, in short,
which animated Gela-
sius. Abbot of Derry,
and afterwards Arch-
bishop of Armagh,
who during his long
life accomplished so
much for the discip-
line of the Irish
Church.

And what is the
practical lesson con-
veyed to Irishmen and
their descendants in
the life of St. Colum-
ba ? It is emphatically
the lesson of faith.
We behold him leav-
ing for ever his native ^"^ ^^ Stone.
land, which he loved with a passionate love, and selecting for
his abode a desolate and lonely island set in the misty and
cheerless seas of the Hebrides. Here he lights the torch of
faith, and holds it aloft as a beacon-light to direct the thou-
sands who were wandering on the troubled seas of error outside
the true fold to the harbor of safety and grace within the
Catholic Church. It is this faith which he has left as a heri-
tage to the entire Irish race, and to which, handed down from
father to son, our people have clung most tenaciously through
good and evil report. It is this faith in its simplicity and in-
tensity which doubtless many of us have seen and admired in
a parent or grandparent, and the memory of which has been
to us a sustaining force against the temptations of life. Long
may this faith remain as our most cherished heirloom, and long
may we preserve the loving memory of St. Colum-Cille !

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320 Degrees of Kindred. [June,

DEGREES OF KINDRED.

BY ANCILLA REGIS.

Chapter I.

RS. ALWYN was looking exceedingly worried,
which was rather unnatural for her. She was
usually of that sunshiny temperament that knows
no clouds, and was a perpetual mystery to her
friends. Everything in her household was per-
fectly managed ; maids in trim white caps and spotless aprons
glided around almost noiselessly, arranging all in perfect order.
The children were always models of perfection, fair to behold,
tastily dressed and faultless in manner, while Mr. Alwyn was a
typical gentleman to the manner born.

The month of June was fairly ushered in, and they were just
settled in their charming country home, when a letter arrived
which rather disturbed the even tenor of their domestic life.
Mrs. Alwyn was perfectly conscious of her own capabilities, and
prided herself on her excellent management that kept every-
thing in perfect harmony about her. But now she felt that a
false note was jarring upon her, an innovation being made which
would somehow mar that outward exquisite appearance every
one admired so much. Yet she must not complain ; that would
be disagreeable on her part, and no one could ever accuse Mrs.
Alwyn of being disagreeable; but she could not help the wor-
ried look, do her best, and felt mortified that her husband
should notice it.

" You don't seem very jubilant over the new arrival, Fran-
ces,** he said.

"No," she answered constrainedly; "I might as well tell
you the truth, Gerald ; Tm not. It's so unlike us to have a
poor relation, you know. She does not seem to quite fit in
with the usual equanimity of our household. It's all very well
to say she will act as governess to the children, but of course
she is your niece and must be treated accordingly ; but, oh,
dear ! she is sure to be overgrown and awkward. Imagine never
having been out of the convent in her life — Gerald, it's dread-
ful ! "

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I897-] Degrees of Kindred. 321

Mr. Alwyn seized the situation immediately. It was an aw*
ful trial for his wife's pride, yet he could not do otherwise than
offer a home to his orphan niece, who had been educated in a
convent, and who now wished to make an appearance in the
world.

" Don't worry uselessly, Frances," he said ; " it's not like
you in the least. I imagine, from her letter and the mother
superior's, that she is a very cultured girl, and she may not be
so much behind the times after all. However, you'll know in
a short time, for I'm just going to the station ; the train is due
at 6:30, so in all probability she shall dine with us at 7."

While she was speaking the train was rushing along that
every moment brought Berenice Gylman nearer her future
home. She too dreaded the meeting quite as much as her
aunt. She was left a little child in the convent and had grown
into maidenhood under the fostering care of the sisters, who
dearly loved the young orphan. Now that school-days were
over, and she showed no signs of a religious vocation, much as
she loved the convent, the nuns were anxious to see her safely
sheltered in a Christian home. Her uncle had never shown any
kindness other than paying her bills and allowing a reasonable
surplus for her small requirements. He had not been pleased
at his sister's marriage with a poor artist, and thought it wise
not to encourage such with his approval ; but when a sweet,
pleading letter came from Berenice, asking for a home, and
offering in return to undertake the office of governess to his
two little girls, his heart was touched and he was ready to wel-
come his niece without any of the apprehensions shared by his
wife.

The train came in, puffing and screaming, and there were
banging of doors and the usual vociferations that emanate from
conductors and cabmen, and the usual kisses and welcomes and
fond embraces, and amid all this Mr. Alwyn stood peering
among the multitude for the little convent girl. No one an-
swered his mental conception of Berenice ; but he noticed a
tall, graceful, sweet-looking girl that had evidently no one to
meet her.

"Can it possibly be she?" he said to himself, and walking
towards her, asked if she was Miss Berenice Gylman. Her re-
ply in the affirmative contented him beyond expression, and a
warm embrace assured the lonely girl she had found a friend
at last.

Mr. Alwyn smiled complacently as he thought of the de-
YOL. Lxv.— 21

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322 Degrees of Kindred. [June,

lightful surprise in store for his wife. The young orphan would
not mar the usual exquisite tenor of their lives ; on the contra-
ry, what an addition she would be 1 They chatted merrily as
the carriage rolled along the country road, and Berenice proved
to be a charming companion.

" Clever^ cultured, interesting,^ commented her uncle inward-
ly; and by the time they reached Rose Villa they were firm
friends.

It was a delightful evening ; the sun was just sinking behind
a mass of crimson clouds and the air was filled with the perfume
of the lovely June roses that literally covered the villa. Mrs.
Alwyn and her two daughters added to the beauty of the scene
in their pretty, delicaite gowns, which were most becoming.

"Mamma, I wonder what she's like?" said Alice, a sweet,
demure little maiden of ten. " I do hope she is pretty," said
Maude, her elder by two years. " Don't you, mamma ? "

** There's no use hoping anything now^ dear ; she must be al-
most here and can hardly transform herself in a few moments."

While Mrs. Alwyn was saying these words the carriage drove
up the long avenue, and she looked anxiously at the new ar-
rival. All her fears were immediately dismissed, the weight
was removed from her hearty and her surprise was great as she
saw Berenice gracefully alight from the carriage. She looked
interesting indeed in the June twilight — a fair, fresh specimen
from Queen's Gardens — and though her aunt gave her a far
more cordial reception than she anticipated, there was still a
seeming constraint between them. Mrs. Alwyn had not recov-
ered from her . surprise, and Berenice felt somewhat of an in-
truder. Alice and Maude were captivated at first sight, and
their childish, unrestrained expressions of admiration made their
cousin feel that she possessed two little champions whatever
befell her. At dinner Mrs. Alwyn had ample opportunity of
deciding whether Berenice would grace or disgrace her prover-
bially charming entertainments, and it was no small satisfac-
tion to see how faultless was every movement, while she could
converse intelligently on any topic under discussion.

As the days glided by Berenice continued to improve on
acquaintance, until at last her aunt, though naturally cold, felt
that she was fast gaining a place in her heart. Their friend-
ship was finally perfected in one confidential talk, when Mrs.
Alwyn confessed all her apprehensions before her. niece's arriv-
al, much to the amusement of Berenice. She was a general
favorite, and people looked a trifle envious of Mrs. Alwyn and

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asked her how she managed to always have everything in such
exquisite harmony. She would smile proudly and say she could
not help it, that she could not exist otherwise.

As it was vacation time, Berenice was not called upon to
instruct the children, but Mrs. Alwyn was delighted to have
her superintend their music and hear a chapter of catechism, on
which she insisted every day. Berenice gladly undertook this
light charge, and as the children loved her intensely, the morn-
ings frequently passed away in their company. After the les-
son would come a story, then a chat, then some doll-dress-
making, until Mrs. Alwyn would interpose and declare the chil-
dren were too selfish altogether.

Berenice dearly, loved the long walks and interesting talks
with her uncle. He was a clever, deeply read man, interested
in politics and journalism, and he loved to open the eyes and
enlarge the mind of his^ young niece, who so eagerly grasped
at knowledge.

One aft<^rnoon Mr. Alwyn was sitting on the veranda and
little Alice had climbed upon his knee. He was stroking her
flaxen hair fondly, when Berenice came upon the scene just in
time to hear him say:

"You're so like your Aunt Alice, darling."

" Who is her Aunt Alice, uncle ? " said Berenice wonder-
ingly.

" Why, don't you know, dear? — she was your aunt also. She
went to England when she was sixteen to visit her grand-
mother, and a few years after married Colonel Fenleigh. We
quite lost track of each other for some years, and the next
news I received was of her death. Later I heard that Colonel
Fenleigh himself was carried off, leaving an only son, of whom
I know nothing. I have tried to discover his whereabouts, for
I was very fond of his mother, but I have never succeeded ; I
hope some day he will come to light. I believe they had ex-
tensive property, and he must be a fine young man by this
time."

Berenice listened with increasing interest, and exclaimed :
" Why, uncle, he is my first cousin then, and I never knew it I
How I would love to meet him ; it would be just like having a
big brother, wouldn't it ? "

" It would indeed, Berenice," replied her uncle, ** but with
the ocean between you he is not much advantage."

The conversation was interrupted by visitors, but Berenice
was unusually thoughtful. She felt it was something added to

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324 Degrees of Kindred. [June,

her life to possess this near relative. Her heart went out to
him, stranger though he was, and she reflected how he was
almost without kindred, like herself ; and so she longed and
prayed to meet him. "More things are wrought by prayer
than this world dreams of," sang the immortal bard; and so it.
proved with Berenice's dearest wish.

Chapter II.

As on a former occasion a simple school-girl letter had
changed the current of life at Rose Villa, so now a letter, bear-
ing a fofeign post-mark, had caused unusual excitement to pre-
vail. It ran as follows :

" Dear Uncle : I have lately returned from India, where I
was wounded in a skirmish, not very severely, but the great
loss of blood has weakened me considerably. As I am forced
to take furlough, I propose enjoying a long promised visit to
the new world. Strange to say, while preparing my plans I
met an old friend of yours. Colonel Fontane, who enlightened
me about many facts concerning the family, of which I was
.ignorant. He iurnished me with your address, and of course I
was delighted, for I have lived without knowledge of kith or
kin up to this. My parents died when I was quite young, and
I lived with my guardian until I felt competent to keep bache-
lor's quarters, which I do very successfully with the assistance
of a dear old housekeeper who has guarded me with a jealous
eye ever since I was a child. She has been a veritable mother
to me, and now, when I propose leaving for an indefinite period,
she is simply heart-broken. If it would not be trespassing on
your hospitality, which Colonel Fontane assures me is prover-
bial, I venture to allow her to accompany me if you could
conveniently accommodate her. She will make herself exceed-
ingly useful during her stay, being an excellent cook, and alto-
gether a person much superior to the majority of her class. I
will await your reply before venturing so much on your kind-
ness, but from what I hear of you and your charming family
I have no fears. I suppose you are aware that father bequeathed
me extensive property, so that I can afford to be a gentleman
of leisure if I choose ; but I must have active life in some
quarter, and I love the army. However, as it is a case of
necessity to retire for awhile, I am willing to accept events as
they come. I shall await your reply impatiently, feeling sure

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1897.] Degrees of Kindred. 325

it will be favorable. With kindest regards to my unknown
relatives, believe me

" Your affectionate nephew,

" Ernest Fenleigh.**

Every one had some comment to make on the letter. Mrs.
Alwyn was thoroughly charmed ; it just suited her. An English
officer and an excellent English cook — more than ever would
she be envied by her friends. Mr. Alwyn was delighted that
the scattered kindred were being brought together. And though
Berenice was silent — it was her way — her cheeks flushed and
her eyes brightened, and she felt happy in the thought of pos-
sessing one she hoped would be a brother to her. He had
been isolated, so had she — was not that a bond of union
already ? He was wounded ; how she longed to act a sister's
part and minister to him with loving hands! These were her
thoughts, and she longed for the realization.

A letter of thorough welcome was forwarded immediately,
and before many w^eks we find the family impatiently awaiting
the second addition to their household.

It was a glorious evening, in the close of the month of
August, when Ernest arrived, fatigued and travel-worn, it is
true, but even in weakness such that all would say " This is a
man ! "

About six feet in stature, his military bearing would attract
any one's attention. He had a noble brow, a shapely, express-
ive mouth, but his most irresistible charm was found in his
eyes — such tender, kind, laughing blue eyes, that revealed the
soul within and told plainly he was a man of noble character.
The kind consideration he evidenced towards his faithful house-
keeper revealed another trait of character in which some men
are woefully deficient. " Cody," as he called her, was a robust
woman, well advanced in years, yet possessing an amount of
activity. She was most respectful in her manner, and asked
immediately to be conducted to the servants' quarters, where
she was well received, for Mrs Alwin's domestics were all that
one could desire.

Berenice stood in the background until her uncle and aunt
had welcomed the guest right royally, and the children had
been embraced in cousinly fashion. She was silently admiring
him, her grand, stately cousin, when he turned suddenly and
encountered an unmistakable glance of approval. Berenice
colored and looked rather confused, and while Ernest was won-

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326 Degrees of Kindred. [June,

dering who was the lovely girl, Mrs, Alwyn exclaimed: "Why,
Berenice, where are you? Waiting for an introduction, I sup-
pose. Ernest, this is your first cousin, Berenice Gylman. I
don't know if you were aware of her existence."

A feeling of joy rushed upon Ernest at this announcement,
and the look of admiration and gladness came from his blue
eyes this time.

" My cousin ! " he exclaimed, warmly pressing her hands —
he dared not venture a closer embrace yet — "Why, what an
unexpected pleasure. I did not, indeed, ever dream of her ex-
istence."

There was no time for explanation then, as dinner was wait-
ing ; but later on, when Berenice and Ernest enjoyed a chat,
it was the outpouring of two affectionate hearts that had been
isolated and were now brought in close contact.

A changed atmosphere surrounded Berenice as the halcyon
summer days glided by. There were long walks, and delightful
sails, and confidential chats in the gloaming, and pleasant hours
whiled away in music and reading; in fact it was the slow
drifting of two congenial souls nearer and nearer together. Of
course they were first cousins, and no one even ventured to in-
sinuate that the interest they took in each other was any
deeper than what existed naturally between two loving relatives ;
but there are degrees in kindred, and blindly, madly were
those two young' souls rushing towards that goal from which,
once reached, there is no going back. Unconsciously they sought
each other's company and enjoyed it thoroughly ; but this could
not last for ever. Strange to say, the only person whose eyes
were open to the daily unfolding truth was Cody. She loved
Ernest with a jealous* love, and would give her life to sec him
happy; and, as she watched the cousins' daily intercourse, she
grew thoughtful and held frequent communion with herself as
to how matters would end. She liked Berenice exceedingly ;
she realized what a grand woman she was, so clever, so accom-
plished, so unselfish, so thoroughly good, in every way such a
suitable wife for Ernest. " Yet," she would say, " they are
good Catholics and know that first cousins are within the for-
bidden degrees of kindred. I wonder what the end shall be ! "

Chapter III.

One morning, not long after these reflections of Cody's,
Berenice was seated in the little room assigned for the
children's lessons. Alice was bravely going through the ordeal

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I897-] Degrees of Kindred. 327^

of committing to memory the Six Precepts of the Church, and
with her cousin's assistance the ** big words *' were being made
clear and the little mind unconsciously expanding. They were
interrupted by Ernest, who entered the room looking the picture
of happiness, and said : ^' Come on, Berenice, and. have a walk
down to Fern Dell ; it's a glorious morning, and we'll enjoy the
tramp before luncheon."

Berenice looked up pleased, as she always did when such a
pleasure was in prospect, and answered:

"I'll be. delighted to go, Ernest, but just wait a few moments
until Alice finishes her chapter; there's a magazine to amuse
you in the meantime."

. " All right ; you're worth waiting for," he added laughingly*
He was soon deep in an interesting article, but suddenly
roused himself as he heard little Alice say in her sweet, clear
voice :

" ' Sixth : They shall not solemnize marriage at the forbidden
times, nor within the forbidden degrees of kindred, nor other-
wise prohibited by the church, nor clandestinely.' O Berenice I
I don't know what half those terrible words mean. Won't you
explain ? "

" Certainly, dear," replied Berenice, little dreaming on what
treacherous ground she was treading. " Forbidden times means
during Lent and Advent, because they are times of penance ;
and forbidden degrees of kindred means that near relations
cannot marry."

"Cousins?" asked Alice.

" Yes, cousins," replied Berenice, but there was a strange, un-
accountable feeling coming over her. She glanced in the direction
where Ernest was sitting, and to her dismay saw the book fall
from his hands and a painful expression on his handsome face.
Alice, quite unconscious of the silent tragedy that was being
enacted in two hearts, continued :

" Then you couldn't marry Ernest, could you ? And I heard
Miss Thauber say — "

" Never mind what Miss Thauber said," replied Berenice, in
a voice so strangely unlike herself that even Alice wondered
what was the matter. Berenice longed to rush from the room ;
but it would alarm the child and set her talking, so she just
gave one pleading, trustful look at Ernest, which sympathy
caused him to interpret ; he strode out of the room and walked
at a furious pace, scarcely knowing where he went.

Berenice controlled herself sufficiently to continue the lesson,

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328 Degrees of Kindred. [June,

and so little Alice's curiosity was not aroused ; but when it was
over she went straight to her room and gave vent to her
violent emotions.

" What does it mean ? " she asked herself. " What hap-
pened? What will Ernest think of me ? Surely I never thought
of marrying him. Oh! I have been blind, blind, and I never
knew it. How could I help loving him? We have been every-
thing to each other, and now that he has discovered it he will
go away. But what will auntie say ? and uncle, and everybody ?
ril have to go away, too ; I couldn't stand it. . . . But
suppose he loves me ; what then ? O God ! deliver me from the
temptation ; do not let me think of it, it's so plain — forbidden
degrees of kindred — and first cousins ; it would be dreadful.
I'll go back to the convent ; I must go somewhere or I shall go
mad."

All these thoughts flashed through the poor girl's mind in
a moment ; yet they left her weary of the conflict. A struggle
between heart and conscience is a desperate affair; yielding to
either side means an immense sacrifice.

There was no going down to luncheon that day ; so she sent
word that her head ached dreadfully (they are so convenient,
those headaches) and all she wanted was a cup of strong tea.
Shortly after, Mrs. Alwyn came in silently, feeling anxious
about her niece, but the storm was over; Berenice looked a
little the worse for the struggle, but that was all.

" I'm glad you're better, dear," said her aunt. " I was afraid
it was something serious, and you know your uncle and I are
going in to town to complete arrangements before settling
down. I would like to move shortly, to be in town by October.
I shall be away for a few days and you must act hostess to
Ernest. I don't imagine it's a very unpleasant office I am
bestowing on you. Do you feel able?"

"Oh, yes, quite!" answered Berenice. "I'll be all right
to-morrow, auntie. I'm sorry to lose you, even for a few days ;
but I suppose you must suit yourself about the arrangement of
your town house ; nobody else could do it half so well."

** I'm afraid you're waxing sarcastic, my little niece," said
Mrs. Alwyn ; " but good-by, dear. I will try not to be long
away."

In one sense Mrs. Alwyn 's absence was a relief; it would
give Berenice time to determine how to act. After long con-
sideration she concluded to ignore the episode, meet Ernest as
if nothing had happened, and try not to betray her feelings

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1 897-] Degrees of Kindred. 329

again. But while this stoical resolution was in formation
Ernest was pacing the veranda, looking very much perplexed.

" What does it mean ? " he asked himself ; " those words,
* forbidden degrees of kindred,* seemed to cut me like a sharp
knife. I never realized before what Berenice has been to me ;
she has simply grown to be part of my life. I might Have
known I loved her long ago, but I have been so blind — and
what of her ? why did she give me that pleading look ? — it must
be that . . . Oh ! but what's the use when we're first
cousins. rU just go and have it out with her, and if she loves
me I can get a dispensation ; I couldn't live without her."
With this determination he walked quickly to Berenice's room
and, knocking at the door, called out, as he often did before:
" Berenice, I want to speak to you ; will you come a moment ? "

The door was quietly opened, and there stood his cousin,
looking far more beautiful than ever as he regarded her in a
new light.

"Will you walk to Fern Dell now, Berenice?" he asked,
scarcely daring to raise his eyes.

Berenice looked puzzled, and answered:

" I've an awful headache, Ernest. I've been lying down all
day. I don't think I could go."

He raised his eyes this time, and said in a pleading tone:

" Come, Berenice ; it will do you good, and I must talk to
you."

" Very well, Ernest," she replied submissively ; " wait for me
and I'll be with you in a few moments."

She closed the door, walked back into her room, and then
knelt down and prayed as she had never done before, asking
for strength to overcome the temptation.

"I know what is before me," she said; "yet with God's
grace I will never sacrifice my conscience. I should not be
happy. God would not bless such a union. I ^shall tell Ernest
what I think about him, and then we must part. If only I
could be happy, in the convent — but I know that disappoint-
ments such as this do not make religious vocations. God has
not blessed me with such a calling; I must drag out my weary
days as best I can."

With a fervent appeal for grace and strength she joined
Ernest, who was anxiously waiting for her. They walked on in
utter silence, so totally absorbed in thought that neither noticed
it. When they neared their destination, a charming spot fairly
encircled in foliage that looked exceedingly pretty in the

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330 Degrees of Kindred. [June,

autumn sunlight, Ernest broke the stillness by laying his hand
gently on his cousin's arm and saying :

''Berenice, I believe the same thought came to both of us
this morning. I can answer for myself anyway. Here have I
been living week after week in your presence, until you have
grown part of my life. I have not a thought of which you are
not the object. You seem a second self to me. I don't know
how long this would have continued if my eyes were not
opened this morning. I realize now that my love for you is the
kind that one experiences only once in a life-time ; the kind that
man . has for no other woman than wife. I was delighted at
first to find we were such near kindred ; but I'm not satisfied,
Berenice — I love you too much for that — I want you for my
wife."

Berenice only looked imploringly at him and pleaded :

" Ernest, what's the use of talking like that ? You know we
can never be any nearer to each other; was it not forcibly
impressed upon us this morning? You must go away, and we
must only try to forget ; but one does not forget, that's the
worst of it."

" Berenice," said Ernest sorrowfully, " can you send me
away like that, after all the happiness you have brought into
my life ? Perhaps you don't feel as I do ; if so, of course I
would not urge you,"

" Feel as you do, Ernest ? " she exclaimed. " I don't exactly
know your feelings, but for me the light has died out of my
life, I began by giving you my sympathy in your isolation ;
now you have my love and all that is best in me ; but^ Ernest,
much as I love you, nothing would prevail on me to violate a
commandment of the church ; so please pity my weakness, and
in case I would waver, I beg of you to say no more. It's a
comfort to know I have your love, Ernest," she added, looking
up into his eyes, " but please do not urge me any more."

But Ernest had no mercy, and he pleaded and argued and
tried every possible means to shake her convictions ; but in
vain. Ernest was a good Catholic in his way ; he would never
have openly violated a law of God, but he would gladly have
had recourse to the dispensation that the church grants in
cases of extreme necessity to prevent a further evil. But
Berenice felt that God's blessing would not be upon them, and
stood firm in her resolve.

They had a sorrowful walk home and a lonely dinner-table
that night. Cody saw them returning, and wondered what

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1 897-] Degrees of Kindred. 33 1

made her " dear boy," as she called him, look so sad. She
felt restless and uneasy until she could discover the cause ; so
when Ernest strolled out in the garden after dinner, she fol-
lowed him and asked a little timidly if he would speak to her
awhile.

" Certainly, Cody," he replied, offering her a seat.

"Well, then, Mr. Ernest, if you'll excuse me, I would like
to know if you've any trouble ? I couldn't help noticing how
solemn-like you and Miss Berenice were, and I was afraid may-
be something was the matter."

She ventured this far timidly, and Ernest answered her:

"Yes, Cody; the fact is, I must be leaving this place ; I'm
feeling strong now, and I can't spend my days in this idle
fashion. I'll travel around a bit, and then you and I will go
back to my old quarters."

"And what about Miss- Berenice? I was thinking maybe,
sir, she might be going back with us ; it seoms just as if you
were made for one another — don't you think so, sir ? "

" But, Cody ! " he exclaimed, " we're first cousins,"

"That may be, sir," she answered; "but you were just like
strangers, and I thought by the look of things you seemed
nearer than cousins."

" I might as well tell you the truth, Cody," he said thought-
fully, " since you have shared all my joys and sorrows. We do
love each other, but my cousin could not be persuaded to
marry me on account of our near relationship. I'm heart-
broken over it, and I've pleaded and talked ; but all in vain.
That is why I must leave this place as soon as possible."

" Is that all that's between you ? " asked Cody, in a strange,
husky voice.

" All ! " exclaimed Ernest. " I think that's enough — but
Cody ! what on earth is the matter ? — you look so queer. Have
you anything to say about it ? "

Cody indeed looked nervous, and a pained expression
crossed her face as she said : " Indeed, I have something to
say; but, God help me, it's a hard task. I'd lay down my life
for you, sir, and it's because I love you so much and long to
see you happy that I must reveal what I thought would go
down in secret to the grave with me. You never knew that
Colonel Fenleigh was married twice ; you are the son of the
first wife, and no more relation to Miss Berenice than I am."

Before she could proceed with her narrative Ernest spoke
excitedly: "What do you mean, Cody? Who was my mother.

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332 Degrees of Kindred. [June,

then, and why was I deceived up to this? If there was any
disgrace — O Cody! for heaven's sake, speak! That would be
worse than ever."

"Whether you think it disgrace or not, sir, I leave it for
you to judge," she said, a little proudly. " You may call me
deceitful, but 1*11 tell my story out of love for you, just as it
happened long ago ; and I have the marriage certificate and
your baptismal certificate to prove what I say. About thirty,
five years ago, when Colonel Fenleigh was travelling on the
Continent, he stopped a few days in a pretty little village with
an artist friend of his, and while there he met a young girl
who, though in humble circumstances, was as good and beauti-
ful as any lady could be. It was the old story of love at first
sight ; after a short time they were married, and both went
around travelling. Of course they were not happy in one way.
He never brought her to England, for he knew she hadn't the
fine ways 6f his ladies at home, and he was waiting to see
how the travelling and all that would improve her. They loved
each other and he was very good to her, but they were ill-
mated and she pined for her old mother and her little village.
After a year abroad they returned, and it almost broke the
poor mother's heart to see her child so faded. In a short
time you came, Mr. Ernest — a dear, sweet baby; but in a few
days your mother left this earth. Colonel Fenleigh resumed
his travels, leaving you in care of your grandmother; but in a
year or so he married again, a beautiful lady in every way
worthy of him. That was Miss Alice Alwyn. Shortly after
he was ordered to India, and could not leave without you.
He had told his story to his second wife, and she, like a noble
lady, at once proposed both you and your grandmother accom-
panying them, and she promised to treat you as her own son.
The proposal was accepted, for your grandmother loved you
too dearly to part with you ; but she insisted on acting as
your nurse, and all agreed to keep the secret of your father's
first marriage, as it seemed best. Your second mother indeed
kept her promise ; she watched over you well, but when you
were only ten years old God called her away, and two years
after your noble, generous father."

She paused, and Ernest, amid a conflict of emotions, ex-
claimed :

"And my grandmother, Cody — what became of her? I
think she's the noblest of them all."

"She never left you, sir," she said meekly; "she has tried to

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I897-] Degrees of Kindred. 333

bring you up and give you a mother's love and care ; but know-
ing that you were a gentleman, and she but an ignorant
woman, she has been content to serve you as just — Cody."

Ernest was speechless with astonishment at this revelation.
True, he loved this old woman, who had been so, kind to him;
but to think that she was his grandmother^ and to think that
he, who had held his head so high and bore every unmistaka-
ble mark of the gentleman, was after all at least half plebeian !
But these thoughts did not sadden him ; on the contrary, he
had loved Cody as a good, conscientious house-keeper; now he
revered her as a noble-hearted woman. Though of humble
birth, her nobility of mind called for admiration from the
greatest aristocrat, and Ernest was only too willing from that
moment to proclaim their degree of kindred ; but she implored
him not to do so.

•' If you have any regard for me, sir, let things go on as of
old. Tell Miss Berenice, of course, and the family \ but you
need not let the world know. I would not be comfortable in
any other position, and sure you always treated me as you
would a lady. Let me live with you and look after the house
for your sweet young wife as long as I am able, and when my
health fails me, I know you'll look after me."

All Ernest's persuasions were of no avail, and when he saw
that her happiness would be complete only in allowing her to
follow her inclinations, he yielded ; but he could not help show-
ing her more deference than usual, and told her in plain words
just what he thought of her.

" I don't believe another woman in the world would have
acted as unselfishly and nobly. How could you have treated
me with such respect as you have always shown, knowing all
the time that you were, if anything, very much above me?"

" Don't speak like that, dear," she said ; " I know your posi-
tion and I know mine. The only thing I ever felt hard was to
keep from calling you loving names, for you're almost my own
boy, you know, and I loved your mother so tenderly. I often
craved to show you my affection ; so now, perhaps, sometimes
you wouldn't mind if I just let my poor old heart go out to
you, as I have longed all these years."

Ernest was moved intensely, and bending his tall, manly
form over the dear old woman, he gave her such an embrace
that compensated for her long trial.

It was growing late, but Ernest could not think of retiring
without seeing Berenice. He found her seated on the veranda,

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334 Degrees of Kindred. [June,

enjoying the still, night air. She was suffering intensely ; her
first great cross had been laid upon her, and she was try-
ing to bear it patiently. The tempter would suggest that one
word from her would end the trial ; but she reasoned with her-
self that if she made this concession it might prove the first
step along the path that leads to sin.- She was summoning up
all her supernatural powers to strengthen her, and begging
divine assistance, when she heard a step behind her, and look-
ing up, she saw Ernest with a new light in his eyes and a
radiant smile playing on his lips.

" Berenice," he exclaimed, " I have something wonderful to
tell you ! Don't be alarmed,*' he continued, as he saw her pained
expression ; •' I won't ask you any more to go against your con-
science. I admire you all the more for the way you have act-
ed ; but you must listen to me, and then decide our future hap-
piness, for it lies in your power."

He repeated Cody's strange story, to which Berenice listened
with rapt attention.

It was growing so plain ; Ernest was no relation of hers,
then, after all, but a few words would establish a degree of
kindred that no man could dissolve. She could hardly realize
her happiness, and was somewhat surprised at the question put
by Ernest when he had told all.

" Does it make any difference, Berenice, that I am of such
humble origin ? "

'' I think it makes a great difference, Ernest," she answered ;
but seeing his troubled expression she added smiling : " Why,
you see it makes us no relation at all."

*' That is true," he said, relieved ; " but, Berenice, there is
no obstacle now to your marrying me, is there ? Tell me, dear,
for I long to end this suspense."

" No, Ernest, there is none," she replied.

The next day, when Mr. and Mrs. Alwyn returned, they
were simply amazed at the double intelligence that awaited
them. Ernest and Berenice had laughingly planned the an-
nouncement, and discussed which would disclose the secret, and
which secret would be disclosed first. They agreed amicably.
After luncheon Ernest made known his identity ; and, giving
Mrs. Alwyn a few moments for revival after the disappoint-
ment, he informed her of his engagement to Berenice and how
the whole story came to light. Mrs. Alwyn's equilibrium was
disturbed for once in her life. She acknowledged that it was a
most extraordinary affair to happen in her household; but she

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.1897-] . Degrees of Kindred^ 335

was sincerely happy at the turn of events. Leaving Ernest with
her husband to talk the matter over, she sought Berenice to
congratulate her, while she was heart-broken at the thought of
losing her. Berenice felt the separation keenly, but she was so
intensely happy in the dawn of love that no shadow rested up-
on her.

Cody was the heroine of the hour, and much contented she
was over the turn of events. All she asked was to renlain in
obscurity, and to serve Ernest and Berenice for the rest of
her life.

As Ernest was anxious to continue his travels, he wished the
wedding to take place quietly befpre they left the country
house ; but Mrs. Alwyn could not be persuaded to allow such
a thing. Berenice must have a suitable trousseau, and then
their town . house was so lovely (or a wedding. From all points
it seemed better to wait awhile ; so Ernest learned patience,
and Mrs. Alwyn's he^^rt was glad at the thought of the grand
wedding that she would give them.

It took place in due time, and even surpassed every one's
.expectations of what Mrs. Alwyn could do. The success of
the affair somewhat consoled her for the loss of Berenice, and
she complacently remarked to her dear friends that of course
Alice and Maude wpuld visit their cousin in London when
they were old enough to appreciate such an appalling advan-
tage.

Ernest and Berenice cared little for the grandeur of the
affair. They were glad when all was over and they were left
to themselves to enjoy each other's company, fully realizing how
great was the reward of their intended sacrifice.

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336 Personal Reminiscences of Isaac Butt. [June,

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF ISAAC BUTT.

BY WILLIAM O'BRIEN,
of the Irish Parliamentary Party,

HAT an age it seems since Isaac Butt was the
principal personage of the Irish race, and with
what swiftness the shadows of forgetfulness have
descended on the uninscribed grave in far-away
Stranorlar ! Yet barely twenty years have come
and gone since he had the Irish cause in his keeping. Those
of a younger time, dazzled by the success which the land crisis
of 1879-80 brought upon Mr. Parnell's leadership, sometimes
smile when I tell them Mr. Butt was, with the exception of
Mr. Gladstone, the only man of genius I ever had the privi-
lege of knowing.

parnell's policy.

Not that anything will ever tempt me to undervalue Mr.
Parnell's unrivalled gifts as a leader of men, and more es-
pecially as a daunter of Englishmen. •* I have come," said
Wendell Phillips once at one of Mr. Parnell's American
lectures, " to see the man that made John Bull listen." In
that power he had no equal. It is not too much to say that
he conquered Englishmen more effectually than if he had de-
feated them in half a dozen pitched battles in the field. And
it must always be remembered to his credit that, although
the famine of 1879-80 and Mr. Davitt's miracle-working Land
League gave Mr. Parnell the opportunity of a people's uprising
for their very lives, such as Mr. Butt in his torpid time never
had, Mr. Parnell had already, to a great extent, created the
opportunity for himself by making the bones of a dead Irish
party move in Westminster before ever the Irishtown meeting
sounded the trump of a general resurrection. Mr. Parnell suc-
ceeded by reason of his American qualities as a cool and hard
hitter. He was dealing with a power that never scrupled, and
he could be as merciless as his adversaries. He was capable to
an astonishing degree of sentiment, but he wasted none of it
on opponents. The Mother of Parliaments was to him a place
where two gangs of office-seekers, reeking with hypocrisy, cruelty,
and greed, would do as much or as little for Ireland as expert
Irish fighters could extort by throwing their swords into this
scale or that at critical moments, just as the price of their ser-

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I897-] Personal Reminiscences of Isaac Butt. 337

vices went up or down. Once the Liberal party, indeed, were
definitely pledged to Home Rule, he adopted a wholly differ-
ent attitude ; but it was first necessary to flog them out of their
coercionist heresies, and he was never troubled with the smallest
constitutional scruple as to anything except the feasibility of
the means for administering to them that wholesome discipline*

BUTT MORE A STATESMAN.
This view of the duty of a parliamentary leader was bitter-
ly antipathetic to Butt's whole mental constitution, which was
that of a deeply-read statesman saturated with the traditions
of English jurisprudence, and believing the fight to be one with
statesmen like himself, courteous as knights of chivalry and
animated with principles as lofty as those of Burke and Fox.
He was the worse practical Irish leader, but he lived on a men-
tal level on which none of his contemporaries in Parliament,
except Mr. Gladstone, could habitually dwell. Had he, as a
young man, entered Parliament with the full faith of an Irish
Nationalist, his would have been infallibly one of the greatest
names of the century. He spent his most golden years, on
the contrary, as a racketing young Tory, casting about for be-
liefs, and in the meantime dissipating his glorious gifts in a ca-
reer that left him an unbearable burden of debts and follies to
crush him in his old age. It was one of the services for which
the Irish cause is indebted to Fenianism that it was his rela-
tions with the victims of the Special Commissions of 1865-67
which kindled into a steady flame the Nationalist sympathies
that had always been flickering somewhere in his Tory speeches
or in his Trinity College essays. But he was already old, em-
barrassed, fettered in a thousand ways by his youthful errors ; and,
with the exception of gentle John Martin, he was the only man of
name with any power to restore life to a cause which was plunged
in apparently irrecoverable failure after the Fenian break-up.

THE LETHARGY WHEN BUTT BEGAN.

Those who are discouraged by the antics of a few turbulent
dissension-mongers at present have little conception of the
slumber of death that was on the country when Mr. Butt's first
Amnesty speeches broke on our ears. There were one or two
excellent Irishmen in Parliament — notably George Henry Moore
and John Francis Maguire — but any National programme had
no more to do with Irish elections, and still less, of course,
with English elections, than if the Irish cause, as well as its
captains, had been sentenced to death by Judge Keogh after
VOL. Lxv. — 22

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338 Personal Reminiscences of Isaac Butt. [June,

the rising of 1867. Middle-aged men shrank from the very
name of Nationalist as they would now from the name of An-
archist. An occasional funeral procession, if it is not paradoxical
to say so, was the one symptom of life in the country — that
and the interruption or total suppression by the popular voice
of any attempt at constitutional agitation. I remember as if it
were yesterday the suppression of the tenant-right meeting pro-
posed to be held by Sir John Gray and the late Dean O'Brien,
of Newcastle West, in the Limerick Corn-market. It was car-
ried out with superb audacity by Mr. John Daly, then a lithe
and handsome-looking youngster. He and his men took charge
of each speaker as he arrived at one gate of the Corn-market,
marched him through a double line of young men to the oppo-
site gate and conveyed him courteously but firmly outside.
One of Butt's most formidable difficulties was to get even a
hearing for his agitation from young men, deeply depressed, no
doubt, by the horrors and failures of the Fenian cycle, but
firmly determined to allow no revival of the Parliamentary agi-
tation of the old kind, which smelled to heaven.

One of his appeals for a trial remains very distinctly in my
memory. A banquet was being given to the first batch of am-
nestied Fenians in Hood's Hotel, in Great Brunswick Street,
Dublin. I was sent up by the Cork Herald^ a shy and inex-
perienced boy, completely overawed by the immensity of Dublin,
to report it. It turned out that it had been resolved to be
wiser in those dangerous times, to have no newspaper report
of the speeches ; but as a friend intimately known to the
famous John Nolan and Mr. P. F. Johnson, of Kanturk, who
were the organizers of the banquet, I was made personally wel-
come at the board. Butt had been engaged at the Four Courts
during the day in the trial of a man named Barrett for firing
at a Galway landlord, and the jury were sitting late to finish
the case. It was not until the dinner was over, and the speech-
making begun, that the great counsel arrived with the news
that he had been victorious and the prisoner acquitted. Flushed
with the triumph, he stood up to speak, and in a life of pretty
large experience I have never yet heard a more body-and-soul-
thrilling speech, with two exceptions — one being Captain Mac-
key's speech from the dock in Cork, when he had the very
judge in a flood of tears, and the other Mr. Gladstone's lion-
like *' flowing tide " speech the night the Home-Rule Bill of
1886 was beaten.

Butt's speech was almost wholly a plea to the released

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I897-] Personal Reminiscences of Isaac Butt. 339

Fenian leaders to give him a chance for trying other means.
He was argumentative, pathetic, passionate by turns; but the
passage that will always live in my memory was that in which,
in language actually blazing with the divine fire of eloquence,
he declared that, if the conciliatory methods he pleaded for
failed, he would not only give way to those who would lead
where all the nations of the free had gone before them, but
that, old as he was, his arm and his life would be at their ser-
vice in the venture. At John Nolan's suggestion I had taken
a note of the speech, and when the banquet was over I went
up to Mr. Butt to beg for permission to publish a speech with
which the blood ot everybody present was still tingling. He
was dismayed at the request. He said he had been told there
were to be no reporters present, and that the publication of
the speech would ruin all hope for his contemplated movement.
I told him that, of course, his wishes would be respected ; but
he continued to show so intense an anxiety on the subject that,
in order to completely reassure him, I threw my note-book into
the fire, where it peacefully burnt away. I thought then, as I
have often thought since, that there perished in the ashes not
only an interesting piece of history, but one of the most divine
outbursts of eloquence that ever left human lips. Some ru-
mors crept into the English papers that Mr. Butt had made
an extraordinary speech at the banquet, and the chief secretary
was asked a few nights afterwards in the House of Commons
what notice was to be taken of Mr. Butt's conduct as a queen's
counsel ; but, of course, there was no record of the speech,
and the matter went no further ; and the fact gave me some
comfort for returning to Cork empty-handed, after destroying
a note-book which would now be worth more than its weight
in gold.

FOUNDATION OF THE HOME-RULE MOVEMENT.

His difficulties in obtaining the assent of the extreme men
to any constitutional agitation had not yet been got over on
the night before the assembly of the great Home-Rule Con-
ference in the Rotunda in 1873, at which the Federal Home-
Rule movement was founded. On the previous night it was
still doubtful whether the conference- might not end as Dean
O'Brien's meeting in the Limerick Corn-market had ended. I
happened to be again a witness of a private consultation on
the subject between the leading men, who had come up from
the country to deliberate whether there ought to be any truce
with Parliamentary agitation. There can be no harm in saying
now that the most influential men among them were Mr. Joe

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340 Personal Reminiscences of Isaac Butt. [June,

Ronayne (the never-to-be-forgotten member for Cork); Mr. C-
G. Doran, of Queenstown ; Mr. Mat. Harris, of Ballinasloe ;
Mr. O'Connor Power, and Mr. John Walsh, of Middlesbro. I
cannot at this moment recall whether Mr. J. F. X. O'Brien
was of the party on that particular occasion, although I am
quite sure he was one of the most determined that, within cer-
tain limits, Mr. Butt's projects should have fair play. The
temper and large-minded patriotism displayed in that debate
were worthy of an occasion to which probably Ireland owes
the fact that all that has been achieved since by Mr. Butt, Mr.
Parnell, and Mr. Davitt was ever attempted. Mr. Butt assented
readily to the qualifications with which his movement was to
have free fling, and when Mr. O'Connor Power got up in Mr.
Butt's support the next day from the midst of the little g^oup
who represented the Extreme Left of the conference, a sigh of
relief went through the cognoscenti^ who knew what a cloud
hung over the birth of the movement.

But to the end, barring the one glorious month of the
Kerry election, Butt's movement never caught the popular
imagination. No public Home-Rule demonstration was ever
held in any of the great towns of Ireland outside Limerick;
and there we are painfully familiar with the conflict at the
O'Connell statue, where again John Daly bore a daring, if not
judicious, part. But Isaac Butt was beloved in Limerick with
a passion which he experienced nowhere else in Ireland. In
the old Farmers' Club, in which Mr. W. H. O'Sullivan, Mr.
William Bolster, Mr. Mat. O'Flaherty, Mr. Joe Gubbins, and
many more who have passed into the silent land (Mr. John
Finucane, M.P., is almost the only survivor of the genial band).
Butt had unflinching allies, and Mr. Henry O'Shea, the secre-
tary of the famous Butt Election Committee, which survived
Butt's leadership and even life, and Mr. John Ellard, the town
clerk, among the city men were always of the number of his
fastest friends, as indeed was John Daly, whom I have heard
sing " The West's Awake " (as nobody better can) in his con-
vivial presence. Dear old Father Quaid, of O'Callaghan's Mills,
quaint and melodious of tongue as if the Norman had never
set foot on the soil of Clare, was, I think, the only Irish priest
ever seen on his platforms. He, too, is gone, and his thunder-
ing denunciations of the Saxon are long since silent.

Butt had to return year after year with a melancholy story
of nothing accomplished ; and to the troubles of an apathetic
country and a worthless party he added embarrassments of his.

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i897«] Personal Reminiscences of Isaac Butt. 341

own which were sometimes tragi-comical. Once, when he had
arrived in Limerick to prepare for his election, it was ascer-
tained that there were bailiffs watching in front of his hotel to
arrest him. He had to be spirited away out of the city by back
ways, and arrived safely in Killaloe in the evening. The people
of Killaloe hearing of his presence, and little guessing the cause,
brought out the band and lighted a tar-barrel in front of his
hotel, and were clamoring for a speech when word arrived that
the bailiffs were again in pursuit, and he had to quit Killaloe
and its awkward hospitalities once more in the darkness, flying
from the ghosts of his youth.

BUTT'S DEPOSITION.

An uninterested country was, of course, represented by a
valueless party — the queerest amalgam of Tory country gentle-
men like King Harman, raging at the disestablishment of the
church, and placemen of all stripes and whimsies. Nobody could
have made much of such materials. Butt was, in addition, an
old man suffering from disease of the heart and from incessant
pecuniary tortures ; and, while he found little sympathy in his
own ranks or in his own country, was petted and genuinely ad-
mired in the great assembly which was for him peopled with a
thousand spirits of the mighty dead. The fact, which appears to
be certain, that he rejected the offer of the chief-justiceship of
Ireland at a moment when scores of bill-discounters were on
his track, is sufficient proof of the incorruptibility of his
policy. But his policy had no single element of hope in it.
When he stigmatized Mr. Parnell's steady and remorseless
tactics of obstruction as " the policy of exasperation," he hit
upon the precise quality which recommended itself to the Irish
people and impressed English opponents. His deposition from
the leadership was as inevitable as the Fate of a Greek play, and
as tragic. I was present as a newspaper man the day on
which the Home-Rule Confederation of Great Britain, at their
annual convention in Liverpool, elected Mr. Parnell in his
place. I remember so well the cheery face of the splendid old
gentleman, as he afterwards sat at dinner at the Adelphi Hotel
with the men who had defeated him, and chatted gaily with
them. I remember also the pathetic close of that dinner when
the lost leader departed alone to take the train for London,
while the new men were preparing for a great evening demon-
stration in some large public hall in celebration of their
triumph. One other scene — the last in which I saw him^-

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342 Personal Reminiscences of Isaac Butt. [June.

lingers sadly in my memory. It was the final tussle in the
Home-Rule League in the Molesworth Street Hall in Dublin, in
which Butt was for the first time beaten by a narrow majority
by Messrs. Parnell, Biggar, and Dillon. Who that heard him can
ever forget the bowed and broken old man's heart-breaking
appeal to give him back again the days when he had a united
xountry behind him ? Ireland is woefully rich in such tragedies.

HIS END.

The process by which Mr. Parnell, in his last tragic days,
went through a similar ordeal in his turn, was not more pitiful.
Those who deposed Mr. Butt were absolutely and inevitably in
the right ; but the pity of it — the stooped shoulders, the genial
old face, the vast arched forehead with the rings of silver Tiair
tossing about it, the voice in which you heard the last rattle of
dying genius ! There was this happy difference between the
scene in the Molesworth Street Hall and the scene in Committee
Room No 15: that the people's parting with their leader was
effected without the slightest trace of the hideous personalities
that will make the latter scene eternally disgraceful in Irish
recollection. The thing had to be done ; but it was done sor-
rowfully and cleanly — by a surgeon, and not by a drunken
butcher. I saw Butt carry on a genial chat with John Dillon,
just after the latter had spoken the last word against h:s leader-
ship ; and if my memory does not deceive me, I think it was
the arm of his victorious successor, Mr. Parnell, the great old
fellow took in leaving the hall, with the glorious courage of the
days of chivalry. I never saw Butt again. Many months after-
wards the first paragraph of the Daily News, picked up in Naples,
announced to me that Mr. Butt was dead ; and before I reached
Ireland he was already sleeping in his quiet Donegal church-
yard — not very much remembered, perhaps, amidst the fever
into which the Irishtown meeting was already throwing the
country. The Irish heart, however, is a merciful and loving
heart, whatever passing gusts of passion may blow over it ; and
as time goes on, I have no doubt Irishmen will more and more
fondly treasure the memory of a man who failed in life by the
very exuberance of his Irish qualities of geniality, recklessness,
and softness ; but who has left undying evidence of his genius
and patriotism in the foundation of the movement which others
in more fortunate times built up to such a wondrous height,
and in which another evil turn of fate has in these later years
wrought such woeful havoc.

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Rev. Mother Mary Catherine (Sacred White Buffalo) founded the first
Indian Religious Order.

NATIVE INDIAN VOCATIONS.

; HEN the Apostles went forth from Jerusalem to
convert all races and nations they established,
in every place they visited, a native church,
governed by a native hierarchy and clergy.
• This seemed the most important and necessary
part of their work, as it was evident that no race or nation
would receive or retain the faith if it seemed to them a foreign
institution.

The church, in all ages, has always followed this practice of
the Apostles, and has always believed that, without it, success
w^ould not be possible.

Our Holy Father, Leo XIII., says in his encyclical on the

Note. — We appreciate the fact that the publication of this article will stir up opposition
and provoke discussion. To secure the latter result is reason enough for publishing it.— Ed.
Catholic World Magazine.

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344 Native Indian Vocations. [June,

church in India : " The Catholic faith in the Indies will never
have a sure defence, its propagation in the future will not be
sufficiently guaranteed, as long as there is a lack of ministers
chosen from the natives of the country."

AN ENLIGHTENED COMMENTATOR ON THIS ENCYCLICAL.

*' Of course it is necessary that the seed be first sown by
the hand of the foreign missionary, but at the same time it
must not be forgotten that the work of the Christianizing
apostle is necessarily only initiative, and when the first transi-
tion period has passed, the sooner the foreign aspect of mis-
sionary work ceases to be visible the better it will be for the
interests of religion. While the natives are debarred from the
ministry, the church must needs be to them an alien institution.
The heathen may look up to the new religion in a dreamy
fashion, but he never experiences the invigorating effects of
warm contact with it. The European missionaries have failed
to acquire the nicer touches that go right home to the heart
of the heathen, so long accustomed to his own peculiar life,
language, and manners. There is an indefinable something
between the foreign missionary and the native that makes a
genuine rapprochement next to impossible. The Apostles well
understood this principle, as the Pope points out in his letter.
They ordained priests and established bishops in the places
which they visited, without much show of lengthy preparation.
It seemed, at times, that the natives who were set up to teach
the way of salvation could have only scant acquaintance with
the doctrines of Christ's religion ; but they were prepared to
meet their people on their own plane, and to satisfy their de-
mands in the most effectual manner. The disastrous conse-
quences of a contrary policy are manifested by the unsatisfactory
condition of Catholic missions during the past few centuries,
and the difficulties that oppose missionary effort at the present
day. The constitution of the church demands the establishment
of bishops and diocesan clergy. This has been the law and
practice from the beginning, and it has been sanctioned by
abundant fruits. To-day, in foreign countries, especially where
bisHops or vicars-apostolic are not invariably chosen from reli-
gious orders, there is evidence of renewed efforts at forming a
native priesthood ; but we sometimes think that if the Apostles
were at work in missionary countries to-day, they would estab-
lish, not only native priests but also native bishops. The hope
of the progress of the church in missionary countries depends

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i897-] Native Indian Vocations. 345

on how this appeal of the Pope will be answered. None of
the force and appositeness of the lesson is lost when it is
applied to the church in America."

WITH THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

With one race, our American Indians, the practice of the
Apostles and of the church has not been followed. For four
centuries the missionaries of the church have labored among
the Indians. The church has employed in the work a number
of missionaries, and expended an amount of money greatly
needed among the white race in every part of our country,
where the establishment of priests, parishes, and Catholic
institutions would have produced abundant fruits, and insured
the progress of the church. For three centuries the European
governments that ruled the colonies also expended large amounts
of money upon the missions, and for the last century the
government of the United States has every year appropriated
for Indian civilization an immense sum, a large part of which
was given in later years to Catholic schools, and which, if
applied elsewhere, would greatly relieve the financial troubles
of our times. But so great an expenditure of time, labor, and
means has not produced satisfactory results ; a native clergy
has not yet been established, the great mass of the Indians are
not yet Catholic ; they are still in a dependent state of transi-
tion, and their conversion and civilization seem as distant as ever.

All missionaries agree that the establishment of a native
clergy, had it been possible, would have produced the most
satisfactory results, and it has been evident from the beginning
that without it success would not be possible. Why, then, was
this practice of the church not followed among the Indians?

IN THE BEGINNING A NATIVE CLERGY NOT FAVORED.

We know that the plans of the first Indian missions did not
provide for the establishment of a native clergy, as the mis-
sionaries began by assuming rashly and without due investiga-
tion, as it seems to us now, that the Indians were, and would
be for generations, unfit for such a degree of progress. From
the beginning of the missions all seems to have depended upon
the question whether the Indians were primitive savages, " too
near nature to live a supernatural life," or whether they had,
like some other races, retained from a former civilization relig-
ious and philosophical systems that gave them a certain degree
of mental and moral development.

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346 Native If/DiAH Vocations, [June,

Although some missionaries certainly saw, everywhere, much
that should have led them at least to suspect and further in-
vestigate the existence of such systems, they unfortunately did
not take pains to examine a question upon which so much de-
pended, but assumed, as their records tell us, that if any such
systems really existed they were too savage and pagan to per-
mit mental and moral development, and were, perhaps, even of
Satanic origin. One later missionary has said : " In this respect
the Eastern nations are naturally better fitted for higher stud-
ies. Many of them have inherited a certain degree of civiliza-
tion. Their religious and philosophical systems leave more
or less a mark on all classes of the population." Here, it
would seem, no mistake should be possible, as it was and is a
question of fact, open to investigation. It is true that the In-
dians, indignant at seeing their customs misunderstood, adopted
a " discipline of the secret," similar to that of the early Chris-
tians. But even this should have shown the imprudence of
forming a theory without proper investigation. It is to be re-
gretted that missionaries, whose work as explorers has merited
the gratitude of later times, did not realize how much greater
services they might have rendered in the unexplored regions of
history and ethnology, while customs, systems, and traditions, of
which a remnant only now remains, were still within their
reach. But far more important to the church and its missions
•than the most interesting historical or ethnological discoveries
would have been the proof that the Indians were better pre-
pared for the establishment of a native clergy than many of
the races and nations for whom the Apostles *' ordained priests
and established bishops, without much show of lengthy prepara-
tion." This they certainly would have found. Even now,
though the general breaking up of customs and traditions has
left only the ruins of the past, enough remains to prove that,
at the same period when the ancestors of races now Christian
were, as history tells us, savage pagans, the ancestors of the
Indians knew and worshipped the true God, and had religious
and philosophical systems far superior to those of the early-
nations of Europe.

INDIANS FITTED BY PREVIOUS CIVILIZATION.

The earliest traditions of the Indians speak of a high de-
gree of civilization. They mention philosophical systems free
from many of the absurdities of those of other races. Their
earliest religious system seems to have been superior in many

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1 897-] Native Indian Vocations. 347

ways to those of the early nations of Europe. Its later tradi-
tions tell of the Trinity, the Incarnation and Redemption, sac-
raments, divine vocation, a celibate priesthood, a hierarchy, and
religious communities like those of the church. There are tra-
ditions of still later teachers who were certainly Christian,
and who seem, by comparing the dates of Indian tradition
with those of history, to have been identical with Brendan and
Eric Upsi. The " sacred virgins " lived in community like the
religious of the church, or met in community like those of the
church in the first ages ; were bound by vows of poverty, chas-
tity, and obedience, and were ruled by superiors elected by
themselves or appointed by the priesthood. The hierarchy,
priesthood, and " sacred virgins " were supposed to be chosen
and called by God, in some cases at a very early age, and were
expected to, and invariably did, persevere in their vocation un-
til death. Their state of life required all the talent and virtue
required by the church, and perseverance in it must have Re-
quired even greater natural strength of character than we sup-
pose necessary for vocation, since, if not Christian, it could not
have possessed all the helps provided by the church.

Something of this the early missionaries saw, even among
the tribes they thought most barbarous ; and what they found
in some localities led them at first to believe that St. Thomas,
or some other apostle or bishop, might have been among the
Indians. They knew that it was the practice of the Apostles
and their immediate successors to ordain priests and establish
bishops in the places which they visited, and it is not impossi-
ble that further investigations might have discovered the re-
mains, however imperfect, of an American church dating from
apostolic times. But, unfortunately, the missionaries did not
enter America as St. Augustin entered Britain, as the envoys
of Rome, but as the subjects of foreign, though Catholic,
rulers ; and therefore, when the presence and acts of white ad-
venturers and settlers interfered for a time with investigation,
as histpry relates, the missionaries unfortunately looked no fur-
ther, but decided that " the devil must have invented this imi-
tation of Christianity, to keep the natives from the true church,"

BUT THE FIRST MISSIONARIES CAME REPRESENTING AS MUCH
A CIVIL POWER AS A SPIRITUAL KINGDOM.

The investigations of later times have proved that from a
very early period the Indians knew and worshipped the true
God, and were better prepared for the establishment of a native

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348 Native Indian Vocations. [June,

clergy than many of those nations among whom a native hier-
archy and clergy were established soon after their conversion.
It is certain that bishops visited the Indians, and remained
among them for some time, in the sixth and in the twelfth cen-
turies. Sufficient evidence has not yet been drawn from the
dust of ages, and the ruins of Indian customs and traditions, to
prove clearly that these bishops actually established among the
Indians a Catholic hierarchy and priesthood, or found among
them such an establishment dating from apostolic times, though
this seems to have been at least possible. Enough, however, has
been found to prove that whatever may have been the origin
of the religious and philosophical systems of the Indians, such
systems certainly existed, and were superior to those of the
early nations of Europe, and had prepared the Indians for the
establishment of a native clergy.

The fact that missionaries made no real attempt to investi-
gate will account for many of their statements as to beliefs
and customs which proper investigation, as we now know, would
have placed in a different light. If intelligent people in our
own times can witness Catholic customs, and yet honestly be-
lieve all manner of absurdities as to their meaning, we need
not be surprised to see that intelligent men, in a more credu*
lous age, were as easily deceived as to the customs of a race sup-
posed to be pagan and savage.

But four centuries have passed since then ; races no more,
and, in some cases, less capable than the Indians, have now
their native clergy; the mistakes of less favored centuries are
being everywhere corrected by the progress of our enlightened
age ; and it would seem that now, at least, some efforts might
be made to establish a native clergy among our Indians,
even if for any reason it was not thought possible in earlier
times.

MISSIONARIES TO-DAY ARE SCEPTICAL.

In 1 891 this was suggested to all the missionaries, upon whom
the establishment of a native clergy seems to depend. They re-
plied that it was still, and would be for generations, impossible.
They gave as their reasons, first, unfavorable influences and en-
vironment ; and lastly, the alleged character of the Indians. As
these reasons are not supported by facts, it is evident that a
mistake has been made, and it is clear that the honor and in-
terests of the church require that such a mistake be corrected
without further delay.

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The first of these reasons are as follows : " Lack of prelimi-
nary civilization." " Thus it takes more time to civilize them."
" In every instance white settlers or the governments interfered

Congregation of American Sisters at Fort Berthold Agency.

with and interrupted the work of the missionaries, so that we
are unable to form a judgment upon what might have hap-
pened if the church had been at work for four centuries.**
" Not evangelized for a length of time necessary to fit a tribe
to give one of their own to the priesthood, /. e,, seventy-five
years at least." '*The reservation system is unfavorable to vo-
cations." "Christianity is too new among them to produce the
crowning fruit of vocations to the priesthood. If we consider
the scarcity of such vocations among our so-called native Ameri-
cans, so that they mostly prosper only in families of solid and
sound Christian home-traditions brought over from the old coun-
tries, we need not be surprised to experience something similar
among the Indians."

Even if the influences and environment were as unfavorable
as missionaries seem to believe, we know that from the begin-
ning of the church such influences and environment were not

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350 Native Indian Vocations. [June,

considered sufficient to prevent vocations, and, in view of the
practice and experience of the church among other races, it is
evident that they were not, and are not now, by any means
sufficient to excuse the failure to make at least a fair and con-
tinued effort. But well-known facts prove that conditions were
never so unfavorable. There never was, and never will be, in
any age or among any people, a period, however brief, without
opposition and interruption to progress. There is scarcely in
the whole history of the church a race or nation where as great,
or even greater, difficulties did not exist than have been found
among the Indians. Success is ever due, not to the absence
of difficulties, but to energy, skill, and perseverance in over-
coming them. The last reason quoted, especially, is contradicted
by well-known facts, and only serves to prove, as the encyclical
of Leo XIII. points out, the danger of entrusting anywhere, to
a foreign clergy, the spiritual direction of those whose character
and environment none but natives can rightly understand.
"Our so-called native Americans," and especially our Ameri-
can clergy, whose vocations were developed in the piety and
patriotism of American homes, will be somewhat surprised to
hear that such vocations must have a foreign origin, and
that the case of the Indians is similar to that of white
Americans.

It is true that the work of missionaries among the Indians
was sometimes opposed and interrupted, but such opposition
was never serious enough, and such interruption never lasted
long enough, to entirely prevent their work. The California mis-
sions, for instance, were not only under the spiritual, but even
the temporal direction and control of religious orders, from 1679
to 1824, with an interruption of only a few months in 1768.
When they lost the temporal control in 1824, they still retained
the full spiritual direction until 1840. On these missions, at
least, they could have created any conditions, they desired, and
from 1679 to 1840 they had full liberty, and every possible op-
portunity, to attempt the establishment of a native clergy. If
it be true that this could be done in seventy-five years, as
missionaries state, surely the time from 1679 to 1840 should
have been sufficient. But no attempt was made. The allot-
ment of missions to different religious denominations, linder
the " Peace Policy," may have delayed the work of some
missions, but did not continue long enough to destroy the
work entirely, as in a few years these missions were again pro-
vided with Catholic pastors. Even under the " Peace Policy "

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some missions, at least, were under Catholic direction, and in
these missionaries always had the opportunity, had they wished
to use it.

ENVIRONMENT UNFAVORABLE.

When missionaries complain of unfavorable influences and en-
vironment, it means that they wish to have the Indians in Catho-
lic settlements entirely under the temporal as well as the spiri-
tual direction of missionaries, as in the California missions.
This has never, for any other race, been considered necessary.
It is now impossible, and, even if it were possible, it would
scarcely be advisable, as experience has proved that, wherever
it was formerly done, the plans of such settlements provided for
keeping the Indians in a dependent condition, under foreign
missionary direction ; and did not, at any time, provide for the
establishment of a native clergy, and native direction of the
missions. It has been believed, in later times, that if mission-
aries could again have the full direction of such settlements,
they would profit by experience, and conduct them according
to the policy of the church. It even seemed, for a time, that
they might be willing to admit Indians to .their religious or-
ders. When government established the reservation system, it
seemed for a time that, though it never interfered with voca-
tions, the manner in which it was conducted tended to perpe-
tuate, rather than end, the transition state of the Indians. But
later developments have placed the matter in a different light.
Missionaries have not profited by experience, and, as their own
statements show, are more than ever opposed to Indian voca-
tions, while the Indian Department of the government has now
adopted a policy similar to that of the church, and offers to
Indians any position they are found capable of holding. In-
dians are employed as teachers in government schools, and are
encouraged in every way to aid in the civilization of their race.
It IS the interest and policy of the government to protect In-
dian vocations, and it never would permit any to interfere with
them. The difficulties, therefore, attributed to unfavorable in-
fluences and environment have never been sufficient to prevent
vocations, and, in our times especially, every opportunity is
given to missionaries to carry out the policy of the church, if
they wish to do so.

INDIAN CHARACTER TOO UNSTABLE.

The first reasons given by missionaries suppose that, under
favorable conditions, Indians could be prepared to form a native

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352 Native Indian Vocations. [June,

clergy; but their other reasons, taken from the alleged charac-
ter of the Indians, suppose this to be impossible, even under
favorable conditions. The last reasons are as follows : '' The
Indian is a child." " His character is unstable." " His moral
fibre is not sturdy enough to endure prolonged sacrifices."
''His ideas are gross, and his sentiments are not refined."
" He is too near nature to live a supernatural life." " Want of
spirituality." " Inconstancy of will and purpose." " Could
not observe celibacy." " Their dull understanding and savage
nature, which they retain to the last, are the causes why they
cannot reach the required knowledge, not only for the priest-
hood, but even to be employed as clerks in a store."

But the same missionaries do not seem to be sure that their
reasons are well founded. They say again : " It is not the want
of talent that prevents the Indians from becoming priests."
"They are often endowed with talents above mediocrity." "I
was under the impression that Indians could never learn philo-
sophy or theology, but one of the fathers at De Smet gives as
his opinion that it is not so, and that some Indians are as
capable as any white people of learning the higher branches
of education." "There is no fault of the Indian. Our natives,
although deficient in spirituality, can be educated and trained
properly for the priesthood. Of course it will require many
years yet before we will be able to recruit our clergy among
the aborigines, but the fact of their aptitude for spirituality,
when properly directed and governed, cannot be put in doubt."

The records of the early missions also say of Catholic In-
dians : " Our Indian converts are far above the ordinary grade
of Christians." " Christians eminent for piety." " Men worthy
of the brightest days of the church." One "the missionaries
invoked after his death." Another " enjoyed in life and death
the reputation of a saint." "In their families piety was hered-
itary." " Few missionaries made more converts." " Several
bore military grades in the French service." " The Catholic
Indians sided with the Americans." " Numbers joined the army
of the Revolution, and several bore commissions which they
ennobled by their virtues and bravery." " They were brave
warriors and devoted Christians." It would be difficult to give
higher praise to converts of any race, and yet the same mission-
aries who made these statements never seemed to realize that,
if these were true, their theory of Indian character could not
be correct. Besides the testimony of missionaries, we have that
of men selected for their ability and fairness to study the In-

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i897-] Native Indian Vocations. 353

dian character, with a view to the solution of the troublesome
and expensive " Indian Problem." Their evidence would seem
to show that Indians have none of the savage traits asserted
and even an excess of the moral qualities doubted by mission-
aries. They say : " For their own interest in this world their
character has too much of the moral element in it, and their
nature is too sincere." " In moral qualities and worth many
of them are the peers of white men anywhere : brave, frank,
manly, public-spirited, and honorable* They do not need pity.
They are worthy of respect, and of a fair chance and start in
life. But they are lacking in sharpness of fang and length of
claw. They have not enough of the beast or the savage in
them to make them successful in the struggle for existence
with the civilized white men of our country. They are too
honest and conscientious, and have too high a moral endowment
and development, for a prosperous life in the environment that
awaits them." "The Indians generally have never had, have
not now, and are not likely ever to have, what would be half a
fair chance or just opportunity for any class gf people."

REASONS AGAINST NATIVE INDIAN VOCATIONS NOT SUPPORTED

BY FACTS.

This conflicting testimony of the missionaries, together with
the statements of others who have studied the Indian character,
and the fact that for four centuries missionaries have not, as
they themselves admit, made a proper effort to give the Indians
" half a fair chance or just opportunity " to test so important
a matter, would seem to show that the reasons given by mis-
sionaries against Indian vocations are not supported by facts.

It therefore seems evident that there is truly " no fault of
the Indians," and that while they have the same necessary qual-
ities as any other race, requiring only the same training and
development necessary even for the white race, they are not
"educated and trained properly for the priesthood," nor "prop-
erly directed and governed," simply because the missionaries,
upon whom their vocations seem to depend, ace perpetuating
a mistake, for which there can no longer be any excuse. There
can be no doubt that the result would be the same among all
other races, if their directors adopted a similar theory, and car-
ried it out in the same way. Such a mistake would not be
possible if the missionaries would prefer the wisdom and expe-
rience of the church to a theory rashly adopted and opposed
to facts. We see something similar, though not carried quite
VOL. Lxv. — 23

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354 Native Indian Vocations. [June,

so far, in Japan, China, and India. In those countries the mis-
sionaries supposed the natives capable of becoming priests and
sisters, but only under the control of foreign missionaries.
They therefore have, in some localities, a native clergy. But
although the native priests are evidently capable of directing
the missions, a native hierarchy has never been established, and
the " foreign aspect of missionary work " is still retained, though
the disastrous consequences of such a system compel the Pope
to demand a change. It is easy to see what must be the con-
sequences to religion in any country where such a policy is
continued. Much has been written about the ruin of the early
Indian missions; but it is evident that the Indians of those
missions would have been well prepared to meet the changes,
to which the ruin of the missions is commonly attributed, if
the limit of their capability, rightly developed, instead of the
arbitrary limit of a theory, had been fixed as the measure of
their progress.

VOCATIONS INDEED NUMEROUS.
•
But though the missionaries have never encouraged their
converts to rise above the path of the precepts, many have, of
their own accord, followed the counsels, and aspired to the
highest perfection. Many aspired to the priesthood, and many
Indian women wished to enter the communities of the white
sisters whom they had seen. The missionaries, fearing that they
would fail, did not permit them to try. Among these, Catharine
Tekakwitha, with several others, wished to found a community
of Indian sisters, but her plan was condemned as impracticable.
Others, like Mary of the Kaskaskias, whose vocation and perse-
verance seem to have been too well proved to be doubted, were
prevented from entering the religious state because the mis-
sionaries were too easily intimidated by the brutal white element
of the frontier, and feared trouble for the missions if they en-
couraged the aspirants. A very few, however, did, after long
delays and many trials, succeed in obtaining admission into
communities of white sisters, where they persevered faithfully
until death. In our own times, though the theory and practice
of missionaries are even less favorable to Indian vocations than
in the early period of the missions, a few Indian girls have been
received among the white sisters in Canada. In 1883 one priest
of Indian ancestry was ordained in the United States, but he
had not been reared among the Indians, or regarded as an
Indian. Since then two Indians, one a full-blood, Rev. J. De

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1897-] Native Indian Vocations. 355

Gonzagues, and one a mixed-blood, Rev. Edward Cunningham,
were ordained in Canada, and a few girls, of mixed white and
Indian blood, were received in convents in the United States.
In 1891 Rev. Mother Mary Catharine Sacred-White-Buffalo, a
full-blood Indian, the daughter of Crow Feather, a war-chief
of the Dakotas, founded the first Indian religious order, the Con-
gregation of American Sisters, at Fort Berthold Agency, North
Dakota. Rev. Mother Catharine died before the altar, in the
chapel of her convent, in May, 1893. Rev. Mother M. Liguori
Sound-of-the.flying-lance, a full-blood Indian, the daughter of
Chief White Deer, is now the prioress-general of the congrega-
tion. Not one of the Indian sisters of the early missions, or of
the Indian priests and sisters of our own times, has failed to
persevere, and their influence over their people, whenever they
were permitted to use it, has always been far greater than that
of the white missionaries.

If, then, the Indians themselves could reverse an established
policy, and could do so much under unfavorable conditions,
without encouragement and without aid or permission, other
than that forced by their constancy and courage from pre-
judiced and doubting directors, it certainly proves how much
more might be done, without opposition, and with the same
liberty, encouragement, and aid thought necessary for the white
race. If missionaries will now let it be generally known among
the Indians that they will sincerely encourage Indian vocations,
and will give to Indian aspirants the same care and advantages
thought necessary for those of the white race, there will soon
be an Indian clergy and Indian sisters in every part of the
missions. If it is not done, all must admit that it is not fair
and just to place the blame upon the Indians.

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356 Dante's Theory OF Papal Politics. [June,

DANTE'S THEORY OF PAPAL POLITICS.

BY REV. GEORGE McDERMOT, C.S.P.

•HE world is familiar enough with the great
Florentine's name as author of the Divina
Commedia, and to some extent is acquainted with
the circumstances of his life and the political
opinions he seems to have espoused. There is,
however, a great deal of obscurity surrounding the formation of
Dante's political opinions. What they were, at least from the
time of his exile, may be expressed by saying that he belonged to
the Ghibelline party, but whence he derived these opinions, what
processes of thought had taken place in changing the patriotic
son of an Italian city to a politician who looked to a foreign
power for the regeneration of Italy, in changing a republican
to the literary gladiator of an emperor, and in producing in the
mind of an earnest Catholic the conviction, or what has all the
appearance of the conviction, that there should be a total
separation of the authority of the church and the state in the
sense of absolutely divorced jurisdictions ; that the German em-
peror was to wield the secular authority over the area called the
Roman Empire in the same way as Trajan wielded it, and that
the pope should exercise the spiritual jurisdiction which St.
Evaristus exercised when Trajan issued his famous rule concern-
ing the Christians, " Conquerendi non sunt : si deferantur et
arguantur puniendi sunt," are what I shall try to point out
in this paper.

DANTE'S WORDS MISINTERPRETED.

I take Dante's own words as the key to his meaning of the
limits within which the secular and*spiritual powers should act.
I am not so much concerned now with the use Protestants and
Italian revolutionists have made of his views concerning the
spheres of jurisdiction, but he really identifies the German
Empire with that of Trajan.* And he does so as the basis of
his argument that the pope should exercise no temporal juris-
diction. Nor is it to be said that the discussion of this matter
is so purely academical as to be of no value to the general
reader. I venture to say that there is not an enemy of the
temporal sovereignty since the Renaissance who has not fortified

^ De Monorchia,

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i897-] Dante's Theory of Papal Politics. 357

himself from the great Catholic poem, so sound in its doctrine;
and the rather crude treatise On Monarchy, so speculative and
inconsequent that it proves that Dante had very little of the
quality of constructive statesmanship. Yet it is quite possible,
despite faults of temper and the intensity of local prejudice,
that this great genius under favorable circumstances would have
accomplished remarkable work in the regeneration and advance-
ment of Italy. The completeness with which he identified
himself with Caesarism showed that prejudice was intense but
not ineradicable, but passion in pursuing the new policy took
the place of prejudice. Whatever politics he might for the
time adopt, he would express with the fire of conviction and
defend with the zeal of fanaticism. He had the training to
politics which every one possessed in an Italian republic of
the middle ages. If there be any reason in the opinion that
any Athenian in the time of the great orators enjoyed, in a
way, all the advantages a man would now derive from an
education at Oxford, and afterwards from serving on com-
mittees of the House of Commons — and I think there is some
degree of reason in it — it is just as likely that any citizen
of Florence would acquire in the course of his boyhood and
early manhood an acquaintance with civic and national politics
in the same way that the ordinary citizen of New York learns
the needs of this city and this country.

INNER LIFE OF AN ITALIAN CITY.

There is great confusion in the accounts of the parties in
.Florence in Dante's early days ; but behind it all one finds
that the tendency among the distracted elements is to a fusion
in the Guelph party, with which, looking across the space of
nearly seven centuries and judging fairly and dispassionately,
I consider the real interest of the city was identified. In his
exile Dante had the conflicts of Cerchi and Donati, Neri and
Bianchi before him, and bitterly remembered what they had
cost him. It is more than conceivable that anywhere else in
Italy, whether he was spending his exile with Cane della Scala
of the family of the Great Dog, or with Guido da Polenta, the
father of that hapless Francesca whose story we are told, in the
fifth canto of the Inferno^ in lines whose delicacy and pathos
have subdued every reader, and for which they stand alone in
the whole range of literature — indeed, there is nothing like to
them : sad as the eternal fate of the guilty child of passion that
they tell, harmonious in the roll of the numbers as the sea on

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358 Dante's Theory of Papal Politics. [June,

a distant strand, or the forest when the night wind sends a
soul among the branches ; just as the heavens that saw the sin
and almost unjust in his pity in measuring the temptation; —
but, as I have been saying, no matter where Dante was staying
in his wanderings, let it be with Guido, Francesca's father, or
with whomsoever else, his mind went back momentarily to
Florence and its factions: to this man who had distinguished
himself by hostility to him while in exile, to that one who had
burned his house, to the next who had entered into possession
of his property, to all who had joined in his condemnation and
dishonor. One even now has no difficulty in conjuring up the
idea of a conflict in the streets between Neri and Bianchi ; and
surely Dante can be supposed more than equal to this task
with his power of imagination and the intense bitterness of his
feelings. The fact is, he was for ever brooding over his wrongs ;
but in the poet's creative power the acrid sensation of these
expanded from the exile's particular and local recollections to
considerations, sympathies, motives, moods that were ideal and
universal. An injury done him by a faction in his native town —
not greater, nay less, than the injuries done to many others in
these turmoils — ^was the seed of the great policy of imperialism
which became a tradition in Germany under Catholic emperors,
and was assumed in the new empire of the Electors of Branden-
burg until Bismarck's Canossa exploded the insolent pretension.
Nor in what has been said can it be suggested that a poor
estimate is presented of the powers of Dante. I at once say, for
what my opinion is worth, that Homer alone surpasses him,
that he is superior to Virgil, his guide, and to Milton, with whom
he can be instructively compared on account of the many views
in which they are seen to approach and resemble each other, as
well as the points in which they diifer and the lines along
which they recede from each other.

POLITICS AN ABSORBING TOPIC.

It can be understood that a habit of political opinion was
unconsciously formed in the Italian republics by even the low-
est of the people ; but this was very like the guild politics of
a French town under the princes of the house of Valois. Or-
dinarily in the latter case it did not go beyond the craft, in
the former beyond the party league, which seems to be very
well revived, so far as I can form a judgment, in American
ward politics. But above the lower people was the class which
came in France to be called the bourgeoisie, composed of

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I897-] Dante's Theory of Papal Politics. 359

wealthy and educated citizens, and this produced an abundance
of political talent at all times. The wealth of talent for ad-
ministration one finds in every part of Italy is amazing ; it is
in all directions through the peninsula, as if it were a natural
gift of the people ; it is not confined to the cities ; the very
nobles in inaccessible castles possessed it at a time that in
France or Germany or England a great king or a great states-
man made an epoch ; at a time when French nobles lived like
Turks, with a veneer of Christianity under the name of chivalry ;
when German nobles occupied robber holds commanding high-
way and water-way; when English and Scotch nobles fought
each other day and night, at feast, at chase, at bridal or burial.
The apparent absence of this gift in Dante in its practical
form is conspicuous; nor can it be explained by the irritable
nature attributed to poets — that is, the sensitive and splenetic
spirit, too impatient for judgment, too prejudiced for justice. I
think it is referrible to the fact that Dante had no element of
the statesman ; that his politics would be ward politics — at best
town politics — if he had remained in his native city, and that
his high policy of imperialism was no more than the fantasy
of a soured and disappointed man to whom the world of the
imagination was everything, the world without nothing.

To establish this view, to estimate the rank of Dante as a
man of affairs or a man of counsel, we must go back to the
thirteenth century in Italy. It has been already said that
political talent was to be found everywhere. There were at the
time in Italy men who have left great names behind for the
astute and inexorable policy which a couple of centuries later
became known as Machiavelian ; men who on a larger theatre
and with greater resources would be numbered among those
who have created states or made states great. The genius of
a poet is not everything, and Henry of Luxembourg and the
Ghibellines made a mistake when they thought that it was as
easy for Dante, to construct a policy as to pronounce a sen-
tence, to create an empire by argument as to draw the circles
of the lost as if he had seen them tier above tier in the. differ-
ences of condition which entered into their suffering. Going
into Florence while Dante was a w^xy young man, the reader,
if he so disposes himself to guidance of the fancy, more than
probably will see one or two men draw their swords in the
street in which he finds himself, and as they engage others
come up and join sides, until soon a considerable party on
either side is engaged at thrust and parry, sword and buckler.

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360 Dante's Theory of Papal Politics. [June,

and halberdiers with their pikes. It is impossible to find out
what the fight is about; but if he know Florence well he may
recognize the names of wealthy families as cries and counter-
cries ; or he may catch the family names that have given
title to sections of the Guelph party, which fought with each
other when they had no Ghibellines to fight with ; he may hear
a Neri replied to by the shout of a Bianchi, a Donati by a
Cerchi, while the jackman of some mountain noble, who is also
a citizen with a palace among the merchants, shouts his lord's
name or the terrible one of the emperor, scandalous to good
Catholics and full of menace to fair Italy, as he lays on with
the long sword he carries.

DANTE MORE OF A POLITICIAN THAN A STATESMAN.

Now, it seems natural that in a city so governed by faction,
and among a population with so little sense of its rights and
interests, that the bitter and haughty spirit of Dante would ac-
quire a tone of absolutism in his theoretical politics, while in the
every-day business of public life he would know nothing more,
and discern nothing more, than the best means of keeping his
own section at the head of the government. There would be
no outlook in one of his disinterested disposition for the group-
ings, the compromises, the concessions by which a composite
party may be moulded from conflicting elements. Yet in this
way men became podestas and subsequently sovereign dukes.
This was how the commercial or medical family * of the Medici
later on obtained control of Florence and entrance into the
sodality of kings. Such an ambition as this Dante would re-
gard as the most deadly treason. To be one of the executive,
to be one of the six priori of his native city, seemed the limit of
his desire ; and there is proof enough that he carried into his
office a spirit of impartial justice to which his contemporaries
were strangers. We have every reason to believe that in the
exercise of the duties of his magistracy he knew neither ally nor
opponent. We think that at this period of his life no notion
of imperialism had reached him, that he was nothing more than
a party man in city politics — but an upright party man.

It seems idle to suppose that in these early days he formed
the conception of a universal Christian empire, securing for the
western world the immense majesty of the Roman peace of
which the younger Pliny writes with such admirable apprecia-

* Medicine was a business in Florence, and Dante obtained a diploma to qualify himself
for the office of priore, something like alderman in England.

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i897-] Dante's Theory of Papal Politics. 361

tion. The rise of the individual, or the aggrandizement of the
family, expresses the purpose of every enterprising man in city
or country through the length and breadth of Italy. A great
house in an Italian town of the thirteenth century had its
kinsmen and retainers to brawl in the streets, to cut throats, to
fire houses in its service. Sometimes the success of a faction
recalled the proscriptions of Sylla or Marius on a small scale ;
and to think that the body of citizens who were, like the serv-
ing men Sampsoh and Gregory, ready to unsheathe at the sight
of one of the opposite party, had any conception beyond their
patron's feud, is to misunderstand the whole social life of the
time. No doubt, like their patrons, they had associations with
the names of Guelph and Ghibelline, but it was a mere sound
that represented no idea; it no more meant a contest between
the spiritual and secular jurisdictions than the banner of the
chief they followed. It was the same with the chiefs themselves.
In Dante's early manhood the Guelphs were predominant in
Florence. He belonged to that party ; but when disappointment,
defeat, and exile came upon him, by a process of mental alchemy
he discovers that the Ghibellines were the future hope of Italy
and Christendom. Is it not an instance of the manner in which
political opinion adjusts itself to feeling or passion? Nor does
this always mean that such adjustment is dishonest; it may re-
sult from the power of intense emotion fusing everything
by its heat. However, I pass from this ; but I submit that there
is hardly to be found in history a man whose mission for good
or evil did not in some degree spring from the circumstances
that environed him.

HIS MARRIAGE CHANGES HIS POLITICS.

The Ghibellines had been driven out of the city when Dante
was a young man ; but, to show how these quarrels fluctuated
all over Italy, I add that the exact reverse occurred at Arezzo,
only a short distance from Florence. There the Ghibellines
were the successful faction, and the expulsion and proscription
had fallen on the Guelphs. A circumstance may be well ob-
served in connection with Italian faction at this time which, I
think, proves that Dante's imperial theory, if not solely an after-
thought, was largely an accidental conclusion which circumstances
suggested to a mind of great boldness and comprehensiveness.
The exiled Guelphs of Arezzo applied to the Guelphs of Flor*
ence for aid against their enemies. Florence went to war with
Arezzo ; in other words, the successful faction in Florence

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362 Dante's Theory of Papal Politics. [June,

assailed the successful faction in Arezzo, and at Campaldino,
in June, 1280, the Ghibellines of the latter city sustained a
severe defeat. Dante was present at this engagement; and ap-
parently to his conduct there he owed his marriage to Gemma
Donati, a daughter of the great Guelph house.

To this family connection he owed his advancement, for we
find him one of the priori a short time after his marriage. Taking
the dates, it would seem that our position concerning the cause
of change in his political views is sustained/ We find him in
1300 one of the executive of Florence through the most pow-
erful influence in the city, that of his wife's family. In 1302 he
is an exile, and, so far as we can free the fact from the web of
intrigue, the swaying of parties to and fro, and the operation
of influences now direct, then indirect ; now forward, again
backward — a voluntary exile.

REVERSES DEVELOP A POLICY,

In March of 1302 he was condemned, in his absence, of mal-
versation and peculation in his ofHce. The sentence was based
on *' Fama Publica," which a writer describes as the report of
his enemies. Making every allowance for the violence and heat
of faction, this does not conclude the matter. Confiscation of
property, sentence of death and corruption of blood on a bill
of attainder, when the parties to be affected were out of Eng-
land, was passed by the great Whig Parliament of William III.
nearly four centuries later. The fact that he was absent, then,
is not so important in testing the justice of the sentence. But
the successful party in Florence belonged to the Guelphs, and
it seems strange that not one among its members raised his
voice in favor of the exile. I doubt the justice of the sentence
on account of Dante's character, and not because he was dealt
with at all exceptionally. But in this proceeding I suggest is
to be discovered the grounds of invective against the rulers of
the church and the conception of an imperialism by which he
would replace the papal government. There may be some diflfi-
culty in making it clear to the reader that Dante was actuated
by passion in his assaults upon popes, cardinals, prelates, and
not by a sense of justice ; and that his policy sprang from vin-
dictive memories and not from an elevated conception of the
moral elements which lay under and behind the relations of
the church and empire. What had he been doing at this time ?

He had been going from the court of one Italian tyrant to
that of another, he had been exciting the Ghibellines of Italy

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I897-] Dante's Theory of Papal Politics. 363

against his enemies, whom he called the oppressors of his coun-
try. We find him with the La Scala at Verona, that great
house whose haughty and overmastering spirit had impressed
itself on every street, alley, home, and public building of the
city. Their statues and their ladders confronted one at every
corner, their Dog stood upon or couched by every fountain
and watched over every church and abbey and convent. He
was with the Malaspina lords of Lunigiana, he was everywhere
that influence could be raised to bring a foreign power into
Italy. It was when Henry of Luxembourg was elected emperor
that Dante's hopes rose highest ; for Henry was determined to
assert his predecessor*s pretensions to the crown of Rome and
sweep from his path the sovereignty of the popes.

HIS FAITH WAS SOUND.

At the same time the soundness of Dante's faith cannot be
successfully disputed. Those who claim him as a pioneer of
the Reformation in the same way that they claim Huss and
Wycliife, those* who think he was speculatively allied to the
Albigensians or the Waldenses, misunderstand the theology of
Dante. It has nothing in common with Lollardism, no more
than his politics had to do with the revolutionary socialism of
which Lollardism was the parent. With the evidence we now
have there can be no question but that Wyclifle was accessary
to Tyler's rebellion, and promulgated the detestable principles
for which his disciples suffered, and which would have led to
the crimes and excesses to be expected from a servile war in
those days. What these might be we can gather from Froissart ;
while Dante's knowledge of early Roman history, united to his
keen perception, would prepare him to expect any horrors from
such principles in action. All that has been said of Lollardism
applies to the Hussites, nor could the social violence of the
latter, any more than that of the former, obtain authority in
the religious or political views of Dante. I may dismiss Sir
Erskine May's discovery of a similarity of speculative opinion
in religious matters between Dante and the Waldenses and
Albigensians by the statement that he was a Catholic impreg-
nated with the spirit and body of Catholic belief, while the
Waldenses and Albigensians, differing from each other in almost
everything else, were at one in their hatred of the authority of
the church.

The key to a just estimate of Dante, as we find him in the
Divina Commedia and his political work De Monarchia, is the

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364 Dante's Theory of Papal Politics. [June,

separation he called for of the civil and the spiritual jurisdic-
tions. His aim, as has been already stated, was to restrict the
authority of the church to purely spiritual matters, and to
establish the empire as a universal monarchy. Yet even here
his sound Catholic sense was too strong for his imperial bias,
for he will not '' deny that in certain matters the Roman prince
is subject to the Roman pontiff." It is, no doubt, a relation of
piety alone whose principle is undefined, impossible of acknowl-
edgment because not to be relied upon, but so far an evidence
as he puts it of his belief in Caesar's duty " to be reverent to
Peter as the first-born son is reverent to his father." With the
history of the German emperors before him from 1073 to 1303,
a period of conflict between pope and emperor for the vital
liberties of the church, how he could have expected the first-
born son to be obedient with no chain but piety to bind him,
affords a singular instance of the power of a theory to warp
the practical judgment.

It has been suggested as an explanation of this inconsis-
tency in the relation of the two powers that Dante, deriving his
opinion partly from the teaching of Aristotle, partly from that
of St. Thomas and the legendary history of Rome, sought to
prove the origin of the empire from God and to efface the poli-
tical status of the church. He accordingly identifies the empire
of Charlemagne with that of Trajan and Justinian, and forgets
that the empire of Charlemagne was the creation of the popes,
that the German emperor who succeeded Charlemagne as Em-
peror of the West only became emperor when he was crowned
by the pope. As his view of the origin of the empire is erro-
neous, so is his view of the political development of the instru-
ment in contact with and subservient to the operation of the
papal auth'ority — that is, the Papacy in relation to the secular
powers. His view was that the pope should keep aloof from
all political questions ; but if this were his duty, the mission of
the church could not have been fulfilled, the barbarians would
not have been converted, there would not have been a Ger-
man Empire. If Dante's position is tenable, the emperors
were in the right, the popes in the wrong ; instead of Henry
going to Canossa, Gregory VII. should have lived as he died,
in exile.

A POLITICAL PURIST.
When Dante insisted on a return to the purity and humility
of the apostolic times on the part of the pope, he only antici-
pated certain foolish or perverse purists in the church who

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1 8970 Dante's Theory of Papal Politics. 365

draw a contrast between the Master dying on the Cross and
the Vicar living in a palace ; between the first pope seeking with
weary feet after the freedmen and slaves and courtesans, the
degraded, the sinful, the despairing ; seeking them in abodes of
horror and pestilence, or in the obscure parts of those great
patrician houses that formed city divisions for themselves ;
seeking them in the public works, in street and garden and
sewer, where the lash was for ever exercised ; seeking them
in the public baths, where abject poverty fawned on the wealth
or vice that came to them to hear the news of the day and to
plot deeds of wickedness or policy ; drawing a contrast between
Peter, so employed, and carrying his life in his hand, and Leo
with his chamberlains, his household prelates, his princes and
his guards, posing as the victim of oppression. In this Dante
forgot, as such critics forget, that a state of things may cease
to be necessary or beneficial which once was so in the highest
degree ; and that if there were a return to the conditions of
Peter's time his successor would be worthy of the trust.

A contemporary of Dante, Gervase of Tilbury, says to Otho
.IV. : " The empire is not thine, but Christ's ; not thine, but
Peter's ; it came not to thee from thyself, but from the Vicar
of Christ and successor of Peter. Rome received again the
name of Empire in Charlemagne's time, not by his act, but by
the favor of the pope. The empire does not devolve upon him
to whom Germany belongs, but upon him to whom the pope
decides to commit it." This, as we all know, was the sense,
the common knowledge of Christendom. The pride of Dante,
the sense of wrong to himself, and that bread of exile and
poverty which he says himself, in his great poem, is the most
bitter to eat, obscured his judgment when he saw around him
so many evil things in the state and in the lives of the clergy.
These latter abuses men are, by some curious infirmity of
speech, in the habit of attributing to the church. They seemed
to Dante to have grown into the church, because they invested
the lives of the clergy, which stood before him as the outward
sign and expression of the church's life.

Yet again, here and there, when true to his higher instincts,
the distinction between the church, the holy and the pure, the
Bride of the Eternal Bridegroom, and the accidents of unworthy
lives, hard unfeeling lives, worse still, luxurious lives, comes out
in verse and prose as clearly as it could be expressed by any '
Father of the church, or seen by the loyal heart of any child of
the church then or now or ever.

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MOTHER FRANCIS RAPHAEL

BY L. W. REILLY.

VALIANT woman was Augusta Theodosia Drane
— convert, Sister of St. Dominic, author — who
was strangely led into the Catholic Church, who
sought in it spiritual perfection, and who dedicat-
ed to its service her splendid talent as a writer.
She was born at Bromley, in the east of London, on De-
cember 28, 1823, the last of four children, in a home of great
wealth and refinement.

Her father was a merchant prince connected with an opu-
lent East India firm. He lived in a fine old mansion near the
banks of the River Lea; he was a lover of books, an artist,
and a musician. He retired from business when Augusta was

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1 897-] Mother Francis Raphael. 367

a girl of fourteen, and went into the country to reside in order
to lead a life of elegant leisure.

Her mother was a lady of singular beauty, fond of reading,
versed in natural history, devoted to the cultivation of flowers,
and a collector of minerals, corals, and shells, of which she
possessed many rare specimens. Although a constant invalid,
she was always bright and busy.

In their early childhood the young folk were not sent to
school, but had a governess to instruct them at home. Augusta
learned rapidly. As soon as she could read she began to And
her greatest pleasure in books. Before she was twelve she had
gone through nearly all the volumes in her father's extensive
library. She delighted most in treatises on natural history,
travels, biography, and poetry, but her taste was omnivorous
and it enticed her through such standard productions as Sully's
Memoirs y Robertson's History of America and Charles V.,
Bryant's Ancient Mythology, Hume's History of England, Wilkin-
son's Egypt^ Holinshed in black letter, Burder's Oriental Cus-
toms, Sharon Turner's History, Homer, Spenser, Milton, Shak-
spere. Bishop Home's Sermons, Izaak Walton's Complete Angler,
and other works as learned and as varied.

She was studying algebra, Euclid, astronomy, and natural
philosophy before she was ten, was fond of botany and con-
chology at twelve, and commenced to write verse at thirteen.
Evidently she was no ordinary child.

A SPIRITUALLY UNCARED-FOR CHILDHOOD.

Her spiritual development was a thing of chance. Her
parents gave her no training in religion. They taught her her
prayers, and her father used to have her visit his room early
every morning to read to him the psalms of the day. The
governess heard her recite her lessons in the Protestant cate-
chism and read portions of the New Testament. That was
about all of Christianity that she possessed in her early years,
except what she picked up for herself in her undirected read-
ings. One notable incident in that reading is that when she
was seven or eight years old she found at her grandfather's
one of the most malicious of anti-Catholic books — Father
Clement. It is a furious attack on " Popery " and " Jesuitism."
Yet although its hero, the Jesuit priest Clement Dormer, is
represented as finally converted to Protestantism, " somehow,"
said Augusta, long years after she became a Catholic herself,
"the character of Clement Dormer, his fasting and hair-shirts.

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368 Mother Francis Raphael. [June,

has a Catholic tone about it, and is so infinitely more attrac-
tive than that of the married parson and the sour Calvinist
Ernest, that our sympathies were all on the side of Father
Clement. I hated the Calvinists and I loved the Papists in
that book, and felt glad that Clement had not got so far as ' to
declare himself a Calvinist ' when he died/' It is a coincidence
that her successor as mother provincial was Mother Agnes
Philomena Dormer, and that she herself wrote a biographical
memoir of the Honorable Henry E. Dormer. When, at the
age of twelve, she went to a select school kept by the Misses
James, she had an hour daily of Bible study, which opened to
her the treasures of the Old Testament. " Miss Ann James,"
so she once told an intimate friend, " considered me wanting
in 'vital Christianity* (in which she was quite right), and re-
garded me therefore with suspicion. Her ultra-Calvinism, and
the horrid little proprietary chapel to which she took us on
Sundays, the long evangelical sermons we had to listen to
and write from memory, and the hymns — not remarkable
for poetry — that she. made us learn by heart, did not increase
my attraction to religion ; but Mary James qualified all this by
giving me The Christian Year and Miss Jewsbury's Letters to
the Youngs which did me real and lasting good." . Then, too, she
read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress^ and of it she wrote : " We
delighted in it at school, where I first saw it. Let people say
what they like, Christian's deliverance from his burden at the
sight of the Cross is one of the most perfect things in the
English language. I really believe that the book, heretical as
it is, has touched many a soul in a very profitable manner.
The sight of the City, and the Shining Ones on the walls —
well, all that was a possession. I used to think, after reading
it, that I should like to go on a pilgrimage." This is all that
home and school did for her in the way of religion. Her
further spiritual growth was due, humanly speaking, to her own
study of books and observation of persons.

Mr. Drane in 1837 moved his family to Babbicombe, in
Devonshire, where he bought a demesne. There Augusta be-
gan to be interested in works on religion — Mosheim's, Milner's,
etc. There she read William Wilberforce's Personal Lave of
God, There, too, she met a man who made an indelible impress
on her soul.

FINDING A BASIS FOR FAITH.

"But above all other influences," she said herself, "under
which my mind and my religious sense ever fell, was that of

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1 897-] Mother Francis Raphael. 369

the preaching of our vicar, George May Coleridge, nephew to
the poet, cousin to the judge. He was a man of profound
patristic learning ; his sermons were something you could never
hear twice in this world. For the first time in my life I
listened to dogma. I learned to believe, and to know that I
believed, in the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the church, the
sacramental system. I learned to read the Scripture as inter-
preted by the prayer-book. I learned to love the prayer-book,
to love the mystical sense, too, of the Sacred Text, and to all
this I applied myself with inexplicable ardor. I scarcely knew
how many new ideas were growing in my mind ; but still they
existed in my mind only. I do not think that I was, in point
of fact, gaining many religious habits or practising many de-
grees more of self-restraint. Still, it was an education and
sowed in me the seeds of faith ! "

The winter of 1839 ^^s spent by Augusta in London, where
she saw something of society and of all that the world holds
dear. Although of a cheery disposition, she was not enraptured
with these gayeties. Her heart was not in them, but in quiet
scenes and useful occupations.

She used to smile in after years whenever she alluded to
the fir^t time that she was ever present at Mass. It was in
London during that season of festivity. She went to church
with a Catholic ward of her father's. But it was all Greek to
her. She understood nothing and liked nothing of what she
saw at the function. When she returned home she said :
" Well, I have been to Mass for the first time in my life ; I
think it will probably be the last.''

THE "ROMAN SPECTRE" APPEARS.

Returning to Devonshire in the spring of 1840, Augusta con-
tinued her personal investigation of religion. She pored over
Sewell's Christian Morals^ the Lives of the Saints edited by New-
man, Isaac Williams' Poems, and a large number of the earlier
Oxford publications. " My first conclusion," is her summary of
her studies, " from all these new ideas was distinctly Roman ;
but, relinquishing the idea as a spectre, I endeavored to work
myself into Anglican orthodoxy, and fancied I had done so
with success, though in reality I never had. The event proved
otherwise."

She and her father went on many rambles and excursions
together. Often they visited Exeter, and Augusta loved to run
into the cathedral there. "There was one anthem," she once

VOL. LXV.— 24

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370 Mother Francis Raphael. [June,

said, " I could never listen to without emotion : ' O that I had
wings like a dove — like a dove, and then would I fly away, I
would fly away, away; I would fly, I would fly away — I would
fly away and be at rest ! ' The repetition of the words in-
creased their meaning, and somehow the musical notes seemed
to get among the arches of the cathedral, and literally to fly
and float about like the dove, and took my spirit flying about
there with them."

She continued to delight in the sermons of Mr. Coleridge,
"to whom," as she later declared, "more than to any one else
I owe my Christianity," and of him she furnished these details :
" He was exceedingly shy and lived a retired life, and the fact
of not meeting him among the upper class parishioners in so-
ciety was one secret, I think, of his spiritual influence over
many of us. No one could attach any other sort of association
to him than that which attached to him in his pulpit and read-
ing-desk. I add his reading-desk, for he had a marvellous gift
as a reader. It was not fine reading, any more than it was
eloquent preaching, but a simple, impressive skill in giving the
whole sense of every word and every phrase. Anthony Froude,
no mean judge, remarked this as one of his great gifts, in preach-
ing his funeral sermon, and said of him, that ' he made the
Bible speak like a living thing.' He was passionately fond of
music, and my sister and myself were among the favored few
occasionally invited to the only social receptions he ever gave,
which were musical evenings. His library was full of the
Fathers. In his hall stood a bust — a remarkable head, with hair
drooping over the eyes, and a bar of development over the
brow. The first time I saw it, and asked who it was, I saw a
hesitation in his manner as he answered : ' Don't you know ?
That is Newman.' Poor Mr. Coleridge ! if ever heart and mind
and soul lived shut up from sympathy with their fellows, they
were his."

ASSOCIATION versus ANALYSIS.

In the year 1839 she received her first Communion in the
Anglican Establishment and was confirmed ; but in that same
year she read Burnet's History of the Reformation. "That
book," she said, " was the real cause of my conversion. I was
too young (only sixteen), too little used to follow out my
convictions to their logical issue, for the impression received
from its study to produce at the time much practical effect ;
but in point of fact, not Burnet's own narrative but the ' Origi-

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nal Documents/ printed in his alternate volumes, satisfied me,
and would satisfy any one, of the fallacy of any theory which
professes to regard the institution of Henry VIII., Cranmer,
Edward VI., and Elizabeth as any portion of the Catholic Church.
Unawares to myself a deep sense of its unreality was imbedded
in my understanding. I built on it a superficial and rather ro-
mantic structure of AngHcanism, made up of daily services and
cathedral anthems, high Tory enthusiasm for Charles I. and
Archbishop Laud, love of antiquities and church architecture,
and intense sensibility to that picturesque view of the English
parochial system whereby souls are held captive in a false sys-
tem and deprived of the sacraments of grace by the despotism
exerted over their imaginations by gray church-towers hidden
in foliage, and the sound of evening chimes, and the beautiful
English Bible, and English collects, and a thousand other things
which they love and worship and cling to and cannot tear from
their hearts; and which yet, subjected to that terrible analysis
which sooner or later they must undergo, are all but chaff on
the summer threshing-floor."

From her readings at that time she became persuaded that
penance was a sacrament instituted by Christ, and that there
would be no rest for her until she had gone to confession to a
real priest and had been shriven.

So she drifted along, absorbing the soul-thoughts of others
and pondering her own, for eight years. But she was not in
peace. The spectre to which she referred above would not
down- Her sister Louise (who also became a Catholic later on)
used to say to her then that she was half Catholic and half
infidel. She was indeed fighting against the conviction that was
forming in her conscience -that the Catholic Church, with its
Sacrifice and its Sacraments, was the one Haven of Security.

In the summer of 1847 Mr. Coleridge died. He was suc-
ceeded by Mr. Maskell, who was even more High Church than
his predecessor, and who eventually became a Catholic.

The desire for membership in the true church, and the crav-
ing for sacramental confession, so wrought on her that she fell
ill and was confined to her bed for weeks. During that period
of distress she read all sorts of religious books — Jeremy Taylor's
Holy Livings Baxter's Saints' Resty Sherlock's Practical Chris-
tian, St. Augustine's Confessions^ etc., etc. Then, having made
up her mind to unburden her conscience, she was advised to
seek shrift from John Keble. She herself will tell us the pathe-
tically absurd result :

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372 Mother Francis Raphael. [June,

" Keble, I think, was an unsatisfactory director. He was
kind, amiable, and his own humble, pious character made itself
felt in his letters and personal intercourse. But he never laid
hands on the soul, or even attempted it, and his directions were
always in the way of * suggestions.' The burning question of
confession was at once brought forward, and Keble's direction
was amusingly original if not theological.

CONFESSION BY POST.

The way he ' suggested * of settling it was this : ' Write out your
general confession and send it to me ; then go to church and listen
to the general absolution with great reverence; and that will do
until you can make it in person. Meanwhile keep a copy of your
confession and read it over on certain more solemn days — Fridays
or eves of the greater feasts.' A pleasant way of preparing for
one's ' greater feasts,' and a nice sort of feeling that one's unhappy

* general ' was always locked up in one's private desk ready for
use ! But I do not intend to be savage ; and indeed I loved and
reverenced Keble greatly, only I felt that I had shot an arrow's
length beyond the mark he aimed at ; I do not mean in good-
ness, God forbid! but in apprehension of what the Catholic
sacraments really meant. For, in fact, to write out one's sins and
post them, and then go to church and make-believe that the

* misereatur vestri ' of the public service is your own private
and particular absolution, was too transparent a sham for me
to succeed in practising. I tried it, and was too much ashamed
of the absurdity ever to try it again. With the profoundest
respect for one so venerable as he undoubtedly was, I felt
that I was asking for bread and that he was giving me a stone."

Augusta went to London in February, 1848, for a visit to
her then married sister, Cecilia, and while she was there her
mother died a sudden death at Babbicombe. This bereavement
was a hard blow to her, for she was tenderly attached to both
her parents. But it was part of the providential purification
of her soul, and it helped her onward and upward. In her
grief and desolation she felt more drawn to God.

About this time Mr. Maskell, her pastor, discovered Augusta's
craving for penance, and urged her to go see Dr. Pusey, at Tor-
quay. "I shall not easily forget that time," she wrote years
afterwards in strict confidence to a friend, with no idea that her
disclosure would be made public, " and that day, April 8, 1849.
I certainly am not one to make light of such an act, unsacra-
mental though it be, invalid its absolution, unmethodical its

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preparation, and irregular its administration. In every one's
life, who has decided on such an act, it is about as solemn and
critical and momentous as any one can perform. To me it
was the conclusion of a long struggle and the realization of ex-
actly a ten years' desire. If a soul can give any pledge of
sincerity, this is it. If ever a true act of contrition, of humili-
ation, can be elicited from a soul, surely it is in this voluntary
act, the fruit of an intense conviction. When it was over, I
was as unsatisfied on the respective claims of Rome and Eng-
land as before ; I had as much and as little faith in the Eng-
lish sacraments; but still there passed into my conscience a
deeper peace, although the debatable ground of Faith remained
unchanged."

HER VOCATION FORESHADOWED.

She was eager to be at work, to be of use in the world.
She began to visit the poor and kept on until she knew every
cottage and every one in every cottage in Barton and the
Combes. She founded a school in one of the neglected ham-
lets of the parish, and walked to it every day over Black Hill,
and undertook the religious instruction of the children her-
self. She taught them the catechism and explained to them
the Creed, with the help of Ken's Practical Love of God. She
bought a very large picture of the Crucifixion, and made the
little ones learn devotions^to the Five Wounds and other things
more Roman than even High Church. Years before, while visit-
ing London, in the midst of the diversions of society, she had
heard a voice in her heart saying : " You are not meant for
all this." Later, in considering the elements of goodness, she
had reached the conclusion that poverty was essential to the
ideal life ; " marrying and giving in marriage, farm and mer-
chandise, London seasons and the requirements of dress — all
these things made a jumble in my mind which I ticketed ' the
world,' and held in abhorrence." These warnings and theories
came back to her in the midst of her charitable activities. Her
vocation cast its shadow before it. But while she was willing
to consecrate her days to altruistic labors, she shrank from the
notion of the convent. The religious life, she thought, is not
necessarily convent life. A person might follow the Gospel
counsels, and practise spiritual and corporal works of mercy,
and still live in the world. The more she thought over this
plan the better she liked it. She sketched it on paper and
called it " The Ideal of a Religious Order." It provided a rule

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374 Mother Francis Raphael. [June,

and superiors for persons not willing to be cloistered but dis-
posed to give themselves to all manner of good works. " I
gave my sketch to Mr. Maskell, and asked him to read it and
tell me what he thought of it. Standing by a myrtle-tree one
day in our garden, just going out, he said : * By-the-bye, I have
read your sketch. Do you know, an order exists among
Roman Catholics very like you describe ? ' ' Indeed ! I know
nothing of it : what is it called ? ' ' The Third Order of St.
Dominic/ he replied. As he said the words I thought I should
have fainted. I burst into a profuse perspiration and laid hold
of the myrtle-tree to prevent myself from falling. I went back
into the house and wrote down the name in my pocket-book,
saying to myself, * Some day I shall belong to the Third Order
of St. Dominic' "

The celebrated Gorham case, that was so fateful for so many
Anglicans, was then before the courts, and Augusta expressed
the wish that the final decision would '' go wrong," as that
would help to break the chains that bound her to the Estab-
lishment. In that Christmas-tide she was in Exeter, under the
conviction that no matter how the affair was settled she would
soon be out of it all. She paid a last visit to the cathedral.
" Last times are always sad,*' she wrote, " and the dreamy
thoughts of old days came back, and, as chance would have it,
they sang once again, ' O that I had wings like a dove,' and I
thought to myself that I was about to fly away, indeed ! Would
it be to find my rest ? I hoped so."

RODRIGUEZ'S "RELIGIOUS PERFECTION."

While she was still soul-hungry, almost persuaded but not
determined, yet pining for spiritual nourishment, she came upon
a Catholic work that made the way to virtue clear and prac-
tical. "One day, in Mr. Maskell's library, I stumbled on three
volumes bound in dark green cloth, the title of which took my
fancy — Religions Perfection, I carried them off. It was Rodri-
guez. A girl of sixteen reading the Waverley Novels for the
first time would be a feeble comparison. Better was this than
any conceivable novel, for here at last I found reality. It was
precisely what I wanted, what I had always felt the want of ;
and I used to cry out, ' Oh, if I had only had this book at fifteen
what a different being I should have been ! ' Impossible not to
be a glutton over these books. I read them by day ; I read
them by night. I read them aloud to my sister, who was vexed
by my enthusiasm and did not relish the Fathers of the Desert ;

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and when she objected, I walked down to Petit Tor and read
them there. I went right through them in a week, and then
I began again and went right through them a second time. If I
ever hear depreciatory remarks about Rodriguez, as if he were
an old fogy, I feel as if I could slay any one who does not
love him as I do ! I think he saved my faith."

Finally, after much vexation of mind and tribulation of
heart, Augusta resolved to become a Catholic. In order to
bring the matter to a crisis, she told her father of her inten-
tion. He was terribly distressed ; but he could not change her
purpose. When she had declared her mind to him the bridges
were burned behind her, and her one course was to go on.
Then she began to feel immensely relieved.

THE DOVE IN THE ARK.

Shortly after this she was notified by Mr. Maskell, who had
already become a Catholic, that the Rev. Father Fanning,
pastor of Tiverton, was at Torquay, and that she should go
consult him. She did so. The priest, after due inquiry,
bade her come to Tiverton the next week to be admitted into
the church. Accordingly, on July i, 1850, she made the
journey, and that evening and all the next day was spent
under instruction. On the third day she and another young
lady convert heard Mass. "Then came Confession, conditional
Baptism (what an ecstasy it was to feel the water on one's
head and to be sure/), and our profession of Faith at the
altar. We left the church — just observing that some people
were at the bottom assisting at the ceremony — and were met in
the hall by Mrs. Fogarty, the old Irish house-keeper, and her
husband John, both bearing large bouquets of white roses,
which they begged us to accept and wear, 'for it was the day
of our baptism.* What a pretty thought it was ! I kept one of
my white roses as a relic. How happy I was ! — so happy that I
could not understand myself. I was not in the least pious and
did not want to say my prayers, but to go into the garden and
tell the air and the sky and the fields how happy I was ! . . .
In the afternoon I returned home. The interior peace of that
railway journey — deep peace — I shall never forget. It seemed
to go into my very bones and made itself sensible to the
body. It was not excitement, nor joy, nor high spirits, but
peace. I felt that I could say nothing, think nothing, but — I
am a Catholic ! I felt so detached too, so careless of what the
future might bring forth — life or death — all was one now ! "

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376 Mother Francis Raphael. [June,

On the day of her Confirmation at Clifton, July 12, she
asked Bishop Hendren to inform her about the Third Order of
St. Dominic. " ' You had better go over to the convent,' he re-
plied, ' and ask them there.' To the convent I went, not know-
ing that it was Dominican. I rang, and the door was opened
by a novice in spectacles. She took me into the parlor and we
began to talk. Presently I brought out my question. 'I
suppose you know that we are of the Third Order of St.
Dominic ? ' she replied. I felt overwhelmed ; it was like meet-
ing one's fate."

THE DOMINICAN TERTIARY.

Augusta's dream was realized on August 6, when she became
a secular Tertiary of St. Dominic.

She was tried, as most converts are, with troubles at home
on account of her change of religion, but these she endured
with fortitude. She strengthened herself by frequent reception
of the sacraments and by much reading of solid Catholic
doctrinal and devotional works. "I read right through an old-
fashioned Catholic library, beginning at the top shelf and going
on to the bottom : Hay, Gother, Challoner, St. Alphonsus
Liguori, a few saints' lives (St. Teresa was the first), then Alban
Butler and other books of the old school. It got into me a
good deal of solid instruction and sobered me, taking the
Puseyism out of me. Still I am conscious that it has been
very slowly and gradually that my mind has expanded to
Catholic light. And I have been constantly amazed at the
discovery of how profound was my ignorance of the real
Christian verities."

In the autumn of 185 1 Miss Drane, with four other ladies,
went on a visit to Italy, and spent eight months in Rome.
While there she made the acquaintance of Pfere Besson, who
read her soul for her like an open book. Under his direction
she made a retreat, during which he enabled her to comprehend
herself and he pointed out to her the clear marks of her voca-
tion. At first, and for many days, her heart was in a storm of
resistance to the call to religion, and so beset was she with
temptations to decline it that in fear and bewilderment she
fled to the chapel of the "Admirable Mother" in the convent,
and there she sensibly felt the presence of our Blessed Lady
and found calm. There too her repugnance gave way to eager-
ness, and her sadness to great joy. As a token of gratitude
she left a valued ring to have its jewel set in the statue's crown.

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1897.] Mother Francis Raphael. 377

On her return to England, in 1852, she applied at the con-
vent at Clifton to be received into the congregation. She be-
came a postulant on October 4 of that year, and received the
holy habit on December 8. The next year the novitiate was
moved to Stone, in Staffordshire, and there she resided for the
rest of her life.

Of the career in religion of Sister Francis Raphael little
need be said. Five years after her entrance the mother pro-
vincial praised her, in Rome, as '*the most docile member of
the community." She became successively novice mistress,
mistress of studies, prioress, and mother provincial. She
advanced in virtue steadily and multiplied her good works.
Mother Hallahan and Mother Poole — the novice in spectacles of
her first visit to the convent — loved her for her great gifts, her
great graces, and her great virtues. When they passed away
the congregation showed, under her direction, that she had im-
bibed their spirit and was carrying on the work according to
their plan.

INEFFABLE WHITENESS.

Her name in religion was Sister M. Francis Raphael of the
Immaculate Conception. How she came to choose the latter
designation she herself told Archbishop UUathorne at the cele-
bration of her silver jubilee : ** I have truly cause to call my-
self a child of the Immaculate Conception, and that in more
ways than one. It was in the year 1849 ^^^> being then a
Protestant, some one calling at our house said that on the pre-
vious Sunday a sermon had been preached in one of the Tor-
quay churches on the Immaculate Conception. It was the first
time, to my knowledge, that I had ever heard the words. Pos-
sibly I might have seen pictures so named in old galleries, but
without attaching any kind of sense to the expression. But
when I heard it, without the least idea of what it meant, it
seemed to be the most exquisite music, and a curious sort of
sensation came over me, which I can only describe as the being
brought into the presence of something ineffably white. I asked
what was meant by the Immaculate Conception, and was told
(what so many Protestants think it means) that our Lady's
birth was miraculous, as our Lord's was. I said, Tm sure it is
not that, though I don't know what it is; but whatever it
is, it is true*; and thereupon I went up to Mr. Maskell (he
had preached the sermon) and begged for an explanation.
Then I heard^ the doctrine explained for the first time. It was

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378 Mother Francis Raphael. [June,

entirely a new idea to me, but I felt an intense faith in it,
and that instantly, without any pause or waiting to think about
it. It was like a great flood of light on the Incarnation. I
believe that act of faith was the impulse that made me a
Catholic.

"The year after I was received I went to Rome, where I
made a retreat, in the course of which my confessor decided
that I ought to enter religion. All my life, not merely as a
Catholic but even as a Protestant, this idea had been familiar
to me; but directly it was decided, such a storm began in my
soul as I could not describe, and it seemed to me as if I had
never really loved the world till I distinctly understood that I
was to leave it. I believe it was a sort of interior revelation
that my real world was natural affections, tastes, and habits,
and that the sacrifice of them would be a kind of death.
However, I can only remember spending hours every day in
the large, empty Church of the Trinitk, literally watering its
pavement with my tears. But one day, the day before the re-
treat ended, the storm suddenly stopped and was succeeded by
a profound peace ; and that day was the eve of the Immacu-
late Conception, on which day next year I was clothed and
the twenty-fifth anniversary of which I have just been keeping.
Truly I can repeat your lordship's words and look on what I
was and what I am, and feel lost in thanksgiving ! How, then,
could I take any other mystery than the Immaculate Concep-
tion? I remember dear Mother Margaret being surprised at
my choice and saying that she expected I should have taken a
sorrowful mystery. But it seemed to me then, as now, that all
good things have come to me through this special mystery of
an Immaculate Conception."

THE " DOMINICAN GRACE " OF A HAPPY DEATH.

Mother Francis Raphael was seized with her last illness on
November 6, 1893. Beginning with pneumonia, it developed as
a derangement of circulation, and ended with gapgrene of the
foot and a general collapse. For more than six months she
was subjected to such excruciating agony that screams were
forced from her unwilling lips during the frequent spasms of
pain. But as soon as these passed she followed them with
ejaculations of resignation, praise, and thanksgiving. Once a
sister who was present during one of these attacks exclaimed,
in an uncontrollable burst of sympathy : " Oh, dear mother, it
is terrible to see you suffering like this ! " With a sweet smile

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J 897-] Mother Francis Raphael. 379

she replied : " Ah, dear child, if you knew all that God is do-
ing in my soul by this suffering you would not grieve, but
rejoice ! It is all right, and more than right." " While it lasts,"
she said to others, " one can do nothing but try to bear it
with all the power of the soul. But after it has passed, one
feels that it has done a work that nothing else could effect ;
that it has crushed self, and squeezed out pride and self-love
as nothing else could." To some of the sisters she wrote : " I
never thought or dreamt that human beings could suffer what I
have suffered this last week. It seems to pass all comprehen-
sion."

She was beset for a time with fear and depression, and she
spoke of "phantoms" that terrified her; but all this darkness
finally left her soul in unclouded peace and hope. As her
weakness increased her acts of resignation became more fre-
quent. Towards the end she was heard to say: "O my God!
when wilt thou take me ? But I am ready to live till the
Judgment Day, if thou wilt." About i A. M. on April 29, 1894,
she asked: "Is this dying? Will it be long?" Then the
community assembled, the prayers for the dying were recited,
and the Salve Regina was gently sung by broken voices. And
she was dead.

MOTHER FRANCIS RAPHAEL AS AN AUTHOR.

From her entrance into the convent her gift as a writer was
cultivated. Far from being inflated with vanity at this, she
thought that she was useless to the community and so had
been set this task. She wrote at odd moments, between other
occupations to which she was sent as a substitute, and at full
leisure from other employments. The complete list of her
writings is as follows : Four of the famous " Clifton Tracts " ;
Catholic Legends and Stories ; Sketches of Dominican Missions ; The
Life of St. Dominic^ with a Sketch of the Dominican Order ; The
Knights of St. /ohn, with the Battle of Lepanto and the Siege of
Vienna; The Three Chancellors — William of Wykeham^ William
of Waynflete^ and Sir Thomas More ; Memoir of Sister Mary
Philomena Berkeley^ A History of England (written up to the
jubilee of Queen Victoria), A Catechism of English History^
Historical TaleSy Tales and Traditions^ Christian Schools and
Scholars, Biographical Memoir of the Hon. Henry E. Dormer,
Life of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan, Songs in the Night and
other PoemSy The New Utopia, The History of St. Catherine of
Siena and her Companions, Lady Glastonbury s Boudoir ; Uriel, or

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38o The Clock. [June.

the Chapel of the Angels; Aroer : the History of a Vocation;
Dalnteny Brothers ; The History of St. Dominic, Founder of the
Friars-Preachers; five volumes of "Catholic Readers"; The
Autobiography of Archbishop U Hat home, edited with Notes ; Letters
of Archbishop Ullathorne, edited with Notes; The Inner Life of
Lacordaire, translated from the French of P^re Chocame, and
The Imagination: its Nature, Uses, and Abuses (written for
the Literary Department of the World's Congress Auxiliary,
Chicago). The Spirit of the Dominican Order, published two
years after her death, is "an object-lesson in Dominican life,"
written solely for the edification of her sisters in religion. It
has, however, gained a wide circulation, and is destined, per-
haps, to be one of the most practically helpful of her books.

A fascinating volume has been made by the Rev. Bertrand
Wilberforce, O.P., of a Memoir of her life (from which this
sketch is taken), together with some of her spiritual notes and
letters.

She lived seventy-one years and sleeps the sleep of peace!

THE CLOCK.

BY F. X. E.

WINDING of its slender key.
And lo ! the ticking monotone

Refrains a note — Eternity :

'Tis all that Time may dare to own.

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Lacordaire as a Young Man.

CARDINAL PERRAUD AND THE LACORDAIRE

GROUP.

BY JOSEPH O'REILLY.

S a souvenir of the great French celebration of the
anniversary of the baptism of Clovis, King of the
Franks, a monumental book has been lately pub-
lished — La France Chr^tienne dans FHistoire.

It is not a complete history of France in that
the history of her deficiencies is not recorded — only her glories
and her triumphs ; and may rather be regarded as an apologetic
work, presenting to us a picture of the great achievements of

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382 Card. Perraud and the Lacordaire Group, [June,

Catholicism in France during the onward march of the centuries.
Its subjects have been treated according to a skilfully arranged
plan, and embrace her whole history, from the dramas of the
forum, the amphitheatre, the prisons of the Lyonese settlement,
down to the end of our nineteenth century.

The list of the authors who contribute to this work is of itself
a remarkable indication of the harmony, which daily becomes
more pronounced, between faith and science. The most com-
petent representatives of laical science have labored side by side
with the highest and most learned ecclesiastical dignitaries on a
work prepared and conducted by the leaders of the Church of
France. Savants no longer fear to advance towards the church
and work hand-in-hand with her. It is a fact that no one
thirty years ago would have foreseen, but any one having a
knowledge of historical development will say that the way must
have been prepared and that such a change could not have
been instantaneous. The possibility and the progress of this
union of science and faith are due, to a great extent, to the
influence of that group of illustrious men : P^re Lacordaire,
Montalembert, Ozanam, P^re Gratry, Henri Perreyve, Charles
Perraud, Monseigneur Dupanloup — to name only those now dead
— they were the leaders by whom the intellectual life of Catho-
licism was developed in France.

This work was a struggle against an opposition more deep-
seated, more systematic, than existed anywhere else. In the
seventeenth century the Catholic idea was trampled upon,
although it still remained established in the church's institutions.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century it was almost
without influence ; highly honored indeed, but no longer pos-
sessing any vitality in the social and political domain. Our
nineteenth century, finding it banished from all quarters, suc-
ceeds in restoring it everywhere ; shows it in its purity as well
as in its entirety, and realizes the importance of its social
mission.

It is remarkable that this double aspiration for integral and
for dominant truth should be the characteristic of a century
which in its infancy rejected truth from the mind as well as
from the law. As a consequence the Catholic idea should be
militant. Another consequence is that we must take the world
such as it is, if we wish to Christianize it, and instead of con-
demning the present state of affairs we must accept them in
order to adapt them to the Catholic idea. Hence, again, in the
struggle directed against evil, and in the battle to conquer the

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1897O Card. Perraud and the Lacordaire Group. 383

modern world for God and for Christ, we must employ that
which our age most passionately craves — study, science, history
of the past, appeal to justice and right, liberty. We must use

An atmosphere of lofty Ideals inspired his Friends.

as a means to this end the various modern inventions, and
particularly, the press ; for " nothing is more adapted to our
times, nothing is more efficient," as Leo XIII. has said.

Light is thrown on that period when Lacordaire, Gratry,
Henri Perreyve were prominent figures by the biographical
sketch of the Abb6 Charles Perraud, written by his intimate
friend P^re Largent, and lately presented to the public. A
work of modest appearance, indeed, when compared with La
France Chr^tienne dans VHistoirey but of no little interest. An
English translation * of it has just been published, which will
enable the reader to appreciate it still more. The work is
under the high patronage of his Eminence Cardinal Gibbons,

* The Life of Father Charles Perraud, By Father Largent, professor of apologetics,
Paris. With an introduction by his Eminence Cardinal Gibbons. New York : Cathedral
Library Association. 1896.

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384 Card. Perraud and the Lacordaire Group. [June,

who points out in a suggestive preface its salient features :
"A life of one who may well serve as a model to the parish
priest, the pulpit orator, the director of souls, the leader of
men."

Some profit must always accrue from coming in contact with
a noble soul who has grasped the ideal of the sacerdotal state
and has in its own life faithfully reproduced it. "Words are a
mirror," said one of the Fathers, " and behind the words the
soul may be perceived." The soul of a true apostle may be
perceived through the numerous quotations with which P^re
Largent so happily entertains his readers ; for he depicts the
soul of Charles Perraud from his discourses and his books.

Many readers will be more interested, perhaps, in discover-
ing the influences which served to mould the life of Charles
Perraud, and will enjoy the privilege of an insight into the life
and character of many great men who formed his entourage.

An atmosphere of lofty ideals inspired all his friends.
Henri Perreyve, his alter ego, thus defined the priesthood :
"The sacerdotal state has always appeared to me to be
the expression of the greatest possible love for men. Every-
where that souls are to be gained, there the priest is at home."
P^re Gratry had constantly taught that the most expressive
form of devotedness was found in the Catholic priesthood.
P^re Lacordaire gave another definition, eloquent as everything
is that springs from his heart : " The sacerdotal state is the
immolation of a man added to the immolation of a God ; and he
alone has received the divine call who feels in his heart the
value and beauty of souls." And the great orator often said :
" Youth wishes to find the man in the priest ; that is to say, a
heart sensible of what it loves and intelligent of its generous
passions. It wishes the priest to show some appreciation for
friendship, patriotism, courage, honor, liberty."

This is most likely the reason why Charles Perraud attached
himself at an early age to the illustrious Dominican.

P^re Largent gives us a glimpse of the spiritual direction
received by Charles Perraud from Pfcre Lacordaire, that admira-
ble leader of men:

" From him as a guide, he learned to place a high value
not only upon chastity, the inviolable practice of which was
required by the holy religious as the essential condition of his
spiritual guidance, but also upon mortification, the preservative
of chastity. Charles . . . well knew that in the Way of
the Cross he would meet with his wounded Saviour. He was

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1 897-] Card. Perraud and the Lacordajre Group, 385

in a disposition to appreciate the question which P^re Lacor^
daire one day put to him: * My child, would you not be. will-
ing to be thrown into a den full of serpents for love of Jesus
Christ?'" (p. 10).

Later on, in his admirable book, which has been as his

PfeRE GRATRV, of the FRENCH OrATORV.

spiritual testament,* Ch. Perraud tells, perhaps, his own story
when he thus describes a young man's vocation :

" On a certain day, at the first blush of youth, a man sacri-
fices unhesitatingly, nay, with the enthusiasm of faith, all earth-
ly joys and hopes to preach the Gospel, to convert and save
souls. The young and zealous apostle relies not upon his vir-
tue, nor upon his personal eloquence, but upon the divine
charm of Christ's doctrine, upon the supernatural power of his
promises, upon the resplendent light of his revelations.

•'Does not the Gospel contain all truth and all virtue? Is

* Meditations sur Us Sept Paroles de Notre-Seigneur J^sus-Christ en Croix ^ 5th Medita-
tion, La Joie des dmes (p. 147).
VOL. LXV.— 25

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386 Card. Perraud and the Lacordaire Group. [June,

it not the source of all hope and consolation? Is it not the
fountain and guarantee of progress and earthly prosperity at
the same time it opens up the perspectives of heaven, and lifts
us up to God."

Charles was, however, the disciple and the son of Pere
Gratry even more than of P^re Lacordaire. No one, perhaps,
has ever had such an intimate conformity of soul to the reor-
ganizer of the Oratory.

P^re Gratry has outlined a true and charming* picture of
the young Congregation of the Oratory, in which he saw
realized the ideal which haunted his youth : " A city all of
whose inhabitants loved one another.'*f Father Largent de-
scribes the burning enthusiasm which animated them : " The
desire to escape the sorrows attendant upon isolation, and the
further desire to bind themselves together for the defence of
truth and the salvation of souls, had lately given disciples to
Abb6 Bautain, as previously a similar spirit had drawn to
Lammenais, under the shades of La Chenaie, Christian young
men prepared to sacrifice all, even their master, who was about
to abandon it, for their religion. If we would know the genu-
ine type of brotherly and pious association, we must seek for
it elsewhere than at Strasburg and La Chenaie ; we must go
back to Cassiciacum, to the country house where Augustine,
after his conversion, trained himself for the spiritual life with
his friends and relatives, and encouraged them in the pursuit
of undertakings of which he was at once the inspiration and
the guide. Was not the Oratory thus reconstructed a kind of
Cassiciacum ? "

In that home Charles took his place by the side of his
brother Adolphe. Henri Perreyve entered with him. P^re
Gratry has happily described this period as " the spring-time of
the Oratory." Immediately Charles manifested what he was,
and what he was to become : a soul strong and tender, pious
and docile, enraptured with an unrivalled love for Jesus Christ ;
a heart compassionate, loving, and faithful, accessible to every
misery, of irreproachable loyalty, of dauntless intrepidity; an
intellect keen and penetrative, enthusiastically giving himself to
his masters and faithfully remaining their disciple.

Ah ! how quickly and pleasantly the hours passed in that
series of exercises which led him from his little cell to the
chapel, then to the lecture-hall, or the delightful garden. There

* p. Gratry : Henri Perreyve^ Organisation de la Vif, II.
t P. Gratry : Souvenirs de Afa Jeunesse, XIV.

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1 897-1 Card. Perraud and the Lacordajre Group, 387

Dupanloup or Montalembert, Lacordaire or Ravignan, would
come and join heartily in entertaining conversations. Every
question that interested public opinion, every problem that was
discussed in the world outside, found access to this cloister,
which was only opened for the purpose of initiating the future
apostles into the perilous honors of the morrow. And with
these illustrious friends, the invincible champions of great
causes, the models grew up, the ideals were personified. En-
thusiasm spread like a blessed atmosphere where the young
souls of disciples were unwittingly tempered under the affection
of those ardent Christians.

And when recreation was over, Charles Perraud met with
Gratry his master, his father, whose strong faith sounded like a
clarion, for the conquest of souls, for freedom of conscience,
and for the destruction of evil in all its guises.*

The most illustrious survivor of those happy days has de-
scribed, in pages replete with calm and eloquent emotion, the
original and the eminently suggestive charajcter of the lessons,
or rather talks, given by P^re Gratry. " In this intimate asso-
ciation of minds and hearts," says the Bishop of Autun, " our
teacher became as a father to us — a true father, making us live
the life of his own mind, and giving us a share in his labors,
not after the manner of his workmen or servants, but such as
is the portion of children."f

M. Oll^-Laprune might say of P^re Gratry: "Remove him
from this century, something is lacking to this century: the
spirit of generosity which he inspired to our second-half of the
century." To fully understand this appreciation, we should read
the complete works of P^re Gratry. Perhaps it will be sufficient
to recall the words which he had spoken on his death-bed, and
of which it has been said : " These are the most humane words
that have ever been pronounced " :

'* I bequeath to every human being that I have ever greeted
or blessed, and to whom I have ever spoken any words of es-
teem, of affection, or of love, the assurance that I love and
bless him twice or thrice more than I have said. ... I ex-
.tend this to all my unknown and future friends, and as far as God
will permit me to all men. ... I hope that I will be near
them and with them after death, more so than during my life."

Such was the master, such was the disciple.

Gratry has, as it were, cultivated in Charles Perraud another

♦ Paul Lallemand, I'Abbe Charles Perraud.
t Le Fire Gratry^ ses derniers fours^ par le P. Adolphe Perraud (p. 29).

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388 Card. Perraud and the Lacordaire Group, [June,

Lacordaire, with his lofty Ideals, drew Others with him.

self : the same candor with much of the same perspicacity, the
same heart hospitable to every suffering and boiling with in-
dignation at every iniquity, the same love of justice and of
peace, the same aspirations of soul ; the same gift also of living
again in his consoling and suggestive writings, of being all for
all in this posthumous work as well as during his life, and of
bringing those friends of a later day, whether they be high or
low, learned or unlearned, to the love of one another and to
the love of God.

The poor and the lowly, the children and the laborers, such
are the persons to whom he wished to devote his life. To come
in direct contact with the soul of the working classes was to
him an exquisite pleasure. Never did he reach a higher degree
of eloquence than in some of those discourses addressed to
them. His heart melted with tenderness, he wept, he sighed

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i897«] Card. Perraui^ and the Lacordaire Group, 389

with his dear working people ; he gave them his life, he devoted
his whole soul to them. And he, in turn, gained their souls,
but only to deliver them into the arms of Christ. How he de-
sired, in order to be more useful to them, to find out all their
sufferings! How he wished to be in touch with the age, to
sympathize with it.

" The newspapers," said he-, " if we knew how to read them,
we could find therein matter for useful meditations, we could
acquire thereby the knowledge, more necessary to-day than ever,
of human sufferings. For me these daily records are more in-
teresting than the Annals of Tacitus, since instead of stirring
up ashes already cold, I see palpitating there a life closely knit
with our own, and misfortunes, virtues, or crimes for which un-
wittingly and involuntarily we are in part responsible."

If Pfere Charles knew how to suffer with those who suffer,
he was also sensible to the afflictions of unfortunate nations.
This touching speech fell one day from the lips and the heart
of this apostle : " I greet with love and veneration Poland,
and I receive in my heart each of her tears."

It was in 1864, "the time," says P^re Largent, "when be-
yond the frontiers, which we believed to be inviolable, we fol-
lowed Poland with anxious gaze in her desperate struggle and
in her supreme distress — Poland, *a nation of sorrow' which,
according to the expression of Montalembert, had become 'a
nation in flames.' * It was the time, also, when, again with
Montalembert, we were dreading for France and for Europe
danger from Russia, and when we were repeating the saddening
prophecy which, sixteen years before, the great orator had pro-
claimed in the House of Peers : ' When Poland shall be no
more, when her twenty millions of Slavs shall have been an-
nexed, not to Austria, not to Prussia — that is impossible — but
to Russia, as may well happen, then you will see what shall
come to pass in Europe ; the independence of the West shall
tremble to its foundations, and the destinies of civilization
shall be threatened as they have not been since the days of
Attila.' t

"We do not regret the feelings of deep sympathy which
we had avowed to Poland. We shall always claim for her at
least religious liberty, and, moreover, we shall pray for the con-
version of the great people who, unless they return to Catholic

* V Insurrection Polonaise^ by Comte de Montalembert {Correspondant ^ February 25,
1863).

t Speech on the * independence of Cracow" (January 21, 1847). Works o( Comte de
Montalembert, vol. ii. p. 438.

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390 Card, Perraud and the Lacordaire Group. [June,

unity, will not be able to evangelize efficaciously the vast coun^
tries which they rule or upon which they border."

Charles cultivated those feelings of chivalric enthusiasm by
dealing with a noble soul such as that of Henri Perreyve, his
most cherished friend — Henri Perreyve, of whom he said after
the death of this young priest: " Henri was to me more than
I can say. His life was one with mine." How they partici-
pated, during the days of 1848, in the hopes of liberty which
were then kindled in France ! They were enamoured of that
ideal, that a Lacordaire pointed out to them, in his eloquent
dreams of a democratic and Christian France, untrammelled
from within for the extension of the kingdom of God, unim-
peded from without for the expansion of generous ideas, for
the propagation of Catholicism, and through Catholicism for the
fruitful seeds of liberty.

They might have repeated these words of Ozanam, their
glorious friend : " I am impassioned for the legitimate conquest
of modern spirit ; I have loved liberty and I have served it ;
but let us be convinced that orthodoxy is the bone and sinew
of religion." For they were thoroughly convinced, to use the
expression of Cardinal Perraud, that *'the church is insulted
when she is advised to be reconciled to civilization ; for what-
ever civilization has done of great, noble, and glorious it has
been derived from the church." Faithful to the advice that
Pius IX. had given to Henri Perreyve, " Scathe the errors, but
love the men," they desired to conform their life to this rule,
which is that of the Congregation of the Oratory: "To strug-
gle against errors opposed to the faith by taking up and direct-
ing against them their own weapons. To oppose to false, ex-
clusive, biased science most honest, most universal, most disin*
terested erudition. . . . And, consequently, to give battle on
the field of Sacred Scripture and biblical exegesis, as well as on
that of philosophy, history, and natural sciences; moreover, to
follow the evolutions of modern thought and prevent anti-Chris-
tian science from confiscating the domain of social and political
sciences, and making a monopoly of them, for reason revolted
against faith ; in a word, to be always ready to undertake any
work, in order to reconcile to the grand unity of the gospel
the discordant opinion of philosophers."

Cardinal Gibbons, in the preface to this biography, points
out as one of its most charming features the spiritual friend-
ship of Charles Perraud and Henri Perreyve':

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i897-] Card, Perraud and the Lacordaire Group. 391

PfeRE Ravignan, SJ.

" Glimpses of its beauty are given now and then in scraps
of correspondence, one of which we beg leave specially to note,
/. e.y the letter of Henri Perreyve (then a deacon) to Charles
Perraud on the celebration of his first Mass. He chooses the
text * May the Lord be with you.' He utters the words as one
grand chord, then with the several notes he gives forth a har-
mony of blessing, good wishes, thanksgiving, grand aspirations,
sublime conceptions, which end in a divine rhapsody, and leave
in the heart of the hearer a minor tone of longing that he, too,
might know such friendship — human and divine."

The following is the letter to which the cardinal refers:"

" * THE LORD BE WITH YOU.*

" Such is the sacramental word of the deacon, the only
word which I may address to you, my dear friend and brother.

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392 Card. Perraud and the Lacordaire Group. [June,

before the holy altar. However, I speak it from out the fulness
of my heart, and with all the depths of meaning which those
sacred words imply.

*• Yea, the Lord be with you, dear brother ! — ^with you this
morning at the altar, when you celebrate your first Mass, to re-
ceive your virgin troth, and to answer to your immortal vows
by that return of love which surpasses all love.

" May He be with you throughout that great day, to pre-
serve within your soul the perfume of heavenly incense, the
odor of a sacrifice which has had a beginning, but which, by
God's gracious mercy, shall have no end. May He be with
you to-morrow, to make you feel that the joys of the Lord
have about them something eternal, and which, far otherwise
than the joys of this earth, may be drawn upon ever without
danger of exhaustion.

"May He be with you when, after the first rapturous trans-
ports, you will realize that you are a priest for others, and
when, descending from Thabor, you seek out the suffering and
the ignorant, and those who hunger and thirst for the true
Light and the true Life !

" May He be with you in your sorrows, to console you ; in
your joys, to sanctify them ; in your desires, to make them
fruitful ! Memor sit omnis sacrificii et holocaustum tuum
pingue fiat.

" May He be with you, dear Charles, if you be left alone
in the world ; if our friendship is soon cut short ; if you must
go through life with no other support than the arm of a divine
Friend.

" May He be with you as a young priest ; with you when
grown old in the struggles of the priesthood and in the ser-
vice of God and men ; with you at the hour of death, which
will bring to your lips, by another's hand, the same Jesus whom
your trembling hands have even now placed there I

" Yes, my dear friend ! I sum up all that my heart can con-
tain of longings, of wishes, of hopes — all in a single wish : May
the Lord be ever with you ! This will be, here below, the life
of a holy priest ; and, hereafter. Heaven itself.

** May the Lord be ever with you !

*' Dearest Charles, give me your blessing ! I embrace you
affectionately, and I feel close pressed against the heart of our
ever-beloved and divine Master."

In conclusion we must speak of him who, at the same time,
was to Charles a tender friend, a dearly loved brother, aflfection-

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1 897-] Card. Perraud and the Lacordaire Group. 393

ate as a mother, ever devoted, and deeply distressed when he
was left alone. When by the dying bedside of his Charles,
Monseigneur Perraud comforted him with these beautiful words :
" My dear child, our mother brought thee into this world, and

Cardinal Perraud.

I will not leave thee until I place thee upon the threshold of
eternal life."

" Brothers by birth,'* says Cardinal Gibbons, " brothers in the
early life of the Oratory in France, brothers in the priesthood,
brothers in the public spirit which so characterized the two lives,
and which has accomplished so much for the glory of their
native land, their rays, like those of a binary star, have shone
with steady lustre upon Catholic France in her darkest hour of
trial ; and scanning the horizon to-day, we find no greater light
than his Eminence Cardinal Perraud, Bishop of Autun."

A finished portrait of the cardinal academician has been

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394 Card. Perraud and the Lacordaire Group. [June,

given us by M. 0116-Laprune in La France ChrHienne. I know
not of any other more true to life than this picture :

" As a bond of union between the heroic times, already some-
what distant, of this history and the closing century, there is a
man who ever since about 1850 has known all the men the
characters of whom I have just described,* and who under-
stands and blesses their youthful posterity ; this bishop, a for-
mer pupil of the ficole Normale, a beloved disciple of P^re
Gratry ; circumspect, discreet even to being impeccable ; fervid
beneath a cold appearance ; austere and kind ; a great and im-
pressive orator ; a member of the French Academy like Lacor-
daire, like Dupanloup, like Gratry ; fitted for the highest posi-
tions, but incapable of thrusting himself into them; deceiving
the ambitions of his friends, but doing on all occasions what
God demands, simply, fervently, judiciously, excellently ; a noble
example in this period of restlessness, a great power and great
resource for the Catholic cause ; in him live all noble and gen-
erous passions, and we know that at the Vatican he is held in
esteem and love."

When Monseigneur Perraud was made cardinal in November,
1895, there was a burst of incredible joy in his dear old church
of Autun. But of all the discourses and addresses that were pre-
sented to him during that grand celebration there is a little
poem that went to his heart more, perhaps, than all the rest :
Misit illos binos ante faciem suam. Such is the evangelical text
that the poet has commented on and applied to .these two
brothers, the younger of whom departed before his time, and
from the height of a better world stoops to the cardi-
nal and throws to him the flowers of his white crown. His
Eminence could not then refrain, I am sure, from thinking of
him who was a father and a master to both of them — of P^re
Gratry, always enamoured of harmony ; or from remembering
his favorite word : ** Rien n'est parfait que ramend h Dieu et au
Christr

♦ L^on Olle-Laprune : La Vie inteliectuelle du CAtholicismt en France au xix. siHU,
La defense de la Foi, in La France Chretienne dans VHistoire (p. 561).

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1897O ■St. Anthony's Bread. 395

ST. ANTHONY'S BREAD.

•N the great church of Ara Coeli, in Rome, hangs
a famous portrait of St. Anthony of Padua,
painted by Pinturicchio five hundred years ago.
It represents the saint standing in the foreground
of a fine landscape ; in his right hand is a large
book, on "which rests a loaf of bread ; with his left hand he
presses to his breast a burning flame.

The loaf of bread is an old attribute of the eldest son of
St. Francis. It is significant of his ardent love for the poor.

So conspicuous a trait of St. Anthony's apostolate was
anxiety for the destitute, that his friend St. Bonaventure, in the
miraculous responsory written in his honor, chanted :

** Pereunt pericula,
Cessat et necessitas ;
Narrent hi qui sentiunt,
Dicunt Paduani.** —

Lo, dangers vanish at thy prayer,
And want finds plenty for its needs ;
Let those relate who've felt thy care,
Let Padua most proclaim thy deeds.

An instance of St. Anthony's gift of miracles and of his
readiness to exercise it to the profit of the poor, is recorded in
the process of his canonization. Close to the church that was
erected in Padua to his honor, shortly after his death, a baby
boy named Tomasino, twenty months old, was drowned in a
pond. The distracted mother, standing beside the corpse in the
presence of several friars and a crowd of workmen, promised
the saint that, if he would restore her son to life, she would
distribute among the poor a measure ;of corn equal to the
weight of the child. Instantly the dead babe awoke to new
life and stretched out his arms to his mother.

The confidence of that bereaved woman in St. Anthony's
benevolence sprang from the record of his life. In Italy, in
France, in Spain — wherever he had gone — his sympathy with
the temporal needs of the destitute was second only to his

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396 57-. Anthony's Bread, [June,

zeal for their eternal welfare, so that recourse to his patronage
became common throughout those three countries, as well as in
Portugal, almost from the hour of his death.

So general was this trust in St. Anthony throughout
Vaucluse and neighboring regions that two customs became
established there — the seeds sowed by the farmers were blessed
annually under his invocation to insure a good harvest, and
the infants were placed under his protection by having a
quantity of wheat of the same weight as the babes distributed
among the poor in his name. The bishops of Apt officially
sanctioned these practices, and in a breviary of the fourteenth
century belonging to that diocese these forms of blessing are
inserted in the liturgy :

" Blessing oj the seed grain : — Bless, O Lord, this seed, and
through the merits of our blessed father, St. Anthony, deign to
multiply it and cause it to brin^ forth fruit a hundred-fold, and
preserve it from lightning and tempest. Who livest and reign-
est, world without end. Amen.

^^ Blessing of corn of the weight of a child — Benedictio ad pon-
dus pueri : — We humbly beseech Thy clemency, O Lord Jesus
Christ, through the merits and prayers of our most glorious
father, St. Anthony, that Thou wouldst deign to preserve from
all ill, fits, plague, epidemic, fever, and mortality this Thy ser-
vant, whom in Thy name and in honor of our blessed father,
St. Anthony, we place in this balance with wheat, the weight
of his body, for the comfort of the poor sick who suffer in this
hospital. Deign to give him length of days and permit him to
attain the evening of life ; and, by the merits and prayers of
the Saint we invoke, grant him a portion in Thy holy and eter-
nal inheritance, guarding and preserving him from all his ene-
mies. Who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy
Ghost, world without end. Amen."

In recent years a new outlet for his charity has been made
through the work of St. Anthony's Bread for the Poor. It be-
gan in an obscure way. At Toulon, Department of Var, in
France, a young woman, named Louise Bouffier, keeps a linen-
store at 41 Rue Lafayette. On the morning of March 12, 1890,
when she went to open shop the key would not turn in the
lock. She herself tells how the difficulty was overcome :

"It is nearly four [now seven] years ago that our work be-
gan at a time when I had no other knowledge of St. Anthony
of Padua except that I had heard vaguely that he was invoked
to recover things that had been lost. One morning I came to

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1897O St. Anthony's Bread. 397

open my shop, but found that the lock would not move. I
sent for a locksmith, who came with a huge bunch of keys.
He tried for an hour to open the door, but in vain. At last,
out of patience, he exclaimed : * I must go for tools to break
it open ; it is impossible to unlock it.' During his absence, in-
spired by God, I thought to myself : ' If I promise some bread
to St. Anthony for his poor, perhaps he will make the door
open without us having to break the lock.' Just then the lock-
smith returned, and I said : * If you please, before forcing the
door, try once more to unlock it. I have promised some bread
to St. Anthony for his poor; perhaps the saint will help us.
The man consented, and the very first key that he put into
the lock opened it as if it had been made for it. Language
could not describe his surprise.

" From that day all my pious friends have had recourse to
the good Saint with me, and all our troubles are commended to
him with a promise of bread for his poor. We are astonished
at the number of graces he has thus granted us. One of my
intimate friends, a witness of these wonders, made a promise
to him of a kilogramme (two and a half pounds) of bread every
day of her life if a member of her family were cured of a de-
fect that had afHicted her for twenty-three years. Her petition
was quickly granted. In token of gratitude she bought a little
statue of St. Anthony, which we have placed in a small, dark
room, where a big lamp is needed to see it. This is my back
shop, and now all day long that little room is thronged with
people in deep and fervent prayer. Not only do they pray,
but one would think that they were paid to spread this devo-
tion, so zealously do they make it known.

" Sometimes a soldier, an officer, a sea captain setting out
on a long voyage, comes to promise St. Anthony five francs'
worth of bread a month if he goes and comes in safety. Now
it is a mother begging health for her sick child or the success
of an examination. Again it is a family entreating the conver-
sion of some dear one who is dying, but who will not see the
priest. Next it is a servant who is out of place or a workman
seeking employment. And all these petitions are accompanied
with promises of bread if they be granted. . . .

" Our promises of bread border on the fabulous ! We
have three of one thousand francs each, to say nothing of
minor promises, incalculable as to number, and the favors
granted steadily multiply. Daily we receive postal orders ac-
companied with some cordial words of thanks to the good St.

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39? St. Anthony's Bread. [June.

Anthony. They come from all quarters — from Lyons, Valence,
Grenoble, Montpellier, Nice, Hy^res, and thousands of other
cities. We have even received forty francs, sent to us from
the field of battle, by a commandant forming part of the expe-
dition to Dahomey ! It would require volumes to record all
the graces already obtained, spiritual and temporal.

"You ask how we distribute this good white bread of St.
Anthony. Our method is as follows : We have drawn up a list
of the poor communities, of the male and female orphan asy-
lums throughout the entire region, not forgetting the Little
•Sisters of the Poor, and whenever we have the money in hand
\ve ask them, by turn, on what date one of them wishes an
offering of bread. On the day fixed they receive 50, 80, 100
kilogrammes of bread according to the number of mouths in
the institution. When the children see in the refectory the
good white bread, they know that it is not that of the house,
and, simultaneously joining hands, they offer a fervent prayer
of thanksgiving to the good St. Anthony, together with a chorus
of 'Vivas.' This token of gratitude must be pleasing to the
good Saint, since he blesses ever more and more this dear little
work."

In a letter to the Annates Franciscaines Miss BoufTier relates
many wonderful cases of answered prayers, and then she adds:

"A large book would hardly contain all the marvellous oc-
currences that take place daily. In 1892 the alms amounted
to 5,743 francs, which were spent in bread for our old people
and orphans. The bank-notes of the rich are mixed with the
cents of the poor and the working-people, for most of the
donors carefully conceal their names.

" That which supports our work is ardent and grateful prayer.
Three times a day a thousand old people and orphans lift up
their hands in thanksgiving to the great Saint who watches
over them and supplies their wants." •

The fame of St. Anthony's bounty at the little shrine back
of the Bouffier linen-shop in Toulon spread quickly, not only
throughout that city but also all over France ; it passed to
Spain, to Italy, to Belgium, to Portugal, and to all other parts
of Europe. Thence the glad tidings were carried to America,
to Asia, to Africa, and to Oceania. The good news has circled
the globe. Everywhere St. Anthony is confidently invoked.
The Saint of the whole world, as Pope Leo calls him, is teach-
ing the world that charity is the wide avenue to the favor of
Heaven.

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usually possessed by any except those who have to some ex-
tent made theology a study. There are in all twenty papers,
which fall under three heads. The first division contains five
essays on God and the Holy Trinity ; the second six on the .
Blessed Sacrament, Purgatory, and Grace ; and the third nine
essays, somewhat more miscellaneous but all of them referrible
to the principles of the divine economy stated in the first divi-
sion and operating in the second.

They are deeply interesting and couched in a language
almost as rhythmical as lyric poetry ; and while it is this, there
is a strength in the style springing from solid thought and full
knowledge which raises the book to a high place of usefulness
as a medium of popular theology. One need not read half a
page before he finds how different this book is to the religious
literature that pours from the Protestant sects. In saying this
we do not mean that the writers of this literature are not de-
sirous to do good, according to their lights ; but it is clear
enough that there must be every shade of heterodoxy in their
opinions. Many of these publications are recommended by a
popular and taking style ; and it is said they attract Catholics
in consequence. We are afraid that this is so, and it is to be
feared that such reading must unsettle faith. Again, there is a
danger in the freedom possessed by Protestant writers ; they
are restrained by no authority, for each one's own conscience
is the measure of his responsibility, and his own judgment the
light by which he guides others. Now, when a man does not
claim to be an infallible guide, when he does not take his teach-
ing of religion from an infallible guide, we fail to see how an

* Thoughts for all Times. By the Right Rev. Monsignor John S. Vaughan. The Rox-
burghe Press, Victoria Street, Westminster.

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4CX) Talk about New Books. [June,

honest conscience can permit him to impose upon others his
whims, his crotchets, his errors as the expression of God's re-
vealed will.

The freedom we refer to affords opportunity for speculative
opinion of an attractive and dangerous character. There is no
one who has not some curiosity about God and the soul, time
and eternity, the relations of this world to the world to come.
These are questions each one likes to consider concerning one
or other of these topics, and he is drawn to a writer who pur-
ports to solve them in a sensible, straightforward, rational way ;
not in the manner of priests, who lay down a hard, unmerciful
law which, if observed, would make the defeat of this life the
condition of entering into the next. To men who wish to unite
the two worlds in a common service, who would make religion a
curious system of balances in which all the powers of mind and
body are offered to Mammon, with a clause of mental reserva-
tion saving the possible rights of God, the free lances of Protest-
ant theology will afford that acceptable scheme of belief which
will put Mammon on the altar and God far away in the azure.
For such men the Biblical critics among sectarian divines, the
Rationalist Christian laymen who claim a right to preach, and
whose abomination is a priesthood, are the teachers after their
own heart. There are men of another kind, men who really
desire to find God — it does not matter that they express it " to
get religion " — but they are anxious to lay hold of a strong faith
flowering into a holy life. This they cannot find in the lifeless
walls and dead symbols of the sects. They are captured by
the impulsive appeals of good men with more heart than head,
because there is a vitality in them. But from these two classes
of unauthorized teachers, on the one hand the critical, on the
other the sentimental, our young people are in danger.

They meet in their avocations and in society their Protest-
ant friends who have been fed upon such literature as we refer
to. Discussions arise, interest is excited, and a book is lent.
One must read what the world is reading. The effusive and
well-meaning platitudes of a benevolent man, who finds in the
Divine Life the most perfect realization of charity, are put forth
as his contribution to Christian knowledge. It is very well
meant, but absurd because it makes a spasmodic philanthropy
the practical compliance with the entire gospel law. Such a
view of Christianity is open to the objections of a social char-
acter which we should bring against a revival of the Cathari
and the other sects claiming similar primitive purity, which in-

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I897-] Talk about New Books. 401

fested Europe for so many centuries until close to the great
revolt of Luther. When benevolence is the entire of religion,
and assumes an organized form in the shape of a sect, license,
profligacy, robbery, and public disturbance are the inevitable
result.

Again, we have the hard, critical aspect of Christianity which
begins by impeaching the evidences of faith by a critical ex-
amination of the inspired writings, or by an inquiry into the
meaning of inspiration, and winding up with the result that
upon the whole Christianity, interpreted in the spirit of this age
and modified, so far as its morality extends, by the exigencies
of existing conditions of life, may be adopted by rational men
as an answer to the requirements of the emotional side of their
being, or possibly, if such a thing exist, to the spiritual life
within them.

Monsignor Vaughan's Thoughts for all Times comes in not
one hour too soon ; it exactly hits the line between science and
spiritual reading — inter scholasticum et asceticum — so that he who
reads these papers must become a better man according to the
growth of his knowledge. We can assure our readers that they
will find the greatest interest as they go along ; for in their minds
a system of knowledge of God in all the manifestations of his
power will be developed ; so that they shall obtain a practical
conviction of the truth, that the more exact is our knowledge
of the nature of God, the more we learn of the divine econo-
my in relation to ourselves and in relation to the illimitable
regions of the universe, the more ready shall we be to live in
this life as in his temple, to live as if we were passing through
the ante-chamber to the eternal Court. His power is about us
and within us here ; this we must feel. To the exposition of
the various subjects the writer has brought the resources of a
rare degree of learning ; a graceful style, as we have said ; a
gentle enthusiasm, very charming in its effect, of sympathy be-
tween him and the reader, and we hope for this work a large
circulation.

Jesus Christ durifig His Ministry * is a work by '* Edmond
Stapfer," who describes himself as Professor " in the Faculty of
Protestant Theology in Paris "; and it is translated by Louise
Seymour Houghton. We may say at once that Mr. Stapfer
proves himself in this work a man of ability — wrong, no doubt,
in his point of view, and uncertain in his Biblical criticism from

* Jesus Christ during His Ministry, By Edmond Stapfer. New York : Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons.

VOL. LXV.— 26

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402 Talk about New Books. [June,

this very fact ; but, notwithstanding his unsound starting-point
and erroneous inferences, he evinces the spiritual contact of
sympathy and reverence for the Lord in his work there and
then in his ministry. He calls attention to this title ** Jesus
Christ during his Ministry," and not "The Ministry of Jesus
Christ." There is a difference ; for in speaking of our Lord
" during his ministry," he is at once tested as St. Paul might
be tested, or as St. Columbanus. He is subjected to the rays
which pierce the outer shell of manners and deeds, and project
upon the plate motive and mode of thought in the hideousness
of anatomy. That this illustration does not exaggerate the
meaning of Mr. Stapfer's method, the reader must recognize
when he hears that the writer announces his intention of no-
ticing only such events in the life of our Lord " as throw light
upon what took place in his soul." This is a system of ex-
amination we deprecate, because it begins with the assumption
that he was a mere man. He was a man, and the most per-
fectly human of all mankind ; but he was also God, and no
reverent treatment can place him on a level with his servants.
To suppose that we are to take account of apparent waverings
or inconsistencies ; to look at the adjustments of himself to
circumstances from time to time as small measures of expe-
diency ; and from all this to infer that he was playing a parti-
cular rSle in conforming his life and conduct to the prophecies
about the Messias ; to regard him as doing all this to meet the
popular expectation, leaves a bad impression upon the reader,
no matter what may be the opinion and what the writer's in-
tention. We think it would be unjust to question Mr. Stapfer's
belief in the divinity of the Lord, and there is before us very
clear proof of his erudition in his manner of handling the
materials at his hand ; but despite the superabundant evidence
he adduces for the divinity he leaves behind a feeling of dissatis-
faction, of want, something like the effect on one of the argu-
ment of a minister who must support the action of his govern-
ment even though he has a notion that in certain grave parti-
culars it is impolitic.

He points out, with good sense, what must be evident to
every man who reads the life of our Lord as we have it in the
Gospels and the works of his disciples, that his teaching from
the first is either an inexplicable enigma or a revelation from
God. If he preached, it was what no man could have evolved
from his own consciousness. And that he did so preach is
superabundantly proved ; therefore he must have received what

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he preached from God. The stupidity of Rationalism forces it-
self on one looking at our Lord's entrance upon his ministry.
Of course no one now questions the historical evidence — we
assume that as accepted^ and that the only difference is about
the manner of reading the evidence ; the historical evidence is,
shortly, to this effect : Our Lord began to preach from the Pre-
cursor's mission and announcement of the kingdom of heaven at
hand. To this he added the declaration of the Father's love
and the brotherhood of man. He proclaimed pardon and in-
finite mercy at a time when men knew only the laws of blood
and worshipped gods which personified all their deadly sins and
passions, or gods of gloom and jealousy who were to be
deprecated by sacrifices often as cruel and sanguinary as the
acts to be dreaded from these pitiless deities themselves ; and
he who preached these tidings of love and mercy, the tidings
of this heavenly Fatherhood and universal brotherhood, which
bound all mankind together as children in links of a golden chain
that went up to their Father's hand, was a Jew, a son of the
most exclusive race of all antiquity. This is the teaching at
such a time and amid such conditions, and to-day Rationalism
puts out the eyes of the mind when it sees in this anything
but the work of God. Now, Mr. Stapfer is not less blind
than the Rationalist when he accepts the evidence, and to a
great extent the conclusion from it, but draws back from the
inevitable consequence of all that he accepts in the way of in-
ference and the historical premises on which the inference rests.

In the preface to the first of the two books we have named*
we are informed that Balzac placed himself as a writer of his-
toric fiction near to Scott, and immeasurably above Dumas as
this novelist displays himself in The Three Musketeers. Noth-
ing but an utter inability to discern the kind of talent he pos-
sessed and its limit would have caused him to institute a com-
parison between himself and Scott; it is as if a photographer
were to compare himself with one of the great masters. He
has far less power of dealing with historic associations and
figures even than Dumas, the man he despises.

It appears his object was to make Catherine de' Medici an
historical study on new and independent grounds, and so he
presents her as one of those inscrutable intelligences we find in
the political portraiture of the period, with a will inexorable as

* About Catherine de'' Medici^ by H. D. Balzac, and A Woman of Thirty and The
Uly 0/ the Valley^ by the same author. New York : The Macmillan Co.

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fate; instead of being a "timid" woman, a woman "naturally
timid," "ambitieuse et craintive," " timida et irresoluta/' "regina,
ut est mulier territa," as she is described by foreign ambassa-
dors and other contemporary witnesses. The " Woman of
Thirty " is not a creation ; she is a pure monstrosity, less con-
sistent than any that a hag-ridden fancy had ever before com-
pounded from discordant elements.

While expressing the opinion pronounced above we do not
forget that among his own countrymen Balzac is regarded as
the greatest master of romantic fiction France has produced.
An equally high estimate has been formed of him in England ;
so much so, indeed, that one considerable authority maintains
that in his own domain he is what Tacitus is among historians.
We have tried him in About Catherine de' Medici by the standard
he himself has selected, and we fail to find a character that can
be at all regarded as a creation except, perhaps, Calvin. There
seems to be something of the power of Tacitus in this portrait,
but a single picture of a character incidentally introduced does
not make a work a great historical novel. Christophe, the
hero, is not a man ; he utterly escapes touch, though he is
given to us with all the minute detail by which Balzac endea-
vors to make descriptive analysis perform the work of self-reve-
lation. This is the method of Tacitus, but in him this subjec-
tive portraiture has almost all the vividness of the highest
dramatic power. Tiberius is as well known almost as any
character in Shakspere's historic plays ; and when we say this
we must mean that the creation is as consummate in art and
power almost as any character of Shakspere. For in that vast
collection of men and women, so true in the highest sense to
nature, there is scarcely one that seizes the imagination with a
stronger hold than do Henry V., Hotspur, Margaret, Richard,
and we may add Warwick, though we see so little of him.
But as these are historical figures into which Shakspere breathed
life, so to that form which another historian would have sent
down as a number of epithets and qualities tied together by a
name, Tacitus has given that embodiment of imagination which
makes this airy fantasy a thing of flesh and blood. Hence we
have the profound and relentless craft of the third Caesar be-
fore us more clearly than memory can recall the face and form
of our ordinary acquaintance.

You are not affected by the fate of Christophe; you do not
admire what would be courage in any other, but in him is the
testimony of Balzac, which you refuse to take seriously. The

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impression upon you is that this Huguenot middle-class hero
and enthusiast is a very forward, vulgar, and conceited youth,
whose religion is not a faith which elevates above all earthly
interests and fears, whatever else it means. When his legs are
placed in the boot you are tempted to say, Serves him right
for thrusting himself in where he had no business. Nowhere
do we find less probability than in Catherine's demeanor to-
wards him and his submission to what would be the most cruel
ingratitude of egoism, cold, shallow, and pitiless, that could be
conceived. Catherine had no claim upon him, yet he endures
torture for her, and this while not only disavowed but practi-
cally handed over to her enemies, who proceed to work their
will upon him. No doubt there is a motive for this marvellous
self-negation which accepts dishonor, torture, and possibly
death, suggested in the devoting of him to such a fate for
" the religion '* by Chandieu, the Huguenot divine ; but it is
unreal. It is simply trifling with the resources of dramatic art
to construct a character out of inharmonious qualities, each one
of which is left in its domain an absolute sovereign ; it is false
to invest a character with an environment of incidents and
casualties not one of which has any apparent influence in form-
ing the disposition, and then to treat the character as if it were
fashioned from such accidental circumstances. Now, Balzac has
committed both of these solecisms in Christophe. You do not
mind him in the torture any more than if he were a pasteboard
man. How different are your feelings when you see the foot
of the young Covenanting minister in Old Mortality cased in
the boot : next see the wedge inserted and then the execu-
tioner's axe raised ! Your blood runs cold.

In the minute fidelity of Balzac's descriptions of streets,
houses, and rooms we have the detective power to an abnor-
mal extent ; but we say, with a certain reserve, that in its em-
ployment in Catherine de' Medici we do not seem to possess any-
thing else. Let us not be misunderstood : we admit the photo-
graphic exactness of the descriptions, and at times a coloring
beyond photography, like the shadow of a spirit of good or
evil cast over the painting of the sun ; but what we miss is the
life to be lived in the scenes set before us with such overlay-
ing of outline, such mingling almost to motleying of colors. It
is an auctioneer's advertising picture when no people live in
the rooms, stand in the halls, fill vestibule, stair-case, corridor,
closet, court, with their laughter, their wisdom, folly, mockery
their hopes, their fears ; the little tragedies of inferior life

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toning down the crimes and agonies of the great — all this we
should have, but we have it not.

Of course there are plenty of names, great and little, his-
torical and imaginary — we have catalogues of them ; but again
no men or women, not even good pictures of them, not even
the inspired blindness of sculpture with its suggestiveness of
sphinx-like inscrutability and baleful power. The Guises have a
sort of reality indeed, but it is due to their prominence by
reason of conflict with the queen-mother's policy. She is in-
tended to be the central figure ; so all others take hold of the
attention in relation to her, but this is all the interest they pos-
sess. There is an attempt to give us Charles IX. in public,
and in the secret dwelling where he found, it is said, the only
comfort for a heart broken by nervous excitement and remorse.
Again the meretricious glare of excited fancy is aroused ; and
we hear the heart-throbs running along the scale of the sen-
sational up to agony that savors of the circus saw-dust.
Bathos rhymes with pathos in this suffering. This is the danger
of the abnormal translated by realism ; it is melodramatic, if not
burlesque. Now we remind the reader of Charles IX., as
Dumas brings him before us in Marguerite de ValoiSj and leave
it to his judgment as to whether Balzac was justified in looking
down on that great writer of fiction and in placing himself near
"the Wizard of the North."

The writer of fiction can never be a true artist if his inci-
dents are improbable and if his characters have no place in the
intuitions of fancy. The morbid taste for the sensational has
made a demand upon the exuberant imagination of Balzac
which he endeavored to gratify through consciousness of ex-
ceptional force and fertility, but seldom with taste and judg-
ment. The effect upon himself seems to b>, that the world
within him and that outside, in its various phases of social
activity, became confused, so that he could not distinguish be-
tween the products of his imagination and the types of life
before him or that were crystallized in the events of history.
This is the only way to account for the conception of Catherine
de' Medici as an enthusiast for order expressed in monarchy.
This is why he mistakes De Thou's declaration that royalty died
with Catherine. It reached its highest plane with the absolutism
of Louis XIV. three generations later, but with the Great King
there was more than royalty ; there was the historic monarchy
going back to Chilperic and identified with France in its
various vicissitudes for twelve centuries. If De Thou had any

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deeper meaning than the opinion that the effete house of
Valois had lost a guide in Catherine, it could only have been
that the royalty of Italian craft had passed from the stage to
make room for a monarchy of bold ambition and patriotic
principle.

AVe purposed pointing out why it is that the abnormal in
fact cannot be made the ground-work of fiction without great
risk of failure ; but this note has already extended beyond
reasonable bounds.

Under the title The Chief End of Man* Mr. George S.
Merriam proceeds to prove that "fidelity, truth-seeking, courage,
and love are the rightful lords of human life and its sufficient
guides and interpreters." He offers as a medium of proof
" the message with which the universe has answered the soul
of man whenever he listened most closely and obeyed most
faithfully." ^ He fears that he will interpret " the message " in
question " with stammering tongue," but we can assure him
from a hasty perusal that whatever else his style does, it does
not limp ; he has an uncomfortable feeling that " by the
scholar" the book may be considered crude: on this we pre-
fer to avoid expressing an opinion ; he is uneasy ** lest the
churchman should think it mischievous " : we promise him it
shall not be put on the Index, if we have any influence ; and as
the full term of the book's misdemeanors he thinks the man of
science will form the opinion that it lacks "solidity of demon-
stration." Possibly he does no injustice to the man of science
in thinking him capable of forming such an opinion.

We are, however, bound to say that Mr, Merriam seems
fair-minded and religious ; his mistakes arise from want of know-
ledge, inability to free himself from prejudices, and a notion
that reasoning proceeds from the heart and not from the intellect.

There is on our table a book by the Rev. John Talbot
Smith for which we ask young priests a place in their collec-
tions. It is called The Chaplain's Sermons^ and consists of a
number of sermons in rather more than outline, intended to
serve as the framework of sermons for those whose duties are
of so exacting a character as to prevent them from spending a
considerable length of time on the composition of their ser-
mons. Father Smith has executed successfully the work he
took upon himself. It was far from being an easy task, this

♦ The Chief End of Man, By George S. Merriam. Boston and New York : Houghton,
Mifflin & Co.

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one of supplying models to inexperienced preachers that would
afford suggestion and form of arrangement without doing the
entire business for them.

We have received a pamphlet by John K. Ingram, one of
the senior fellows and professors of Trinity College, Dublin,
criticising an article by Mr. W. H. Schaff entitled "A Neglected
Chapter in the Life of Comte" which appeared in the Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science for
November, 1896. We have no admiration for Positivism be-
cause, in the highest view of it, it attracts men of generous
impulse by its specious morality and elevated social pretensions ;
and such men fail to see that men at large are indifferent or
bad, with a sprinkling of good among them to redeem the rot-
tenness of the bad or to supply an occasional motive to the
habitual selfishness of the indifferent, like the five good men
who save cities steeped in iniquity to the lips. If Positivism
were to become a force throughout the world, we might at
once look for the end of things. We are sure no one would
regret the social chaos that should arise from the " personal
morality " of Positivism more than the writer of this pamphlet,
who in his dream of a religion of humanity hopes for the ele-
vation of the race with as much ardor and enthusiasm as De
Mun, but who, unlike De Mun, has no sanction for it, no sup-
port for it deeper and stronger than the susceptibilities of a
highly emotional nature acting on an intellect of singular keen-
ness and intensity.

In abandoning Catholicity, or, more correctly, following the
lead of the anti-Catholic spirit about him, Comte did not lay
aside his constructive power, his grasp of social conditions, and
his sympathy ; consequently, in any social philosophy he might
form the aesthetics of morality, as we may call the side of the
domestic and social virtues which have power upon most, would
be an important factor. To himself and to the finer spirits
that would follow him the ideal of a noble world might appear
attainable, and if all were of their kind would be attainable,
and so one could understand their enthusiasm ; but all men are
not of this quality. Not the masses, blind, furious, unthinking
only, but the smug philosophers of the unthinkable and the un-
knowable who lie in their words, in their experiments, in the
whole round of their lives are compact of grosser clay than
these beautiful natures.

The blatant unbelief of Spencer and the uncouth ravings of

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the ten thousand shallow minds that constitute the " creed of
science," not the school, for this would be good English, have
proceeded in a large measure from Positivism. No doubt it
was not the system intended by Comte, but the abyssmal leap
of the school just spoken of was a consequence to be expected
from his philosophy.

We fully agree with Dr. Ingram, that nothing is to be gained
by misrepresentation. Though we hold that the Positive Phil-
osophy is a bad substitute for Christianity, it is not to be suc-
cessfully combated by reviving Protestant prejudices against
the church.

The division of D. O'Kelly Branden's (Rev. Dominic Bren-
nan, C.P.) little volume of verse, Heart Tones,* into "poems of
the sentiments, patriotic and religious poems," must have been
a purely arbitrary arrangement on the part of his publishers.
No such division can ever exist in the writer's mind. Although
not intended as a volume of sacred verse, it is almost purely
devotional. In " Victory," p. 23, he seems to have swerved al-
most involuntarily from his original motif, on recalling that
" the Lamb is the Lamp of glory " ; while his truly Christian
patriotism is by no means confined to its section, vide "The
Christ Cry," p. 91 :

** O Christ, and O Christ ! we need Thee. . .
Where the wrong-ridden nation is groaning,
Waiting redemption again."

D. O'Kelly Branden will probably live out his own ideal of
the poet as speaking to the sadder (generally the better) moods
of men and women in short scraps of verse which will cling to
mind and memory. His longer efforts are not his best, and his
strongest hold on the public will be his exceeding simplicity.

NEW BOOKS FROM' THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY.

The first issue of Dr. Gasquet's revised edition of Cobbett's
History of the Reformation was sold out within a few weeks of
publication. The work has been reprinted on better paper and
at a much lower price. Since the editor has carefully verified
every assertion which Cobbett makes, letting none pass muster
unless supported by good authority, the new edition affords
what has so long been wanting — a history of the Reformation,

♦ Heart Tones. By D. O'Kelly Branden. Buffalo, N. Y.: The Peter Paul Book Co.

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410 Talk about New Books. [June,

popular in price and style, and at the same time trustworthy as
regards facts.

The Value of Life, a little volume of essays by Mrs. W. A.
Burke, which has just been issued by the Catholic Truth So-
ciety, has the advantage of a preface by Mr. Aubrey de Vere,
who promises that its readers will derive from it much enjoy-
ment as well as benefit.

"This unpretending book," he says, "whatever its fortunes
may prove, is among those that tend to produce holy and hap-
py households. It has thus unconsciously a part, like many
others among the quietest things around us, in the great battle
of the age — that for religious education. . . . The reader
will not fail to perceive that the style of this book is perspicu-
ous, concise, and free from false ornament, that its substance is
the result of habitual observations taken from actual life, and
that the quotations which supplement those observations are
drawn impartially from writers belonging to very different
schools of thought."

The first volume of a new issue of Father Cnthlrerfs Curiosu
ty Case, by the Rev. L. G. Vere, is now ready, and forms
a useful addition to the shilling books of Catholic tales.
The collection was issued many years back in smaller form by
the Catholic Truth Society, which now produces the present
volume in a tasteful cover designed by Mr. Payers. A second
series will follow almost immediately, and the two may then be
obtained together in a handsome volume for half-a-crown. The
two series already issued of the new edition of Lady Herbert's
Wayside Tales may be obtained in a similar volume, which will
be found very suitable for prizes and presents.

The Economic Review for January contains an appreciative re-
view of Mrs. Crawford's Key to Labour Probletns. "Sociologists,"
says the writer, " will be thankful to the Catholic Truth Socie-
ty for having published this adapted translation of M. L^on
Harmel's CatMiisme du Patron ; and he concludes by saying
that "no student of social science can afford to neglect a study
of this interesting little book."

Among the recent penny publications of the Catholic Truth
Society may be mentioned, Ought We to honour Mary? by the
Rev. J. F. Splaine, S.J. ; No. 24 of the Library of Catholic
Tales, containing " A Lucky Hamper," by Margaret E. Merri-
man, and " Unfaithful," by Joseph Carmichael ; and Archbishop
Ullathorne's famous sermon on The Drunkard.

Father Charles Bowden has compiled a Life of James, Earl

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of DerwentwatcTj A.D. 1689-1716, in which are brought together
the various letters of the earl, with much information not
hitherto readily accessible. A portrait of the earl is given as a
frontispiece.

The Catholic Truth Society has just issued two leaflets — one
dealing with Chiniquy, the other with the Protestant Alliance
— which will be very useful for distribution at the meetings
addressed by the Canadian apostate.

THE MAGAZINES.

The North American Review contains a clever article by Pro-
fessor B. I. Wheeler, of Cornell University, on "The Modern
Greek as a Fighting Man." It is interesting at present as a
forecast of the result of the war ; for the writer, notwithstand-
ing sympathy with the Greeks, seemed to be pretty certain that
they would be worsted in a fight with the Turks. He judged
from national characteristics that the Greeks, though brave and
hardy, would not be amenable to discipline in the higher sense,
while the Turks, possessing the advantage of drill and organiza-
tion, would have in their fatalism an additional element of
stolid strength.

In the same issue Professor Goldwin Smith, under the title
of " A Constitutional Misfit," supplies an article on American
party politics. It contains in a short compass a fairly reasona-
ble number of misconceptions of the origin and nature of party
government in England, and applies them to party movements
in this country. If he be correct in the application, this would
appear to teach very little, because the test is not to be relied
upon. His criticism of the opinion that popular government
in the United States has stood the test of a hundred years
and has come well out of the trial is rather flippant than judi-
cious, and certainly is not sustained by citing in support of it
the authority of "Robert Lowe." The truth is, Lowe was a
man of great ability, but had no more idea of practical states-
manship than the ordinary professor in a college. He seceded
from the Liberal Party on a moderate reform bill ; he sup-
ported that party later on when it was rushing to manhood
suffrage at the rate of sixty miles an hour. As chancellor of
the exchequer he will be remembered for a budget that nearly
wrecked the party. In that office it was thought the special
qualities of his mind and the result of his studies would have
given him an opportunity for exceptional distinction. His

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412 Talk about New Books, [June,

failure provides another instance of the wide difference there is
between the academics of the study and the lecture hall, where
there is no responsibility and no contradiction, and the politi-
cal adjustments offered under a sense of responsibility and
subject to instructed criticism.

The Journal of the Medical Sciences for April has an article
entitled ** Morbid Besetments or Obsessions," by Colonel B.
Burr, M.D., in which he discusses in an interesting manner what
we should rather call phenomena of nervousness than " obses-
sions." In fact it is an abuse of language to apply the word
to the processes described in the article, and its selection would
seem made for the purpose of giving a learned air to a very
simple matter so far as its classification is concerned. For the
treatment of patients under the different shades of nervous irri-
tability or excitement we have no criticism, partly because there
Dr. Burr is on his own ground, and partly because his brother-
practitioners would have an interest in taking him to task if his
method were unusual and unauthorized. A statement he makes
of the different effects of " imperative conceptions " on himself
when he was a young man, and their influence upon him now,
shows that the mental tendencies he is dealing with are the re-
sult of environment. The phrase " morbid besetments," which
is an equivalent for "obsessions," and which seems to have the
sanction of general usage in the profession, contains an impli-
cation which, if drawn outside the matter in hand, would serve
as basis for quasi-scientific impeachment of cases of really ex-
ternal besetment. We can assure our readers that, broadly
stated, in the instances cited there is not one that has not been
familiar to the world since civilized society, in the sense of arti-
ficial society, began. That they have been treated with at
least as much success as they are to-day may be said with sub-
stantial accuracy. The only difference, perhaps, is in the in-
crease of susceptibility to such conditions, due to the modern
use of stimulants and narcotics, the impaired nervous organiza-
tion of the mothers, and the overwrought nervous system of
the fathers of the present generation ; but the characteristic
symptoms of nervous disease prevail in all of them, and noth-
ing more complicated than what habits and environment would
account for. It may be added that among other conclusions
concerning such affections the International Congress of Men-
tal Medicine of 1889 adopted this one: "They never are accom-
panied with hallucinations." If that be a correct conclusion,
and there would seem to be no doubt of it, why call such men-

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tal conditions *' obsessions "; and in a dim way hint that science
is the great exorciser ? They so clearly belong to a different or-
der of phenomena from those to which the word "possession"
and the word " obsession " have been applied, that nothing can
be inferred respecting the latter from the recognizable charac-
teristics and explicable causes of the former.

" Early Man in America " is a readable article by Harvey B.
Bashore in Lippincotfs Monthly Magazine. The style is clear
and crisp, and the treatment of his thesis, that man has lived
on this continent countless ages, is not offensively dogmatic.
Possibilities, as usual with the archaeological historian of pre-
Adamite nations, are confounded with probabilities ; these in
their turn become established facts, and in the sleight-of-hand
of the whole function we find ourselves served up with a Q. E. D.
before we are done thinking whether we are reading a fable in
a Castle of Indolence or a paper purporting to be scientific.

In the first part of an appreciative article on Montalembert,
in Etudes for April, Father Cornut, S.J., who is the writer, dis-
plays the spirit in which he approaches his work by informing
us how Montalembert prepared himself for the task of com-
bating the vicious system of education, and the moral and
social errors of the age which it was reflecting, and in its turn
confirming. " Full of this noble ambition, he set about acquir-
ing the most complete knowledge . . . that the languages,
history, philosophy, literature, the fine arts could give him."
It was a " touching sight," he says, to observe " this young
gentleman" devoting himself to the cause of the church, and
in that service " passionately pursuing new studies and turning
to account every opportunity."

. I. — ABBOT TOSTI'S ST. BENEDICT.

A new life of St. Benedict has just been given to us in the
translation of Abbot Tosti's admirable work.

Abbot Tosti is now a very old man, and although he has
written many other historical works which testify to his excel-
lence as one of the best archivists and historians of to-day,
nevertheless this life of St. Benedict will undoubtedly bring
him for the first time before the English-reading public. The
" Life," while it is both religious and devotional, is above all
historical, and for this reason in particular it is most acceptable
and most interesting.

The nations of Europe present to us at the opening of the

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414 Talk about New Books. [June,

sixth century a fearful picture of devastation and ruin. Con-
fusion, decay, and death reigned supreme. The people were in-
different to all moral principle. In Italy itself some had taken
up again the worship of idols. The wild horde of barbarians,
like a black cloud obscuring the sun, had enveloped these na-
tions in a night of faithlessness and despair. The rude savage
of the North seemed for the moment to be undoing the work
of the self-denying martyrs of Christ. Christianity had con-
quered once, but if she would live she must conquer again.

Then it was that God, in his wonderful providence, raised
up Benedict, who was to marshal his silent army of monks and
lead them on to battle. In that struggle fire and sword were
to have no part, but the only weapon to be emploj^ed was the
cross of Christ — the practice of the evangelical counsels. Such
is the worthy theme of Tosti's book, and he has handled it
with a master's skill.

He tells how the saint, leaving his university studies "to
please God alone," led a hermit's life in the rude cave at Su-
biaco, and how, driven from there by the wicked designs of an
enemy, he travelled to Monte Casino. It was at this famous
abbey of Monte Casino that the saint formed his Rule, and,
bringing together the scattered and powerless, yet zealous,
monks of the West, instructed and trained them and sent them
forth on that far-reaching apostolate of conversion and regen-
eration. The barbarians, and not the Romans, were the more
important object of this apostolate. This the author points
out in a passage which may be quoted with profit : ** What the
gentiles were in the economy of the apostolic miracles, that
the barbarians were in the economy of holy men like St. Bene-
dict, who subdued them by charity and miracles, and made
them citizens of the City of God — I mean of modern Christian
civilization. . . . The Roman people was a worn-out people,
a prey to that moral lethargy which follows that intoxication
of strong passions which they call scepticism. At such a time
the soul loses its power to answer with the echo of Faith to
the word of supernatural revelation. On the contrary the bar-
barian, unencumbered with demoralizing and lethargic memories,
was full of energy and capable of taking in the word of Chris-
tian faith. The barbarians were not conquered by the soldiers
of Belisarius and Narses, but by St. Benedict and his monks,
who, with the ideal of the Evangelical Counsels, knew how to
unite to the Latin stock that conquering race which, while it
could not be subdued by the force of armies, bent its head,

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like Totila and Zalla, at the feet of St. Benedict through the
influence of that supernatural virtue which expressed itself in
miracle and prophecy."

Every incident which the author records and every view
which he takes, and wherein he differs perhaps from other
writers, is supported by historical references and clear logical
reasoning. As an historian Abbot Tosti is true and exact — as
exact as this nineteenth century could demand him to be. He
does not shrink from recording miracles, though he well knows
that in return he will receive the jeer and the rebuke of both
rationalist and materialist. But to them Abbot Tosti says : " St.
Benedict was a thaumaturgus and prophet whilst the church was
being planted in the heart of civil society. ... A thauma-
turgus and prophet is Vincent of Paul, the liberator of woman
from the slavery of sense, who reconciles Reason and Faith by
miracles of charity, and in the mysterious ages of electricity
and steam points out a path of light for the safe guidance of
human progress."

As a literary work the book is also worthy of praise. The
style is strong, easy, and varied ; the descriptions natural and
life-like.

2. — AMERICAN AND BRITISH AUTHORS.*

The compiler of this new text-book on literature, while
dealing fairly with British writers, yet aims at giving lengthier
sketches and fuller treatment to our American men of letters.
The purpose is excellent and has been faithfully carried out.

In both portions of the work the most prominent authors
have been honored with biographical sketches, accompanied by
quotations from their writings, by numerous appreciative com-
ments on their character and literary ability, and by well-filled
lists of references to them. For these things and for the spirit
of religious reverence which is breathed forth from nearly
every page of his book, Mr. Irish deserves credit.

His work, however, is marred by many defects, some slight,
some grave. About 180 pages of the American portion of the
volume are concerned with just 26 writers, while 20 additional
pages are thought to give sufficient information regarding some
200 others of literary bent. This fault is less marked in the
second part of the book.

Another defect, one by no means restricted to the text-book

^American and British Authors. By Frank V. Irish, Educator and Author. Columbus,
Ohio : Frank V. Irish.

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4i6 Talk about New Books. [June,

in hand, seems to have flowed from an unworthy source. In
vain will the reader search through this work for any account
of such men as Newman, Lingard, Aubrey de Vere, Faber,
Brownson, or Father Ryan, the Southern poet-priest, not to speak
of others who are far more deserving of mention in this connec-
tion than many whose names and works are recorded by Mr.
Irish. Why are they all ignored?. Is it because their writings
have a religious tone and bent ? It would seem not, for a
hasty glance over the lists of authors has given us the names
of somewhere around a dozen sectarian clergymen, whose pro-
ductions are, in title and theory at least, exclusively religious.
Perhaps it is because their writings have a Catholic ring and
resound with the sweet melody of Catholic faith. If so, it is a
pity; if otherwise, then we have nothing more to regret in the
compiler than either lack of information in regard to his sub-
ject-matter, or want of ability to discern true literary worth.

As regards the sketches of our own chief writers, they are
somewhat rambling in character and very often lack the con-
ciseness and clearness so necessary in text-books. Then again,
some of them give one-sided estimates of the authors they
present to us, notably so in the cases of Lowell, Emerson, and
Whittier. This defect probably results from Mr. Irish's theory
that a teacher should "avoid speaking of the personal deformi-
ties or failings of an author/' since that maxim may easily be
stretched so as to cover the works as well as the author. To
many minds it would seem best to have every man shown in
his true colors, for there is enough of real goodness in this
world to inspire young people to the proper shaping of their
lives, without depending on fictitious excellence which in after
years they may find vain and empty. Thus far, however, the
question may be one of individual taste. But when an author's
personal defects and petty vices are interwoven in his writings,
and are borne on the wings of his style, then simple honesty
demands that he be not idealized, but shown forth in the clear,
strong light of truth. Thus the student or reader, forewarned,
is forearmed.

That this criticism be not thought captious, it may be well
to refer to the sketch which has had most to do in calling it
forth. Mr. Whittier, notwithstanding his " supreme love of
right " and his " unswerving loyalty to truth,** was, in his poem,
" Mogg Megone," a defamer of the saintly Father Rasle, the
martyr missionary of Maine; and his poems "To Pius the
Ninth " and " The Dream of Pio Nono " have been fitly de-

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scribed as scandalous and coarse. Perhaps Mr. Irish may have
overlooked this trait of Whittier's, or may have thought it too
trifling for mention. Be that as it may, such low, mean war-
fare against Catholicity, the religion of our strong helpers in
the hour of our need, betrays a narrow, bigoted mind, one
which should have been spoken of with moderation and not
glorified.

3. — THE JESUIT RELATIONS.*

Professor John Fiske, referring to the work of the Burrows
Brothers Company described in the March number of The
Catholic World, writes : " I regard the publication of The
Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents as one of the most im-
portant historical enterprises ever undertaken in America. The
documents are absolutely indispensable to the right understand-
ing of American history."

The fourth volume of the series, now issued, closes the
documentary history of the first Acadian missions, which began
in 1610 with the conversion of Memberton by a secular priest,
and ended in 1616 when Pierre Biard, S.J., concluded at
Amiens his admirable " Relation," which detailed the capture
and transportation of the Jesuits by the Virginian, Captain
Argall. To Father Biard we are indebted for most of the ex-
tensive and charming literature of this mission. Besides his six
letters, which share with other contents the pages of volumes i.
and ii., his " Relation " occupies almost the whole of volume
iii. and the greater part of volume iv. This is a popular essay
designed to cover various needs, but chiefly to exploit the value
of New France for colonization, to recount the heroic incidents
of its settlement, both spiritual and temporal, and to present a
masterly apology for the labors of the Jesuits there. No one
can read the smooth translation which accompanies the original
text without conceiving a profound respect for Father Biard,
alike as a man, as a missionary, and as a writer.

The remainder of volume iv. gives the scant remains of the
once voluminous correspondence of Father Charles Lalemant,
who was superior of the Jesuit band sent to Quebec in 1625.
He relates briefly the hardships of the first Quebec mission,
brought to an end in 1629 when the town surrendered to the
£nglish Admiral Kirk. In the summer of the same year he
and several others were shipwrecked off the Acadian coast

* The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vols. iii. and iv. Clevelandi Ohio : The
Burrows Brothers Co.

VOL. LXV.— 27

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4i8 Talk about New Books. [June,

when making a renewed attempt to visit their field of labor.
Two of the priests were drowned, and Father Lalemant suffered
a second shipwreck before arriving in France. No other Jesu-
its were sent to Quebec until 1632.

It will be interesting to know that the original manuscript
of Father Claude Dablon's famous Relation of the French-
Canadian mission for the years 1670-77 has been accidentally
discovered. It is a rare find, curiously coming to the surface
on the loth of March last, at Sotheby's auction-rooms, in Lon-
don. The publishing of the annual volume of Jesuit Relations
at Paris was prohibited by Richelieu after 1672, and few there-
after found their way into print. In 1854 James Lenox for
the first time printed this particular Relation, edited by Dr.
O'Callaghan ; but they followed an abbreviated and modernized
manuscript copy at Laval University, Quebec. In 1861 it was
again printed at Paris in Duniol's Mission du Canada^ but still
in an imperfect form. The lucky finding of the original MS.
enables Mr. Thwaites to now present this interesting document
just as it was written.

4. — SIMPSON'S BIOGRAPHY OF CAMPION.*

Not a few Catholics will regret the reissue of this work. It
has been out of print for many years, and that it should never
have been reprinted would not to large numbers have been dis-
pleasing. Mr. Simpson not only took upon himself the office of
censor of popes and saints, but also strove to vindicate Queen
Elizabeth from the charge of being personally a persecutor,
cruel and vindictive. He maintains, too, that many of the
martyrs for the faith took part in a treasonable conspiracy
against the state, and consequently that the penalties which
t>hey underwent were just.

We do not by any means sympathize with or approve of
Mr. Simpson's estimates and judgments, nor with the general
tone of his work, nor do we think that he can be looked upon
as the most fitting biographer of Blessed Edmund Campion. But
for all that we cannot share in the regret felt for the appear-
ance of this new edition. No one can question the remarkable
erudition of the author, nor his perfect knowledge of the times.
So conspicuous is this, that Father Goldie, S.J., in his biography
of Blessed Edmund Campion, published by the Catholic Truth
Society, acknowledges his great obligation to Simpson's Campion,

* Edmund Campion : A Biography. By Richard Simpson. New edition. London :
John Hodges ; New York : Benziger Brothers.

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1897.] Talk about New Books, 419

" a source from which every writer on the blessed martyr must
necessarily draw." The golden mean for the biographer, as for
every one else, is hard to find. There is room for doubt
whether the truth suffers most from those who bring out only
the perfect and the excellent, or from those whose eyes are
open only to the faulty and defective. In the latter case we
know that if anything good is narrated, it will be looked upon
as certain and undoubted ; in the former we know that many
will not always be able to feel sure of the reality of the ex-
cellences placed before their eyes. The truth suffers at the
hand of both. We think that readers imbued with the modern
spirit are more likely to be influenced for good by a work like
this than by one filled with indiscriminating praise. Not that
we approve of the modern spirit, nor wish any one to be filled
with it. But what is to be done if, notwithstanding our wishes,
there are men who are filled with it?

We give an example to show Mr. Simpson's complete mas-
tery of the times in which Campion lived. A work has lately
been written on English Schools at the Reformation by Mr.
Arthur F. Leach (published by Constable), in which by labori-
ous proof another of the beliefs of English Protestants has
been shown to be if not purely mythical at all events grossly
exaggerated. Edward VI. has been regarded as the founder of
education, and King Edward the Sixth's schools, scattered up
and down the country, have been considered indubitable proofs
both of the darkness of pre-Reformation times and of the dawn
of the new era. Now Mr. Leach shows that, so far from being
the Founder of Schools, Edward VI. was the Spoiler of Schools-
Nearly three hundred grammar schools were damaged, plun-
dered, or swept away by Henry VIII. and Edward VI. "As
for poor Edward VL, he cannot any longer be called the
founder of our national system of secondary education. But
he or his councillors can at least claim the distinction of hav-
ing had a unique opportunity of reorganizing the whole educa-
tional system of a nation from top to bottom without cost to
the nation, and of having thrown it away." This is Mr. Leach's
judgment on the so highly vaunted work for education of
Edward VI. Mr. Simpson knew these facts, at least some of
them, more than thirty years ago — it did not come within the
scope of his work to elaborate the proofs — and incidentally
alludes to them in the following terms : " Campion was sent to
the new foundation of Edward VI. at Christ Church, Newgate
Street — if we may call it his foundation ; but a new religion

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420 New Books, [June.

had brought in new notions of merit and reparation ; it was
ample satisfaction for the theft of a hog to bestow its feet in
alms. Just three weeks before he died, Henry VIII. not only
atoned for his wholesale pillage of the church, but acquired the
honors of a founder and benefactor, by restoring St. Bartholo-
mew's, Smithfield, to the service of God and the poor ; and his
son followed his example by founding schools with some of
the church property." Mr. Simpson's judgment is hardly less
severe than is that of Mr. Leach ; to the latter, however, is due
the credit of having brought out more fully the facts known
to scholars like Mr. Simpson years ago. On the whole — with,
however, the very important reservations which we have made
— we commend Mr. Simpson's Edmund Campion to the Catho-
lic student.

NEW BOOKS.

Benziger Brothers, New York:

The Taming of Polly, By Ella Loraine Dorsey. Manual of the Holy Eu-
charist, Prepared by Rev. F. X. Lasance. Pastoral Theology. By Rev.
William Staing, D.D. Three Girls, and Especially One, By Marion Ames
Taggart. A Summer at Woodville. By Anna T. Sadlier. The Fatal
Diamonds. By Eleanor C. Donnelly. The Boys in the Block. By Maurice
Francis Egan. My Strange Friend. By Rev. Francis J. Finn, S.J. The
Bltssylvania Post-Office. By Marion Ames Taggart. An Heir of Dreams.
By Sallie Margaret O'Malley.
Apostleship of Prayer. New York :

Manual of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Republican Print, Hamilton, N. Y.:

Latin-English Vocabulary to the Holy Mass. By Alpheus B. Reynolds, Col-
gate University.
Catholic Truth Society (Catholic Book Exchange, Paulists, New York) :
Authority. By Rev. Luke Rivington. \s. A Handful, and other Stories,
By Frances Maitland. 2s. 6d. The Catholic Serifant. By Rev. G. E.
Howe. A New England Convert : The Story of the Rev. John Thayer,
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. By Rev. George Bampfield. \d.
Rome and the Bible. By Rev. T. Donnelly. S.J. \d. The Gunpowder
Plot. By Rev. John Gerard, S.J. \d. The Catholic's Library of Tales,
No. 2 5 . Tracts : Time Enough ; The Neglect of Good Friday ; Go at Once ;
A Sutiday Talk.
Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York:

The First Crossing of Greenland. By Fridtjof Nansen. Nova et Vetera .•
Informal Meditations for Times of Spiritual Dryness. By Rev. Geoi^ge
Tyrrell. S.J.
The Peter Paul Book Co., Buffalo, N. Y.:

Heart Tones, and other Poems. By D. O'Kelly Branden (Rev. Dominic
Brennan, C.P.)
The Eskdale Press, New York:

Leo XHL and Modern Civilisation, By J. Bleecker Miller, of the New
York Bar.
American Book Company, New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago:

Carpenter's Geographical Readers : Asia, By Frank G. Carpenter.

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dissension, acquired a robustness and consciousness of strength
that comes with victory. While lamenting the fall of the Greek
cities and the repulse of the Greek forces, we grieve far more
over the triumph of Turkish arms, for it means in the near
future the intensifying of the persecution of the Christians and
the increase of the nameless atrocities of the last few years.
The Christian governments of Europe smirk and smile, and to
poor little Greece they say, It serves you right.

The defeat of the Arbitration Treaty is a measure of the
American dislike for English official insolence. If there were
less of swagger and more of courtliness, if there were less of
autocratic bossism and more complaisance in England's atti-
tude to other nations, we might have agreed to arbitrate our
possible disagreements. This Arbitration Treaty may be dead,
but the American nation as a whole stands for the principle
of arbitration all the same.

Mr. Gladstone has described the European Concert as a new
Holy Alliance against freedom, such as would have delighted
the hearts of Metternich and Castlereagh, were those high-priests
of despotism still alive. Mr. Balfour has given a curious defence
of the policy of his government in still keeping the British Em-
pire in the Concert. It amounts to this : If the British govern-
ment do not join the three Emperors and the Sultan in put-
ting down Crete, these rulers will turn their swords against
each other. This is, in plain terms, the justification offered
by an acute dialectician ; for the bugbear of a general war
amounts to this and nothing else when put forward as a
reason for supporting the Great Assassin, at the bidding of the
Powers, in starving and shooting the Cretans and in entering
on a Mohammedan invasion of Greece.

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422 Editorial Notes. [June,

If a recent pamphlet published by Mr. J. D. Gribble, late
of the Indian Civil Service, can be relied upon, the dealings
of the Indian government with the Nizam of Hyderabad are
not much more moral than was their way of dealing with
native states in the time of Mr. Warren Hastings, whom the
Anglo-Indian Jingoes love to speak of as the great pro-consul.
It is an ugly chapter in the history of imperial fraud and op-
pression, and would remind our students of Roman history of
the methods of Rome with her subject states. The familiar ex-
perience in official circles in India of the working of the im-
perial system of management of the Nizam's province of Berar
is, " Nizzy pays." It gives the story in a nutshell.

The Socialism which is illustrated by the following incident
in the career of Count de Mun, the new Catholic member of
the French Academy, would not be a bad thing. A spectator
says he one day followed the crowd to Notre Dame, ignorant
why the bells were ringing. Inside were a number of work-
people in their Sunday clothes marching in procession round
the cathedral. At the head of it walked two young men, tall
and robust, singing a canticle like the rest of the congregation.
The young men bore a striking resemblance to each other.
They were, in fact, the brothers De Mun, who were initiating
the work-people in their duties as Christians. There is another
story told of the new Academician. During the Commune the
warehouses of La Villette were on fire, and in the midst of
the smoke and flames an officer was seen leaning against a
wall reading a book. Though he was reminded of the Revolu-
tion by the blood-stained streets of Belleville, the only reflection
the thought caused him was one full of painful concern for
society and the people. "One is forced to ask himself," says
this Catholic gentleman, " which is the sadder sight of the two
— the people in revolt, or society which has nothing to offer
but a sanguinary repression."

We regret to announce the death of James W. Slattery,
Esq., M.A., LL.D., president of the Queen's College, Cork,
Ireland. Though a Catholic, he was appointed by the Con-
servatives, and in his career he has afforded proof that he was
a man of uncommon ability. He was elected one of the pro-
fessors of law at the King's Inns, Dublin, the present Lord
Rathmore being his colleague ; and it is hardly doing an injus-

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i897'] What the Thinkers Say, 423

tice to the Right Honorable and Honorable the Benchers of
the Honorable Society to say that it must have been a con-
viction of Dr. Slattery's great superiority to the other candi-
dates that caused him to be elected. He was a graduate of
Trinity, and filled the chair of political economy for some time
in the University of Dublin. As an economist he belonged to
the party of scholars which, under the lead of Whately, en-
deavored to bring the theories of the classical school into har-
mony with the more modern views which recognized relations
founded on justice as a factor in determining economic questions.

WHAT THE THINKERS SAY.

THE AGNOSTIC.

We cannot grasp the whole truth of anything. Our mind, by the very physi-
cal medium through which it operates, is compelled to take in the truth in detail
and by the piece ; breaking it up into parts after the fashion of material things.
It drifts in upon us like rays of light, like atoms of air, like drops of water we
drink and morsels of food we eat, in partial instalments fitted to our ability to
assimilate them.

But with an effort to free itself from this physical shackle imposed by its
corporeal instrument, the mind attempts to make generalizations from the many
rays of light, and even to apprehend and sum up, in some imperfect conception,
entire aspects of truth and thei;- concrete existence.

Without fully understanding them, with all the sense of indefiniteness and
incompleteness, we still recognize that they are true. And when humanity at
large has pronounced similar judgment, to deny it leaves no alternative but an in-
dictment of human intelligence itself by one or a few individuals, who frame that
indictment on the validity of their own isolated judgment.

It may be that in part our beliefs are connatural to our being, that they are
partly inherited, due partly to early training, affected by our surroundings, and
only partly the result of our own disconnected and half-unconscious reasonings.
But when the results arrived at by innumerable intelligent beings, of various gen-
erations, climes, and circumstances, establish a general conformity of conviction,
none but a madman or a God would dare to impeach the conclusions ; and, unless
the negation be accompanied by credentials of superhuman inspiration, it simply
assumes the proportions of sublime impudence.

That is the position of the Agnostic in regard to the great spiritual truths
which his gospel of vacuity and barrenness assails : a gospel without even courage
to destroy, and without power to create ; a gospel logically without fruit and
without future — the gospel of unreason.

ERRATA.
On page 307, line 12, for Marius read Manus.
On page 314, line 36, for Britannica read Britanniae.
On page 315, line 30, for anonymous read eponymous.

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424

Authentic Sketches of

[June,

AUTHEMTIC SKETCHES OF LIVING CATHOLIC

AUTHORS.

Mary Catherine Crowley, . who has come into literary
prominence within the past seven or eight years, especially in
the important and difficult field of juvenile literature, is, like
Blanche Willis Howard, Louise Imogen Guiney, Agnes Repplier,
and other well-known women of letters, a pupil of the Religious
of the Sacred Heart.

She is a native of Boston, and had the good fortune to be
born of scholarly and cultured stock ; her father, John C. Crow-

ley, being an alumnus of Har-
vard University ; her mother,
Mary Cameron, a graduate of
the Sacred Heart, Manhattan-
ville — later the daughter's Alma
Mater.

With so favorable home and
school influences ; a large circle
of travelled and book-loving rela-
tives ; a host of family friends
among the clergfy ; and, in due
time, a broad and varied social
life, Miss Crowley's literary gift
made rapid and symmetrical de-
velopment.

Her early work, chiefly poems
and stories, appeared in The
Catholic World, St. Nicholas^
Wide-Awakiy the Ave Maria^ and the Irish Monthly ; and it says
much for the impression which it made, that the respective
editors of these representative magazines have continued to take
the most friendly interest in her literary progress.

In 1889, still very diffident of her own powers, though with
a steadily widening circle of admirers, she yielded to the urging
of a friend, who committed her to the book by announcing it
as in press, and brought out her first collection of stories for
young people — Merry Hearts and True. It went into its second
edition the first week following publication. Through the same
vigorous insistence, its companion volume, Happy-Go-Ltiekyy came

Mary C. Crowley.

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I897-] Living Catholic Authors. 425

out for the following Christmas, and had an equally favorable
reception.

Two other volumes have followed these, Apples Ripe and Rosy^
Sir, and T/ie City of WonderSy the latter a souvenir of the
World's Fair.

Miss Crowley went abroad in 1892, visiting Rome, Paris,
Dresden, London, Dublin, and other famous old world cities,
and meeting socially many people distinguished in literature
and art. She has been always as devoted to art as to litera-
ture ; and her fine taste is evident in the sketches ** In Hoff-
mann's Studio," ** The City of St. Anthony," etc., contributed
to The Catholic World and the Ave Maria on her return.

Other literary fruits of this European sojourn are the seri-
als, " A Family Holiday in Europe," and " The Colvilles in
Ireland," soon to appear in volurtie form, as sketches of travel
written for boys and girls from the Catholic stand-point, and
to offset various popular books, etc., which are unfortunately
pervaded by a very different spirit.

Among her serials still uncollected are, " The Experiences
of Elizabeth," " Holidays at Hazlebrae," ** The Fortunes of a
Runaway," "Tramp and Trinkets," "Joker and His Relations,"
and " Frolic and His Friends," the three last named having
been written for Little Men and Women.

But, as manifest from our previous mention of a few of
her other magazine articles, Miss Crowley is not restricting
her pen to the "juvenile" work in which she has been so
signally successful. Her contributions to general literature
are always appreciatively received. Her " Romance of a Man
of Business," lately published in the Ave Maria, where many
of the serials already spoken of have appeared, is a delightful
love-story. " The Sentinel of Metz," " Fra Lorenzo," and
"Clifford Abbey" are of dramatic interest, and we hope to see
them followed by a succession of others equally bright and
good.

She has published many sweet and graceful poems, which
will ere long be collected into a volume.

Miss Crowley's work is characterized by great fidelity to
life, sympathy, and refinement.

She takes high rank particularly among writers for the
young ; and thorough American though she is, touches the
child-heart universal ; some of her stories having been trans-
lated into French, and one finding its way into a school-reader
published in India. Katherine E. Conway.

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426 Authentic Sketches of [June,

Kate Vannah was born in Gardiner, Maine. The original
family name was Werner, and through various gradations of
Warner, Verner, and Varner it has come, during the last two
generations, to its present form.

Miss Vannah's paternal ancestors came from Saxony ; her
maternal, from Ireland. Her full name is Letitia Katharine
Vannah, but for the past decade of years every production,
either of a musical or literary nature, is known by the name of
Kate Vannah. Her mother, who is still living, has always been
a Roman Catholic, as has the daughter. Her father became a
member of the Catholic Church in the year 1872, and until the
hour of his death, which occurred in 1895, he was a very devout
adherent thereto.

Miss Vannah was educated in the public schools of Gardi-
ner until she reached the age of fifteen, when, immediately
upon graduating from the high-school there, she was sent to

St. Joseph's Academy at Em-
mitsburg, Md., under the man-
agement of the Sisters of Charity
of St. Vincent de Paul. There
she remained for two years, at
the expiration of which period
she graduated. Shortly after
her return to her home in the
East she began to write for the
press.

This work was continued, in-
termittently, until five years
since, when musical composition
demanded her attention to the
exclusion of regular journalistic

work, and, in fact, all literary

Kate Vannah, effort save the publication of an

Gardiner, Me. ...

occasional poem ni some peri-
odical. One of the first kind and encouraging letters that she
received, by the way, came to her from George Parsons Lathrop
when he was literary editor of the Boston Traveller. To
him Miss Vannah sent a sonnet entitled " A Flower's Name."
It was a great pleasure to her to have the editor send to her
?or more, after paying her work a pretty compliment. It may
not be out of place to mention right here that she had not
abandoned journalistic work when she wrote and published
the song which made her so well known, and whose sale is

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i897-] Living Catholic Authors. 427

still unabated, viz., ** Good-by, Sweet Day " — poem by Celia
Thaxter.

Her early poems were finally collected and published under
the title of Verses.

In 1893 a second volume of verse appeared from her pen,
entitled From Heart to Heart. The poems are deeply personal,
as the title would indicate.

Besides her poems, she has written several short stories, and
made a good many translations from the French. In journal-
ism her work has covered a wide range of subjects, from book
reviews, musical and dramatic criticisms, to personal sketches of
interesting personages in the literary, musical, and dramatic
world.

Her musical compositions are now, and have for three years
past, been done in collaboration with Miss Elinore C. Bartlett,
a native of Minneapolis. Often they write their own words for
a song. Miss Vannah's poems are nearly all far more grave than
gay. The same may be said of her songs.

Charles A. L. Morse was born in Waterville, Maine, and
is of Puritan lineage, his paternal
ancestor being Anthony Morse,
who came to America from
Wiltshire, England, in 1635, and
who was one of the founders of
the town of Dedham, Massachu-
setts. On his mother's side he
traces his descent from one of
the Mayflower pilgrims.

During Mr. Morse's early
childhood his father moved with
his family to Illinois, where
he had accepted the office of
superintendent of a railway.
The subject of our sketch re-
ceived his early education in a
private school in Jacksonville,

T,,. . % t. 1 . « Charles A. L. Morse,

Illinois, and afterwards attended Jacksonville, iii.

Illinois College, located in that

town, being graduated from that institution in his nineteenth

year. The following year he entered the Boston Institute of

Technology ' for a course in higher mathematics and the

sciences.

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428 Living Catholic Authors. [June,

During his residence in Boston he became interested in the
study of the claims of the Catholic Church, and two years later
he became a Catholic, having been before that time a member
of the Episcopal denomination. Mr. Morse believes that his
conversion was due, under God, to the effect upon his mind of
Cardinal Newman's Dez^elopnient of Christian Doctrine^ although
from his early boyhood he was conscious of a more or less
vague attraction to Catholicity — an attraction which dated from
a certain morning in Montreal, when he was taken by his
father to witness a Solemn High Mass in the Church of Notre
Dame, the effect of which upon his youthful sensibilities was
so intense that he ever afterwards regarded it as one of the
white lights in the shadowy memories of his childhood.

After his reception into the church Mr. Morse attended a
post-graduate course of lectures upon history, philosophy, and
literature by the Jesuit Fathers of the University of St. Louis,
in which city he resided for four years, going from there to
Kansas City, where he was engaged for some years in the real
estate business, and devoting his spare hours to reading and to
the collection of a library. Two years ago he was called to
his home in Jacksonville, Illinois, by his father's advancing
years and precarious health ; and in the quiet atmosphere of
that college town he has spent his time in study and in writ-
ing. Besides his contributions to The Catholic World he
has appeared in the secular magazines with some success as a
short-story writer, publishing his sketches under a pen-name
which for personal reasons he desires to keep inviolate.

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1 897-] The Columbian Reading Union. 429

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

A SAGACIOUS friend has discovered many historical side-lights on social
problems of the present day in the four volumes written by Archibald Ali-
son, F.R.S.E., which contain a luminous review of the history of Europe from the
beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 to the restoration of the Bourbons in
1 81 5. The following passage has an interest for members of Catholic Reading
Circles who may not have access to the original work. It shows how the evidence
of history may lead an impartial mind to form correct conclusions. Alison, by
his studies, reached the decision that the great sin of the Reformation was the
confiscation of so large a portion of the property of the Catholic Church for the
aggrandizement of temporal ambition and the enriching of the nobility who had
taken a part in the struggle. When that great convulsion broke out nearly a
third of the whole landed estates in the countries which it embraced was in the
hands of the regular or parochial clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. What
a noble fund was this for the moral and religious instruction of the people, for
the promulgation of truth, the healing of sickness, the assuaging of suffering !
Had it been kept together and set apart for such sacred purposes, what incalcu-
lable and never-ending blessings would it have conferred upon society ! Expand-
ing and increasing with the growth of population, the augmentation of wealth,
the swell of pauperism, it would have kept the instruction and fortunes of the
poor abreast of the progress and fortunes of society, and prevented in a great
measure that fatal effect so well known in Great Britain in subsequent times of
the national church falling behind the wants of the inhabitants and a mass of
civilized heathenism arising in the very heart of a Christian land. "Almost all the
social evils under which Great Britain is now laboring may be traced to this
fatal and most iniquitous spoliation, under the mask of religion, of the patrimony
of the poor on occasion of the Reformation. But for that robbery, the state would
have been possessed of lands amply sufficient to have extended its religious in-
struction for any possible increase of the people ; to have superseded the necessi-
ty of any assessment for parochial relief or general instruction ; and to have pro-
vided without burdening any one for the whole spiritual and temporal wants of the
community. When we reflect on the magnitude of the injustice committed by the
temporal nobility in the seizure at that period of so large a portion of the funds of
the church, and observe how completely all the evils which now threaten the social
system in Great Britain would have been obviated if that noble patrimony had
still been preserved for the poor, it is impossible to avoid feeling that we too are
subject to the same just dispensation which has doomed France to oriental slavery
for the enormous sins of its Revolution ; and that if our punishment is not equal-
ly severe it is only because the confiscation of the Reformation was not so com-
plete, nor the inroads on property so irretrievable."

" This is but another example of the all-important truth which a right con-
sideration of history so uniformly demonstrates, that communities and nations
are subject to moral laws ; and that, although inconsiderable deviations from
rectitude may be overlooked as unavoidable to humanity, yet outrageous sin and
irreparable evil never fail to bring upon their authors condign punishment even
in this world. Individuals have souls to receive retribution in a future state of
existence, but nations have no immortality ; and that just retribution, which in
the former case is often postponed, in appearance at least, to another world, in

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430 The Columbian Reading Union. [June,

the latter is brought down with unerring certainty upon the third and fourti^
generation. How this mysterious system is worked out by Supreme Power, and
yet the freedom of human action, and the entire moral responsibility of each
individual are preserved, will never be fully understood in this world. Yet that
there is no inconsistency between them is self-evident, for every one feels that he
is free ; and the history of every nation, as well as the general progress of man-
kind, demonstrate the reality, both of the moral retribution of nations, and a
general system for the direction of human affairs. And without pretending
entirely to solve the difficulty, the mysteries of which, in all its parts, are probably
beyond the reach of the human faculties, a very little consideration must be
sufficient to show what in general is the system pursued, and how the Divine
superintendence is rendered perfectly reconcilable with justice to individual men
and nations." (Alison's History of Europe, \o\,\\', page 572, edition of 1867,

published by Harper Brothers.)

» * ♦

In the volume lately published on The Philosophy of Literature Dr. Cond6
B. Fallen makes a strong defence of the theory that the critic should be the
watcher upon the tower to proclaim the glory of the dawn, the harbinger of good
tidings, and the herald to the people who await the word of his judgment. From
this high standard there has been sad decline in later times. M. Ferdinand
Brunetiere delivered a lecture in the French language to over 1,500 persons
recently at the Lenox Lyceum, New York City, in which he dealt with the in-
fluence of criticism, and gave some information concerning his own work in con-
temporary literature. His definitions of a critic's qualifications were especially
interesting. The manner in which he treated his subject demonstrated that it was
pre-eminently his sphere. He did not spare himself or others of his craft, and
his exposition of the art of criticism was thoroughly appreciated. The entire
lecture, however, was more or less a defence of his methods, and without a suffi-
cient acquaintance with his writings it was somewhat difficult to understand.

" For twenty-five years," said M. Brunetiere, " I have been trying to get out
of myself and to become oblivious to my own impressions. We must not under
any circumstances judge works of art by our own impressions. Criticism is
virtually the science of the general process of art and literature, and the main
factor in its proper handling is the method of comparison we employ. What
disastrous effects individual impressions have on literature is amply demonstrated
by an analysis of English literature, which fairly teems with the weather and fog^
of the British Isles. The English critics have simply allowed their impressions to
permeate their work, and as a matter of course their judgment has been impaired.

" The most prominent two critics we have in French literature are undoubt-
edly Sainte-Beuve and Taine. Both of these adopted a system of dividing varieties
into groups and families, and then by comparing these groups and families
arrived at some definite line of criticism. Taine, however, made men the
results of their surroundings and the creatures of circumstances, and it is this
that I would most emphatically object to. Man is neither the result of his sur-
roundings nor the creature of circumstances ; for were he that, how could he be
criticised } How could he throw individuality into his work .^ In fact, how could
he be distinguished from others surrounded by the same environments and
influenced by the same circumstances ? On the contrary, the literary man
influences his surroundings, and himself brings about, or is at least a potent
factor in bringing about, circumstances.

" The only way to gain a scientific theory for criticism is to learn how litera-
ture is divided from age to age ; to study the lines of demarcation, and then

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1897.] The Columbian Reading Union. 431

institute the inevitable comparisons. In other words, literary criticism is the
study of exceptions that occur in every age. To be able to define these ex-
ceptions and know in what points they differ from the rule, is to be a critic. For
example, Victor Hugo was an exception in his age. He founded a new school and
literally created a new species of literature, which many others have endeavored
to follow. From him, then, emanated a class to which others could be compared,
and thus it is with every writer of extraordinary note.

" Anatole France makes the remarkable assertion that a critic never knows
any one but himself. That in the usual run of criticism there is no depiction or
reflection of the thoughts of the subject under discussion, but merely an expres-
sion of the thoughts of the critic. * You do not tell,* he said to me. * what Victor
Hugo thinks, but merely what you think for Victor Hugo.' Jules Lemaitre re-
gards criticism as a good thing, and wishes that we might have ten thousand dif-
ferent opinions on one thing because he regards it as amusing.

" D'Haussonville condemns the theory of evolution, and calls it an empty,
though dangerous, word. The danger, he says, which it is to literature arises
from the fact that it seems to say to every one, * You cannot do anything yourself.
All your actions, all your thoughts, are borrowed or inherited.'

" Happily for us much-abused critics, people are beginning to realize the in-
fluence of criticism on art and literature. Every day they are beginning to feel
that they owe something to the critic, if for naught else but his attempts to bring
before them careful comparisons between the different schools and writers. One
is not compelled perforce to accept the critic's dictum as final. The evidence is
before him, and he can weigh it according to his judgment, but surely the study
of the critic, if it be but impartial, must be a help to him."

M. Bruneti^re stated very forcibly his conviction that art, when compared
with nature, must be considered as being merely the creation of man, a thing that
does not exist in itself, and, therefore, cannot exist for its own sake. Art, whether
literature, painting, sculpture, or music, would disappear were mankind to become
extinct on the earth. A work of art is classed more highly the more complex its
nature is. It must express permanent feelings, and besides represent the life of
the time and contain some moral sentiment and lesson. To have aesthetic value
art must have some sociological coefficient.

An obscene book or picture he defined as one whose object is to disintegrate
society, or which in any way attacks what society has agreed to respect, or, at
least, makes believe it respects. The true basis of criticism is the comparative
method, which has worked wonders in anatomy, philology, history. The study of
comparative literature, which in French universities alone is neglected, is the foun-
dation of all sane criticism. He then made a plea for the utility of criticism as an
auxiliary to history, as an aid to artists of all kinds, and showed that in two in-
stances it had brought about a revolution in literature — once in the sixteenth cen-
tury, when Ronsard and his colleagues introduced classicism, and again at the end
of the eighteenth century, when Lessing and Herder overthrew classicism. M.
Bruneti^re thinks that criticism has a useful function nowadays in keeping artists
in the right path in spite of fashion and advertisement, especially as the ability to
judge is becoming rapidly the part of the few. He thinks a new literary revolution
would do no harm.

Columbia University deserves honorable mention for arranging the course of
five lectures by M. Brunetiere covering the French literature of the past twenty-five
years. His audiences contained a large representation of men, including the faculty
of Columbia and many professors from colleges at a distance from New York City.

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432 The Columbian Reading Union. [June, 1897.

They came to hear the man who is at the head of French literary critics of
the present day, and who, through his position as editor of the powerful Revue des
Deux MondeSy wields an extraordinary influence in the literary life of Paris. The
Revue is the broad gate through which the French Academy is entered, and the
editor holds the keys admitting to the " Immortals." He may not always suc-
ceed in getting the Revue's candidate in ; he can, however, usually keep an unde-
sirable candidate out. The Retme's influence is believed to have much to do with
M. Zola's exclusion. M. Brunetiere has been director or chief editor of the Revue
since the reorganization in 1893, when, after the husband of Mme. Buloz, the
proprietor, had nearly wrecked the review financially, the chief contributors, MM.
Cherbuliez, Brunetiere, and others, took charge of the property themselves. Be-
fore that he had been for many years the chief literary critic of the review.

M. Brunetiere is a spare, dark man of medium neight, with closely-cropped
beard and mustache, and a rather nervous manner. He is not yet fifty years of
age. He speaks in a natural, conversational tone, with a clear, resonant voice
that becomes somewhat shrill at times. He talks slowly and distinctly, and can
be understood easily by any one who understands spoken French at all. His
manner at times betrays the professor, for in addition to his other duties M.
Brunetiere is a professor in the College de France. He maintains a strictly im-
partial attitude towards authors, and refuses to belong to any clique, believing
that the critic must never follow his own tastes, and must be on the lookout
against things that give him pleasure. The necessity of guarding against mere
pleasure in moral matters holds good for intellectual matters, for literature and
art as well. Though art and morality may not be the same thing, they are yet
not entirely distinct. It is not true that there can be beautiful crimes or beautiful
vices, as the Greeks of the Decadence and the Italians of the Renaissance held.
Art has a social or sociological function in assisting the development of human
progress, so that the cry of art for art's sake is inhuman. He also holds that the
critic should have a thorough knowledge of the history of art or of literature —
that is, the laboratory of criticism. We can understand nothing of the present
unless we know the past, and no amount of literary instinct can take the place of
historical knowledge.

It is a new experience to find a man of such prominence in the literary world
of France who seems to be entirely free from the taint of infidelity and agnosti-
cism. While at Baltimore M. Brunetiere was the special guest at a dinner given
by Cardinal Gibbons. He was also honored in a similar manner by President
Gilman, of the Johns Hopkins University ; President Eliot, of Harvard, and the

French Minister at Washington.

* « *

Dr. Thomas O'Hagan, in a letter to the Pilots states that after examining a
great number of works dealing with American literature he has come to the
conclusion that " Catholic authors, because they are Catholic authors^ have been
systematically ignored in the pages of nearly every text-book on American litera-
ture." He finds slight justice shown to a few Catholic writers in a little primer by
Mildred C. Watkins.

There is still need of doing missionary work among publishers. Every
intelligent Catholic should adopt the plan of writing to the publisher calling
attention to such omissions. The Columbian Reading Union has already secured
some practical results by appealing to the commercial desire to gain Catholic read-
ers, as well as to the innate love of justice which every publisher should possess.

It is claimed, as a result of the numerous clubs formed in recent years, that
women are doing more solid reading than they have ever done. The public
libraries show interesting statistics in regard to this, and thie calls for trashy
fiction and the lighter styles of literature have given way to demands for history,
the arts and sciences, and household economics. Club-women are becoming
students, serious and reflective, and are beginning to appreciate the value of the
public libraries, with their varied collections of the world's best-known writers.
The day of superficial reading seems to be growing shorter, and in place of the
flippant discussion of trash and exaggerated sentiment women are becoming
thoughtful readers and helpful interpreters of the best and highest thought.

M. C. M.

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"And immediately Jesus stretching forth his hand
took hold of him, and said to him : O thou of little
faith, why didst thou doubt?'*— 5/. MeUthew xiv, 31.

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THE

CATHOLigiVORLD.

I yi'i 26 ]^-

Vol. LXV. JULY, i«9^. No. 388

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA.

BY REV. DAVID MOVES, D.C.L.

HE late Archbishop of Canterbury,
in an informal answer to the Pope's
encyclical on Unity, appealed to
itive church against the modern
)f faith defined by the Catholic
His Grace writes : " While it
e vain to expect that England
cept the Papacy as we have been
ed to have it presented to us, still
never hesitate to admit whatever
lown to be in accordance with the
ur Blessed Lord and the teaching
)rimitive church." Canon Mason,
ured recently in this country, laid
ess upon the fact that the Angli-
rch was about to celebrate the

h centenary of its foundation, and

dwelt with complacency on the fact of its unbroken continuity
from that time. For him the standard was the primitive
church, or the church as far back as he could find it in Eng-
land. The schismatic Patriarch of Constantinople appealed
likewise to the primitive church in his reply to the same
encyclical. All these represent to themselves a fixed and im-
movable church, and seek to impress upon the minds of their
followers the concept of such an one, exclusively corresponding

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434 The Development of Dogma. [July*

to the ideal conceived by the Saviour and constituting for us a
standard of comparison in estimating other claims. For such
thinkers everything as it existed and appeared in the beginning
of the Christian Church, with its outward shape, its restricted
formulas, its condensed symbols, its simple government, its
undeveloped belief and its fundamental theology, should remain
always as it was at that early period ; in fact, the primitive
church should be the unalterable criterion of religious truth and
the enshrinement of that divine idea to which every doctrine
of faith or precept of morality, liturgy or discipline, must con-
form as its prototype and exemplar. The church must never
change, but preserve both its spirit and outward form down the
ages and so on to the close of time.

THE CHURCH IN SOME THINGS IS STABLE.

Every error is the shadow of a truth, and the thesis as it
stands contains both truth and error, according to the princi-
ples of doctrinal development put forward by us.

The primitive deposit of faith and form of church govern-
ment fixed immutably by Christ and by the apostles, under the
dictation of the Holy Spirit, must assuredly remain untouched
by the hand of man, and must possess the same objective ele-
ments through all time. But this appeal of the Anglicans and
others to the primitive church means something more than this
objective immutability of doctrine and government. They go
much further, and would insist that the church once founded
by Christ should not only preserve its truth but should like-
wise preserve its embryo state ; that it should refuse to fall in
with the general movement of nature and to develop by that
process of evolution which we find characterizes the progress
of human thought. There is a germ deposited by God in
nature, and this germ, quickened by natural and secondary
causes, unfolds into the matured beauties of the earth. If
this were not so in nature, what kind of a world would this
be? Not even a paradise run wild with weeds, but a dreary
wilderness.

THE EMBRYO MUST DEVELOP.

So it is with the church. The truth planted in germ by
Christ was to be developed by the Holy Ghost, not by strange
accretions, but by the unfolding of itself in its own unity. Its
outward form would thus go on adapting itself to the increas-
ing needs of successive generations. Thus generations seek for

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1 897-] ^^^ Development of Dogma. 435

further and more explicit knowledge. The directive assistance
of the Holy Ghost, operating through a living church, and
-exclusively upon the germs of the primitive deposit of revela-
tion, supplies this natural, legitimate, and imperative demand.
The church of the catacombs was not in a position to manifest
in all their explicitness and detail the truths of this primitive
deposit, nor could it possibly have deployed its central authority
in all its completeness of organization before material conditions
permitted its exercise. It was, however, the same church then
as it is now ; the very same doctrines, explicitly or implicitly,
were proposed to the early Christians as are proposed to us
to-day.

What, then, is the meaning of Anglicans and others appeal-
ing to the primitive church? They do not comprehend
thoroughly that the immutability of Christian truth and the
identity of church government remain untouched by this evolu-
tion of dogma and this exercise of the divine power committed
to the church.

The early church was made the depositary of all that Christ
taught in germ, either by himself or by the Holy Ghost.
Christian revelation was complete from the beginning. The
consciousness of this sum of religious truth on the part of
the church, combined with her actual preaching of it to others,
is what we call Tradition, which also dates from the beginning.

But the truths which the church thus hands down to suc-
ceeding ages, or the revealed truths objectively considered,
constitute, like any other truth, a source from which many
other truths can be drawn. Revelation is the wisdom of God,
and who shall sound its depths? The highest order of angels
has not fathomed the unspeakable abyss of the divine essence,
nor has man here below yet penetrated to the last truth con-
tained in Christian revelation.

THE SCIENCE OF THEOLOGY IS CREATIVE.

Again, the human mind is always seeking for truth, and its
very nature demands that it shall advance in the practical and
speculative knowledge of religious truth.

Man is called upon to know and appropriate that moral
perfection which his religion holds out to him for his obser-
vance ; and society must follow in the train of the individual
and perfect itself by adopting the Christian spirit.

What is to prevent reason from operating on the revealed
data? Leaving the dogmas of the church aside for the

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436 The Development of Dogma. [July,

moment, cannot the mind take the germs of the primitive
deposit as so many primary truths and draw from them their
consequences, place them in order, and create theological
science ?

Scientific progress in religion would consist in this : that all
which is contained in the sum of revealed truth should be
known more distinctly and understood as far as possible ; that
the innumerable questions which the human mind may ask,
both as to the dogmas themselves and their mutual relations,
their consequences and antecedents, the truths which they
presuppose and those which they logically bring after them,
should receive an elaborated answer ; so that faith, which
is simple and direct, which perceives its object in one synthetic
concept, may become a grand sum of coherent truths, display-
ing more fully the inner working of the divine economy and
opposing a stronger bulwark to the assaults of error. The
Apostle Paul spoke of this subjective development of doctrine
when he prayed for his brethren " that they might walk worthy
of God, being fruitful in every good work, increasing in the
knowledge of God."

While this progress in the knowledge of God is thus incul-
cated by Scripture, we see its necessity from the nature of
things and the natural condition of things ; from the faculties
and tendencies of the human mind; from the necessity of adapt-
ing one's self to the capacity of others in the duty of teaching,
and especially from the obligation of refuting error ; and, not
least of all, from the diversity of the minds which are des-
tined to receive religious truth. All these things show us clear-
ly that it is in accordance with human nature and with our
present conditions that there be a subjective and practical pro-
gress in the knowledge of religion — that is, a progress in the hu-
man mind becoming more and more distended with the truths
contained implicitly in the primitive deposit.

WHILE EVERYTHING ELSE DEVELOPS, MUST TRUTH ALONE BE

STERILE ?

And now, coming to Christian dogma as given to us in the
beginning and considered as a sum of truths, we inquire, Are
they to remain sterile and inactive ? or are they to be placed
in the category of truths acknowledged as fruitful, and as
containing in germ many other truths necessary for us and
others to know in the succession of ages ?

While the above progress is destined to take place, it is to

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be observed that the truths in themselves never change. The
deposit of faith as given to the apostles remains objectively
the same. They are fragmentary gleams from the countenance
of God, and he never changes. Moreover, the apostle, alluding
to this primitive and unchangeable revelation, says : " Let every
man. take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other founda-
tion no man can lay but that which is laid : which is Christ
Jesus " (I. Cor. iii.) The revelation of Christ, such as he gave
himself or through the Holy Ghost to the apostles, is com-
plete, and no man must add to it or take away from it. This
is what is called the objective immutability of Christian dogma,
which is Catholic teaching in its most authoritative form.

To suppose that the doctrines of Christ could, in themselves
and objectively, change, is to subvert the fundamental notion
of the Christian Church, which must preach the unchangeable
truths of the unchangeable God.

But, on the other hand, it is evident that to deny to the
mind the right to meditate upon the primitive deposit and to
draw from that inexhaustible source the implicit truth contained
therein ; to refuse to it the privilege of picking up the golden
grains that lie buried in this precious mine, is the same as
denying to the human mind the exercise of its natural power
of progressive thought.

We have seen, moreover, that this natural aspect of the
question is confirmed by the positive teaching of Scripture which,
in proclaiming unalterable and imperfectible the foundation of
religious truth as laid by Christ, enjoins every one to meditate
upon the law and increase in the knowledge of God.

Thus we see the nature of true progress, which consists, not
in changing the deposit of truth but in unfolding its truths.
It is a change in the mind, and that by the extension of its
knowledge and its outward formulation.

LEGITIMATE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA.

The church has a knowledge of the deposit of faith from
the beginning and in its general entirety. But we ask again,
is this subjective faith of the church, this consciousness of the
truth delivered to the apostles, ever to remain sterile and dead —
shut up like the seed in the earth and all sunshine and nourish-
ment refused it? Shall it remain unaflfected by the laws which
govern other truths? And as error will undoubtedly develop,
is there no corresponding development of dogmatic truth to
meet those successive and increasing assaults ? If this were so.

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438 The Development of Dogma. [July,

dogmatic truth would find itself at a disadvantage, and these
undeveloped primary truths of faith would never, humanly speak-
ing, make head against the elaborate and detailed reasoning of
false scientists.

There is but one legitimate development of dogma, which
consists in this: that the dogmas made known in a condensed
and summary manner to the primitive church should, while
immovable in themselves, be evolved under the directive assis-
tance of the Holy Ghost and through natural means of infor-
mation at the disposal of the church ; so that the innumerable
truths contained implicitly in this summary or sacred deposit
should come to be known explicitly, and when need demands
it authoritatively proposed to the belief of the people.

Thus, the Immaculate Conception and the papal infallibility,
and other definitions of doctrine recently proposed to the faith-
ful, were contained in the former explicit truths which con-
stituted the primitive deposit.

It is for want of comprehending this harmonious growth and
unfolding of the Christian Church that the late Archbishop of Can-
terbury, alluded to above, and other Anglicans reverted to the
early Catholic Church as being more perfect than in its present
modern condition. To transport the early church forward
through the ages and plant it, in its swaddling clothes, among
us now, would be to contradict the natural and the positive law
of God ; and, moreover, we should find that this violation of
God's law would be punished by the human inadequacy of the
church to maintain its position, as it should be able to do, on
parallel lines with the advance of error.

THE IDENTITY DESTROYED.

The above archbishop enjoyed his title in the Anglican
Church. He was referred to by the Dean of St. Paul's as the
ninety-third titular of the See of Canterbury. All of these
archbishops, before the period of the Reformation, were Catho-
lics and believed in the doctrines of the Catholic Church on
the motive of the inerrancy of the church, secured to it by the
permanent indwelling of the Holy Ghost. They adhered to
the primitive deposit, proportionately unfolded to the needs of
their age and upon the above formal motive, which preserved for
them the identity of their faith in the course of its true devel-
opment. This was a perfect evolution, and thereby was intro-
duced nothing substantially new.

But the archbishops of the Reformation broke the continuity

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i897«] The Dekelopment of Dogma. 439

of this evolution, for, besides casting off many essential doctrines
from their code of belief — or, as we say, from the material object
of their belief — they ceased to regard the divine authority of the
church as their formal motive ; they denied this, and in its stead
substituted another standard. We observe here two essentials
to be wanting to the continuity of faith, whereby the Anglican
faith can be assimilated to the ancient creed, namely, the same
material object which they believe and the formal motive why
they believe. The church of Canterbury is not, then, a true
evolution from the church of St. Augustine, or a development
in the unity of doctrine from that professed by the predeces-
sors of Cranmer.

Moreover, it seems strange that Anglicans should dwell so
much upon the pre-Reformation church and upon the continuity
of succession, and then stamp out its very life by adopting a
confession of faith which is not evolved from the doctrines of
this pre-Reformation church, but which is their contradictory,
both in many of its essential doctrines and in its motive of be-
lief. A true union of churches must repose upon the basis of
a confession of faith which shall be a true evolution from the
primitive deposit, and shall preserve the unity of doctrinal de-
velopment. Accordingly, Bishop Potter, of New York, is far
from understanding the case when he affirms that " the long-
looked-for union will not be in answer to the beckoning of an
Italian prelate." It was an Italian pope who consecrated St.
Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

THE CHURCH NOT INSPIRED.

But to continue: the church is not inspired. The directive
assistance implies activity on the part of the teaching church
in searching out religious truth. The use of reason and the
study of the sacred deposit, the word of God as committed to
•writing, the sentences of the Fathers, suggestions of the sciences
throwing light upon the meaning of historical facts ; everything,
in fact, that can enlighten the mind of the church is brought
into requisition, so that it uses natural means to arrive at the
truth, previous to its solemn pronouncements. Thus everything
develops naturally ; for institutions, we have an example in the
episcopal authority ; for logical development, in the subsequent
and more detailed conclusions on the nature of Christ ; for the
psychological, in the gradual development of a thought which
had been divinely infused into the primitive deposit, emerging,
through extrinsic causes and more ample materials for judg-

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440 The Development of Dogma, [July>

ment, from a state of obscurity into a lucid and more definite
concept ; for critical development of knowledge, in later and
more extensive facts explaining the hidden meaning of the
meagre facts of the apostolic or early times. A simple seed
put into the ground will not of itself give the botanist any idea
of its later development and beauty. It cannot be expected
either that the teaching of the church or her powers of govern-
ment could from the beginning have manifested themselves in
all explicit form, or in all completeness of organization, be-
fore the conditions of the world rendered it possible or op-
portune for either element of the Papacy to expand according
to its intrinsic and divinely communicated essence.

The action of the church upon dogma may be reduced to
giving precision and clearness to what before was unformed and
obscure ; confirming what was openly expressed and completed,
and preserving what has been confirmed and defined. And
now to recapitulate and sum up : the Holy Spirit is the princi-
ple of this gradual formation of dogma, hovering over the primi-
tive deposit like a dove, while the germs have expanded into
more definite form. The sphere within which this development
takes place is the church, the teaching body to whom was con-
fided this primitive deposit ; and thus the church goes on for
ever, unfolding truth from this inexhaustible source and increas-
ing her explicit knowledge of the faith.

BUT GROWS THROUGH HUMAN MEANS.

But the church uses ordinary and human means to extract
from the deposit the implicit truths which are contained in it,
for the Holy Ghost does not inspire the church, but simply
gives to it its directive assistance. These human Yneans are the
natural causes of the development of doctrine ; they are instru-
mental causes, but it is established that the Holy Ghost is the
main efficient cause of this doctrinal progress, and it is upon
this foundation that its infallible certainty reposes.

Controversies arise and error is proclaimed, opposition is
raised, and sects are formed ; while, on the other hand, the grow-
ing intelligence of the world is elevating the mind of the church
to those serene and lofty regions in which it beholds the rays
of truth in a clearer atmosphere ; great schools in the East and
West spring up and exert an influence, according to their
peculiar genius and philosophic caste, upon the studies of the
age ; men arise like stars of the first magnitude, exhibiting
colossal intellects and vast erudition, and edifying the world

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1 897-] The Development of Dogma. 441

with their sanctity; orders and communities of men assume the
names of these great spirits and emulate their qualities. All of
which prepares material for the church and aflfords, human
means for arriving at those authoritative decisions on dogma
which are so many landmarks in the history of religion. It
has entered into the designs of God that the mind of the official
church should be thus prepared and enlightened, but the final
decision is pronounced under the directive assistance of the Holy
Ghost. The church is guided in teaching not only the truth
but also in teaching simply what is in the primitive deposit.
The injunction of the Apostle to increase in the knowledge
of God explains that marvellous and subjective development of
Christian truth ; while the injunction of the same Apostle not to
build upon the foundation laid in Christ Jesus is fulfilled in the
identity of doctrine preserved, in the explicit unfolding of the
truths contained in their supreme source.

This progress will go on to the close of all earthly things.
We arc, as it were, ascending the slopes of Mount Thabor
together with the favored apostles, and when we shall have
arrived at its summit we shall behold Christ transfigured into
all the glory of his godhead. But until that term is reached
we must be satisfied to make one step at a time.

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442 GUBINET. [July.

GUBINET.

BY J. M. CROTTIE.

high noon in Innisdoyle the old Main Street
looked seedy enough, with the sad Irish sunshine
showing every scar and wound that time had
dealt it. There were gaps in the shabby shops
where the houses were left tenantless by their
former occupants, who had found shelter in the grave or the
work-house, and these shattered, mouldy old houses served the
townsfolk, who remembered the sad histories associated with
them, as memento mori of a peculiarly gruesome kind. But in
the spring evenings, when the white glare was softened into a
delicious combination of sunset and early moonlight, and the
whole place was steeped in the scent of the gardens— of wall-
flowers, lilacs, violets, and hawthorn ; when the children came
out to play, and the townsfolk walked up and down the street
in neighborly groups, chatting peacefully of things remote from
all the ugly close-of-the-century topics that distract and sadden
people elsewhere, it had a charm of its own. ^

The children's game was the time-honored one of " pickie,"
of which they never seemed to ,tire. It is a game requiring
much hopping and skipping over chalk-lines, great watchfulness,
and a loud and insistent voice to claim one's rights. The
Innisdoyle pickie-players were an alert lot, but the loudest and
most active one among them was Gubinet Bree. Strangers
thought it a very queer and remarkable thing to see the little,
withered old woman hopping and yelling and quarrelling with
the children, and the unconsciousness of the latter, as they
skipped and yelled and fought back, that Gubinet was not
really one of themselves. The game almost invariably wound up
with a violent squabble, the hasty obliteration of the chalk
squares by Gubinet, and her angry withdrawal from the play,
"I'd sooner," she would cry disdainfully, "go breaking
stones by the side o* the road than be playing pickie with such
a set o' ch'ating villains." And resuming the cloak which she
had thrown down on the foot-path earlier, she would stalk away
with her nose in the air. "I'll have every one o* ye down in
my Black Books ! " she would scream back, by way of a part-
ing arrow. Where she went on these occasions her companions

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1 897-] GuBiNET. 443

did not care or inquire. They considered her a " cross-patch "
whose absence was very good company.

One evening an amused lady tourist who had seen the
pickie-playing and its winding up from the hotel-window, and
was interested in the queer old woman, was told her history.
She had been sketching all day up the Knock, and on her way
back to the town met Gubinet marching sturdily towards the
mountain. The latter was passing on, but the lady spoke.

" Good evening," she said pleasantly. " It is beautiful
weather, isn't it?"

" 'Tis well enough,'* said Gubinet, with a dubious glance at
her interlocutor — " if you could call anything well enough in
such a desaving rogue of a world. There's a great lot of chates
in it entirely. I'm fairly torminted from 'em in Innisdoyle."

"You're a skilful pickie-player," said the lady.

'* But what's the good of it? They're able to bother a Cork
lawyer. What vexes me entirely is that I haven't a single one
o' my own to back me ag'in 'em. An* look," she said, growing
a little confidential ; *' 'tis the same thing that bothers me out
at the little house on the Knock beyant. Not one of 'em —
father, mother, the boys, or Norey — ever comes next or near
me, an' every door an' windy in the place wide open. Isn't
that terrible for a crature — to be getting such a quare recep-
tion every night — not one of 'em to come near to me ? An' to
hear me calling 'em every one by name, out there some nights,
sure you'd think 'twould wake the Seven Sleepers ! " The bleak
look in her poor old eyes touched the lady. " That's the worst
of that ould church-yard beyant. When one o' your people goes
there, the rest follows in a hurry ; an' you might as well try to
coax the plovers out o' the rushy bog as to win 'em home ag'in.
An' they were so fond of it for a little old house ! "

" Perhaps it is happier in the church-yard than it was in the
little house before they left it," said the lady.

" Well, sure, that's what I do be thinking too," she said.
" An' that 'tis fun for 'em to be having p'ace an' aise now after
it all — oh, an oceanful of p'ace an' aise was wanting to 'em !
But, sure, couldn't they come of an odd night an' let me ketch
even one glimpsh of 'em ? I wouldn't care which ; for, don't
you see?" — cunningly — "if 'twas only Norey even, or one o'
the boys, I could be axing *em about the rest an' find out how
to get at 'em at all. But there's not a move in 'em, an' if you
don't call it a grievous ould rogue of a world, I don't know
what name you have for it."

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444 GUBINET. [July»

" Is it long since they went to the peace of the church-yard ? "
asked the lady.

"Long?" repeated Gubinet, questioning herself. "Well, it
must be, for the slip of ivy I put at my father's head has a
stem as thick as a young oak ; but, on the other hand, if It
was long, sure I'd be growing up an' getting sense an' studdi-
ness ! I'm not studdy someway" — with, for a moment, a thor-
oughly sane expression — " but " — the elfin look returning —
"would you wonder at that, an' me having to stand the roguery of
them pickie-players ? Woman, dear, they'd chate you if you had
eyes in your poll even ! Fyeh, an' me without one o' my own
to ax what the crying an* bawling is about that I have by my-
self up there on the Knock every night."

" ' Crying and bawling ' are of so little use, poor thing ! "

" But sure that's the r'ason that I cry an' bawl. If 'twas
any use, if one of *em ever came to me, I'd give it over. But
they don't." The outbursting tears, so strange and woeful to
see in eyes so old, rolled down her withered face, and the
lady, with a pang at her own heart, turned the conversation
back a little.

"Then there was a time when you were 'steady,' wasn't
there, Gubinet ? " she asked gently.

" Ah ! but that was when we were all together. 'Twas noth-
ing but Gubinet here, an' Gubinet there ; an' I was like a bee
working from morning till night — we were all great at the
work, for 'twas a fight ag'in the bog with us always. 'Tis a
great rogue, the bog — a sch'aming, st'aling rogue that if you
wouldn't be for ever with the spade an' the lime an' the clay,
turning and drying an' filling, the places up there, the rushes
an* fraigh would be down on it in a hurry, an' there wouldn't
be enough to give a living to the snipes. But a good ould
fight is a fine thing, an' we were as happy as the days were
long, for we kept the bog masthered well. What did we mind
the big creels of lime an' sand that we had to drag up from
the other side o' the Knock, or for the rain an' the mists an'
the snow that we soaked in, in the bad weather all day? — we
had always the little snug house to face to at night, and its
four walls held everything that the hearts in us axed for. The
boys an' little Norey an' myself had no time to play at all —
we were like fathers an' mothers for sense an' understanding —
an' so everything went on till one night, a close, heavy, eerie
night, a poor wayfaring woman walked in to us an' asked for
a bed an* supper, that she got, for 'twas never in us to refuse

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1 897.] G UBINE T, 445

anything of the kind. She had bad news, for lower down the
Knock the people were in a great state of unaisiness after dis-
covering that their potatoes were all turned suddenly black.
My father went out quietly an* dug up a few stalks in each o'
the fields, an' behould you ! when he brought the basket in we
found that they were nearly all black. That was the first rale
fright I got in my life, an' I shook like a lafe, for I knew
that black things like 'em weren't wholesome, an' we had noth-
ing in the world planted that year but potatoes. On the sale
of them we depended for everything else. Well, the times we
put over us after that! The poor boys took sick in the win-
ter, an* even with the fever on 'em, they used to try to keep
on with the work ; but they had to give in at last, and then
my mother and Norey were taken down.

" Oh, my ! oh, my ! We used to be up all night with 'em,
poor father an' I — an' during the day he'd take care of *em
still while I'd go to the town to work for enough to keep the
life in 'em. The dispensary doctor after the first visit never went
near 'em — he was too hard-worked, I suppose, with all the sick-
ness that was going, an* 'twas a big distance out to the Knock ;
he'd only give me tickets for the Relief porridge. How could I
go for public relief — my father's and mother's child ? I couldn't
do it, and so I worked away for the little things I could bring
to *em. It wasn't much, for in town and country every one was
poor ; but it was my owtiy don't you see ? Between the staying
up at night and the long walk in the morning, an' the trouble
o* mind I was in, I used to fall asleep over the tub o' clothes
often ; but 'twould be only for a minute, for 'twould all come
hack on me in a flash — the five of 'em sick up there, an*
poor father, spint an' patient, fighting with Death for 'em, an'
he broken-hearted between everything. I used have to hould
on to something to keep me from racing home ; and then when
I was free an' I'd be running back, there would be a kind of
a cowld shiver through me till I saw 'em all ag'in. . . .
Some nights now, when I'm out in the little house, sitting on
the floor of the empty room where they died, with the light o'
the moon streaming down through the broken roof, an' the
four winds gallivanting through the place, 'tis just as if 'twas
yesterday that I used to be coming in an' helping father with
the drinks, an' we'd be talking together an' trying to put cour-
age into each other's hearts. 'Twas hard work then; it was
harder by-an'-by. One by one they left us ; there was no hould-
ing 'em back. ... In that time it was a frightful thing to

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446 GUBINET. [J"ly>

see the dead pitched out of the * sliding * coffins into the pits
that did be kept open till they were full. That came to be the
biggest dread we had — afraid they'd be taken from us an' buried
that way. 'Twas father's hands an' mine that made the coffins
for 'em, out of bog-dale ; between us we carried 'em to Innis-
doyle church-yard, to our own corner where the trees are. It
tore the hearts in us, but some way I didn't feel killed entirely
while father was with me. But after Norey's buiying — she was
the last of 'em — his courage all seemed to go out of him of a
sudden. He'd stay out on the road for ever, gazing down
where you could see the top of Innisdoyle Abbey steeple. One
day they brought him home to me — they were after finding him
in the bog. I suppose his heart broke. Wasn't it an unhuman
thing for me to see father — father / put in the sliding coffin an'
buried in the pit ? "

The agony of it all came over her with fresh force again.
She flung herself upon the ground shrieking " Father ! father !
father ! "

The lady, her own tears falling, tried to soothe the afflicted
creature, and was at length partly successful. She made her
seat herself beside her on the roadside bank, and then talked
cheerfully to her.

** You know you were the * right-hand ' of him, and all of
them, Gubinet. That is a grand thing to remember."

" But that's what kills me entirely now," she replied, be-
tween her sobs ; " see how continted they are without me ! If
they'd ax me to do anything — anything — anything ! But not a
move or a word from 'em, whatever ails *em at all. They
weren't so cowld and distant entirely when I was beyant," with
a quick pointing motion and furtive look over her shoulder.

" Oh ! at the asylum ? " said the lady.

"With thim with the Sthraps," she whispered, "an' Miss
Mary Ann and the Black Books, where they put the names
in."

The lady nodded understandingly.

"Well, would you doubt that little Norey, but at night
when I used to be half-desthroyed from the way I had to keep
screeching all day, she'd stale in to me, an', sitting there on
the pillow, the little cr'ature, she'd commence crownawning an'
singing one o' my mother's old ?ongs, the * Lake of Coolfin ' it
was, till some sort of a happy feeling would come over me an'
I wouldn't care an atom for the lonesomeness, or the sthraps,
or the Black Books. Oh, my ! oh, my ! I followed the ballad-

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1897.]

Immortality.

447

singers the last wet day from morning till night — I'd folly 'em
for ever, listening to it/'

" I'll sing it for you, Gubinet," said the lady.

Overhead the stars were glistening in a sky of almost
summer blue ; the glen waters, inside the bank where they sat,
fell musically over the weirs ; there was the faint perfume of
primroses in the air, and through the larch-tops high up the
mild March moon was looking sadly down, as the sweet voice
was uplifted in that most plaintive of airs. The singer heard
short, sobbing breaths beside her as the song went on ; an elfin,
withered hand stole into hers, and she felt her fingers raised and
passionately kissed ; then the old woman, gathering her cloak
about her, fled into the now dark road that led mountainward.
The lady listened to the desolate crying and hand-clapping
until distance blotted them out, and then turned sadly to the
town.

IMMORTALITY.

BY BERT MARTEL.

LAS ! from out the shade
Death's coward hand is laid ;
A blow he gives.
Still, like the starry way.

Invisible by day.
Though dead, she lives.

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448 Blessed Richard Whiting. [July.

BLESSED RICHARD WHITING, THE LAST ABBOT
OF GLASTONBURY.

BY VERY REV. F. FELIX, O.S.B., V.G.

HE close of the nineteenth century evidently
points towards a religious reaction. Our
Supreme Pontiflf, Leo XIII., has immortalized
his glorious pontificate by his noble attempt to
I reunite Christianity. Repeatedly he invited the
nations of the earth to the One Fold of which Christ is the
Shepherd. His voice is heralded in the East and in the West
— pre-eminently in the British Isles. The recent encyclicals to
the Greek schismatics and to the "People of England," as well
as the recent renewal of exhortations to pray for Christian Unity,
are sufficient evidence to convince even the sceptic that a sublime
ideal possesses the mind of the " Common Father of all Chris-
tendom.'* The final decision recently rendered regarding the
validity of the Anglican Orders should be an additional
moral impetus to that religiously inclined people to return to
the Faith of their forefathers, who by their prayers and virtues
sanctified the soil upon which they tread.

Most significant in this respect is the beatification of the
so-called English Martyrs, which took place a short time ago in
the Sixtine Chapel in Rome. The blessed martyrs are, Richard
Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury; Abbot Hugh Cook of
Reading ; John Beche, Abbot of Colchester ; and four of
their monks, all of the order of St. Benedict. Christ's Vicar
has by this act of supreme power again stigmatized Henry
VIII. 's action in extirpating the English monasteries and exe-
cuting many pious abbots and priests, as an act of vandalism
and tyranny scarcely equalled in history. ** There is no darker
spot in the annals of the English Reformation," says a pro-
minent Protestant authority, " than the execution of Richard
Whiting, a man so learned, holy, and pure." The Catholics of
the English tongue in both hemispheres received this generous
act of the Supreme Pontiff with universal applause. Yet amidst
this joy arises a deep, an earnest sigh from the heart of every
Catholic Englishman. Behold the ruins of many great British
abbeys, cathedrals, and churches, and the desecration of others!

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1 897-] Blessed Richard Whiting, 449

The Ruins testify to the Pitiless Ingratitude of Men.

Each stone of these hallowed walls could proclaim the piety, zeal,
and learning of their former inmates. " Those fair and dear
churches," says Count de Montalembert, " where so many of
our fathers resorted to receive consolation, courage, and strength
to strive against the evils of life, are fallen. Those cloisters
which offered a safe and noble asylum to all arts and all
sciences, where all miseries of man were solaced, where the
hungry were always satisfied, the naked clothed, the ignorant

VOL. LXV.— 29

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450 Blessed Richard Whiting. [July.

enlightened, exist no more except in ruins stained by a thousand
ignoble profanations."

Mindful of these many sacrilegious devastations, the Sacred
Congregation of Rites assigned to the Mass in honor of the
English martyrs this sorrowful passage of Jeremias' Lamenta-
tions : " Recordare, Domine," etc. — " Remember, O Lord, what
has come upon us ; consider and behold our reproach. Our
inheritance is turned to aliens, our houses to strangers. . . .
Our fathers have sinned, and they are not ; and we have borne
their iniquity."

The recent historical researches of Francis Aidan Gasquet,
the eminent and learned Benedictine, brought to light the
rapacious iniquity of Henry VIIL in suppressing the English
monasteries. To him the writer is principally indebted for this
historical sketch of Blessed Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of
Glastonbury.

ST. PATRICK THE FIRST ABBOT.

The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey are located in the town
bearing its name, twenty-two miles to the south-west of Bath,
on the Somerset and Dorset Railway. The spot occupied by
the town is, in geographical formation, a peninsula, formed by
the winding of the river Brue, which flows west to the valley
between the Peldew and Mendip Hills. Its churches to-day
bear the names of St. John the Baptist, built in perpendicular
style with towers of fine proportions, and the church of St.
Benedict, dating back to 1493. The Abbey of Glastonbury is
without doubt one of the very earliest ecclesiastical foundations
in England, and the most famous monastic ' institution of pre-
Reformation times. It existed long before St. Boniface crossed
the English Channel to bring the Gospel of Peace to Germany,
as evinced by his letters and those of his noble companion, St.
Willibald, the son of King Richard of West Saxony. There is
a pious tradition still extant that Joseph of Arimathea, who
buried our Saviour, was sent by St. Philip the Apostle with
twelve companions to England, and found here his last repose.
An ancient author says, however, concerning this : " We know
not whether they really repose here, although we have read
that they sojourned in this place for nine years ; but here dwelt
assuredly many of their disciples, ever twelve in number, who,
in imitation of them, led a hermit's life until unto them came
St. Patrick, the great Apostle of the Irish and the first abbot
of the hallowed spot. Here, too, rests St. Benen, the disciple

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1 897-] Blessed Richard Whiting. 451

of St. Patrick ; here St. Gildas, the historian of the British ;
here St. David, Bishop of Menevia ; and, here the holy hermit
Indractus with his seven companions, all sprung from the royal
race. Here rest the relics of a band of holy Irish pilgrims
who, returning from a visit to the shrines at Rome, turned
aside to Glastonbury out of love to St. Patrick's memory, and
were martyred in a village named Shapwick. Hither, not long
after, their remains were brought by Ina, our glorious king,"

ROMA SECUNDA.

St. Pauline, previous to his apostolic labors, dwelt within
Glastonbury's walls, and St. Dunstan gave it fame by his virtue
and learning. There was a succession of great and influential
abbots, among whom are especially known Herlewine, from iioi-
1 1 20, who laid the foundations for the majestic abbey buildings
of a later period, and Henry of Blois, from 1126-1 171, who built
the bell-tower, chapter-house, etc. Glastonbury was always con-
sidered by the pious inhabitants of the Isle the "Roma
Secunda" for its many relics, pious traditions, and great
influence in religious affairs, even prior to the arrival of St.
Augustine. King Arthur and St. Dunstan were buried in the
vaults of the abbey church, which was dedicated to our Blessed
Mother, and usually known as the " Virgin of Glastonbury."
The sixtieth and last Abbot of Glastonbury was the illustrious,
now blessed, Richard Whiting.

HIS EARLY LIFE IN THE MIDST OF WAR.

At the birth of Richard Whiting civil strife between the
Houses of Lancaster and York was desolating the broad acres
of " Merrie England." Carnage and all the attendant evils of
war, and the varied fortunes of Edward IV., plunged the country
into the wildest excitement, the Red Rose now being in the
ascendant and again the White triumphing. The day and the
exact year of the birth of Richard are not known. However, he
opened his eyes to light in the second half of the fifteenth
century. His boyhood, therefore, must have been passed as a
spectator of the vicissitudes of party principle, and the dangers
of civil contest stamped themselves indelibly upon his youthful
mind.

His family were West Country in their origin, and distant
relatives of Bishop Stapledon, the generous founder of Exeter
College, Oxford. Its principal member held extensive estates
in Devon and Somerset, but the younger branch of the house,

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452 Blessed Richard Whiting. [Jiily»

to which Richard Whiting belonged, were tenant-holders of
Glastonbury possessions.

Their name was of some prominence in religious com-
munities, for at the time of Richard's birth another Whiting,
probably an uncle, held the office of camerarius in the mon-
astery of Bath. Again, many years later, at the commencement
of the troubles which threatened to obliterate all religious
houses by the extortions of Henry VIIL, a Jane Whiting
assumed the habit and veil of a nun in the convent of Welton ;
and again, when religious foundations were transferred to the
Continent, two nieces of Abbot Whiting became Franciscan
sisters at Bruges.

CONSECRATION IN RELIGION.

There is no certain knowledge of the character of Richard
Whiting's boyhood and youth, but it may be safely conjectured

Ruins of the Abbey Church, Glastonbury.

that his education was received within the walls of his future
monastic home. The monks of Glastonbury conducted a free
institution in which instruction was imparted to the sons of
rich and poor, and all classes fitted for a university career.
Thus from some meagre accounts it is inferred that, under the
gentle surveillance of the Glastonbury Benedictines, Whiting
was given the foundations of virtue and knowledge. His
training in the cloistral school was succeeded by the discipline

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I897-] Blessed Richard Whiting. 453

of the novitiate, for in his early youth, as was the custom, he
joined the community of St. Benedict at Glastonbury, under the
administration of Abbot Selwood.

From Glastonbury Whiting was sent to Cambridge, where
his name appears among those who took the degree of M. A.
in 1483. It was here he formed a friendship with several who
were likewise to sacrifice their lives in the cause of Catholic
unity and the spiritual sovereignty of the successor of St. Peter.
It seems that he spent fifteen years at the university, during
which time several important events occurred.

The first was the death of Abbot Selwood in 1493. The
monks, having obtained the king's permission to proceed with
the election of a successor, met for that purpose and made
their choice without the approval of the diocesan bishop.
Perhaps this breach of form may be ascribed to the continued
absence of the bishop from his see. Bishop Fox, hearing of the
nomination, applied to the king for its cancellation. This being
granted, he claimed the right of appointing to the office, and
through his commissary installed Richard Bere in the abbatial chair.

During this abbot's rule Glastonbury was the rendezvous of
armed soldiery. The royal troops, opposing the stand of the
insurgents against King Henry VII. 's authority, disturbed the
peace of the cloister. The poverty of the army was distress-
ing, and although the undisciplined band perpetrated no acts
of violence, still their support entailed a large expenditure
from the monastic treasury. This uprising quelled, another
speedily followed, when Perkin Warbeck marshalled his rabble
forces, and in the autumn of 1497 the advance troops of the
king reached Glastonbury and were sheltered in the monastery.
Warbeck fled, his forces scattered, and the royal standard was
displayed from the towers of Glastonbury. Later Henry him-
self followed, and, passing through Wells, reached the abbey
and was lavishly entertained at the abbot's expense. Richard
Bere was a prudent and wise administrator, a man of virtue
and foresight. By him the work of improving the monastic
territory was carried on, and under him Glastonbury attained
its greatest glory. The church received additions of many
chapels, and its decorations were enriched by princely dona-
tions. As a man of letters even the great Erasmus submitted
to his judgment, and as a prudent legate he was commissioned
by the king to convey congratulations to Cardinal Medicis, who
at this time ascended the Papal throne under the name of
Pius IV.

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454 Blessed Richard Whiting. [July,

HIS PRIESTHOOD.

As a punishment for its endorsement of the Cornish cause,
the royal officers levied taxes upon the entire country. Glaston-
bury escaped, yet its district felt the oppressor's heavy hand.
The country was steeped in misery and the people groaned
under the extortion of the king's commissaries. These were the
troubles which Richard Whiting beheld whilst he was now pre-
paring himself for ordination at Glastonbury. The Bishop of
Bath and Wells had relegated his power to a suffragan, Thomas
Cornish. From the hand of this prelate he received minor
orders in September, 1498. In the two succeeding years he
was ordained sub-deacon and deacon, and on the sixth of
March, 1501, was elevated to the holy priesthood. The ordina-
tion was conducted at Wells by Bishop Cornish, in the chapel
of the Blessed Virgin, long since destroyed. During the
twenty-five subsequent years we hear little of the priest.
Doubtless his time was spent exclusively in the cloister. In
the year 1505, however, the university records show that the
degree of doctor of divinity was conferred on him. In his own
monastery he held the position of camerarius, or chamberlain.

In February, 1525, Abbot Bere died after an administration
of thirty years. A few days after his demise the monks met in
chapter to elect his successor, and at the proposition of the
prior it was agreed that five days were to be given for con-
sideration and discussion. On the sixth, after the solemniza-
tion of the Mass " De Spiritu Sancto," the capitulars again
convened and took the oath to choose him whom they deemed
most worthy. William Bennett, the canonical adviser of the
community, explained to the brethren the various forms of
election. Thereupon it was determined to proceed by a method
called " Compromise." This consisted of placing the election
of the abbot in the hands of a person of prominence. Conse-
quently Cardinal Wolsey of York was selected by a unanimous
choice. The prior informed his eminence of their desire, and
in obtaining permission of the king suffered a fortnight to
elapse, at the termination of which the cardinal announced
his choice of Richard Whiting. A deputation from the abbey
hastened back to Glastonbury carrying the documents, which
spoke in the highest terms of Whiting. Immediately on their
arrival the " Te Deum " was intoned, and the newly elected
abbot was conducted in solemn procession from the chapter to
the church.

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I897-] Blessed Richard Whiting. 455

HIS ELECTION AS ABBOT.

Standing to-day upon the site of that ancient splendor, our
pulses thrill at the recollection of the solemn scene enacted
upon that March morning so long ago. The news had spread,
and thousands upon thousands filled the mighty nave, anxious
to show reverence to their future spiritual and temporal father.
The great edifice glowed with the priceless gems of ten cen-
turies of beneficence. Prominent were the lavish adornments
of Abbot Bere, so lately laid to rest under a simple marble
slab, an unpretentious monument to him who, by the many
chapels, the vault of the nave which re-echoed with the chants
of the monks, the jewelled antipendium, evinced his veneration
and love for the glorious sanctuary of Glastonbury.

Into this noble temple the people crowded, and as the last
notes of the " Amen " trembled and died away in the forest of
marble columns, through the terrible silence the voice of the
notary public proclaimed the election of Brother Richard
Whiting. In order to conclude the formalities his consent was
necessary, for as yet he had not intimated his acceptance. At
first he demurred, demanding time for deliberation ; but, after
a lapse of a few hours spent in prayer, he offered no resistance
to the will of God and took upon himself the dignity and
burden.

The cardinal having been notified, appointed two commis-
saries to proceed with investigations into the character of
Richard Whiting. It was requested that all impediments be
brought forward ; but upon the third day, none appearing, the
decree was published abroad and at length affixed to the great
doors. Those who offered testimony to his age and character
spoke in highest terms of his exemplary career, and those who
Icnew him best found no flaw in his unblemished life.

HIS ADMINISTRATION OF OFFICE.

Richard Whiting took the oath of obedience to the bishop
of the diocese and received the abbatial benediction in his own
abbey church from Dr. William Gilbert, Abbot of Bruton
and Bishop of Mayo in Ireland. Thus, with the applause of
the populace, with the sanction of Cardinal Wolsey and the
king, was inaugurated the rule of the last Abbot of Glaston-
bury. Hitherto his name had been little known. He had lived
in seclusion, as becomes a true monk. Office and rank offered
no attraction. He rather shrank from popularity, and, like the

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456 Blessed Richard Whiting. [July,

long line of his predecessors, he too might have passed into
oblivion ; but God had other designs. True, as abbot of the
grand parliamentary abbey, he could have taken his place
among the peers of the realm in the House of Lords, but his
simple religious spirit sought no such distinction. His joys and

Considerable portions of St. Joseph's Chapel can yet be seen.

happiness lay in fulfilling the duties connected directly with
the abbey and its district. Fidelity to his imposed trust, alle-
giance to the church, devotion to her vicar, loyalty to her
tenets, fortitude in temptation, have brought the reverence of
generations upon him and immortalized the name of Richard
Whiting.

The administration of Abbot Whiting was begun in trouble-
some times. The flower of English chivalry had been swept
away by the feud of the Roses, and their places filled by a
throng whose primary considerations were political preferment
and financial gain. Little regard had they for ancient tradi-
tions and the country's advantage. Suflfice it that ambition be
gratified and their greed for power satiated. As political ad-
venturers they might profit by the disturbance of social order,
and self-interest prompted them to range themselves in the
ranks of the party of innovation. To attract the notice of the
king, to bask in the royal smiles, to be patronized by his

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1 897-] Blessed Richard Whiting. 457

caprice, to vie with one another in gratifying his whims — these
were the points of competition ; and worthy indeed was the
monarch for whom they bartered every principle of honor, and
even rejected the code of right, Henry VIII. was then their
king. By him Sir Thomas Boleyn was created Viscount Roch-
ford, and this favor marked the beginning of the king's illicit
affection for the new peer's daughter Anne, and the subsequent
troubles in the church and state.

THE BEGINNINGS OF TROUBLE.

Abbot Whiting had ruled for five years at Glastonbury,
when the fall of Cardinal Wolsey paved the way for the eleva-
tion of Cromwell, the chief contriver of the religious changes
in England. Subservient to the whims of the king, he main-
tained his power and he ingeniously managed all affairs to
master parliament and to adapt the action of convocation to
the royal pleasure.

Henry determined that his divorce from Catherine should
be recognized, and finding the papal disapproval an insur-
mountable obstacle to his unbridled passion, he conceived the
expedient of throwing off the ecclesiastical authority and insti-
tuting himself the supreme head of the church. This step had
long been threatened, yet had received no reproof, and now,
when it reached the point of culmination, there was no demur-
ring.

Although the act was hurried through parliament and all
opposition stamped as treason, the intriguing party did not
receive the reward expected. Many were caught in the cun-
ning contrivance and took the oath of supremacy. After the
lapse of centuries, it is not possible for us to condemn and
pass censure on such compliance, nor is it for us to wonder
that throughout the realm only a few brave men, with Fisher
and More, did not waver. There were many reasons for tem-
porizing, and what we judge as weakness was perhaps the only
hope left of bringing the trouble to a happy termination.
Henry's early life was edifying in its piety. The Pope had
conferred upon him the title of " Defender of the Faith." Was
this not sufficient ground for hope that the present indiscretions
would speedily end and the king again return to his former
virtuous path ? Such, however, was not to be. The sequel is
known only too well to the student of history.

Evil succeeded evil, and as his guilty passion for Anne
Boleyn is the key to half the extraordinar>' acts of Henry's

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458 Blessed Richard Whiting. [July,

reign, so need of money to gratify his other appetites is the
key to the rest. It has been well said that the suppression of
the monasteries was simply an '' enormous scheme for filling the
royal purse," and the truth of the assertion is beyond dispute.
With the humblest of the religious houses, up to the dismal hour
when Glastonbury's noble walls were left untenanted, Henry
and his courtiers sought every device for appropriating the les-
ser and greater bounties to themselves.

SCHEME FOR FILLING THE ROYAL PURSE.

Glastonbury under her noble administrator, retaining still the
title of the grandest abbey in the realm, did not yet experience
any very definite discomfort ; but from the tidings which now
and then reached the cloistral precincts. Abbot Whiting realized
that at no distant day the storm would burst upon his great
sanctuary. Under his prudent and gentle guidance discipline
was well maintained, and his kindly relations with his neighbors
bespoke a happy and prosperous government. The revenues of
Glastonbury exceeded those of Canterbury; the endowments
of Westminster were only slightly in excess, and in the West
Country, since the death of the Duke of Buckingham, no
prince nor prelate dispensed such power as the Abbot of Glas-
tonbury.

With all his magnificence a certain simplicity and stateliness
characterized the rule of Abbot Whiting. In himself and in
his spiritual children he fostered the spirit of poverty and every
attribute of a true religious. Hospitable to all classes, the dis-
tinguished were entertained in hundreds at his table, and un-
numbered poor flocked to the monastery gates seeking the
alleviation of their needs.

One year after the conclusion of the king's divorce case,
when Cromwell realized they had not obtained the hoped-
for result, the fertile brain of the minister organized a visitation
of religious houses. The real object was the destruction of
monasteries under the cloak of reformation.

The authority of the superiors was torn from them; the
abbeys reduced to prisons ; and all with the show of zeal for
religion. Armed with a commission to enforce the injunctions.
Doctor Richard Layton, " the most foul-mouthed and foul-minded
ribald of them all," visited Glastonbury on Sunday, August 21,
I53S« So blameless were the lives of the monks, so minutely
were the details of their monastic profession carried out, that
even this inquisitor could extract no guilt. He was forced to

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1 897-] Blessed Richard Whiting. 459

admit that the severe discipline exercised would necessarily pre-
vent any evil.

After their departure the severity of the financial injunctions
imposed led Abbot Whiting to solicit some mitigation, but to
no purpose. Under the guise of requests, which were really
demands, possession after possession passed into the hands of
the extortioners, until the abbey alone remained. Parliament
had deeded to Henry only those communities whose income
amounted to £200 per annum. The dissolution of larger com-
munities was left for subsequent yeai-s.

THE ROYAL WRECKERS COME TO GLASTONBURY.

For this state of affairs, which was not to the king's liking,
provision was made in the act of April, 1539, which included a
retrospective clause covering the illegal suppression of the
greater monasteries already completed, and granting to Henry
"all which shall hereafter happen to be dissolved, suppressed,
renounced, relinquished, forfeited, given up, or come unto the
king's highness." There was likewise an ominous parenthesis
referring to such other religious houses as '^ shall happen to
come to the king's highness by attainder or attainders of trea-
son." Here, then, was the decree which opened the noble and
revered houses of the monks, and this was the measure by which
their power was usurped. Even the enemies of Abbot Whiting
could offer no testimony against the simple perfection of his life ;
yet, defending the possession of. his abbey and denying the
spiritual sovereignty of Henry VIII., he could be branded a
traitor of the realm, and made an example of to deter others
from resisting the king's will.

In 1538 rumor had spoken of the approaching dissolution;
and the fact that religious houses, both great and small, were
falling into the king's hands gave color to the tales. There-
fore the dissembling of the royal commissioners gave no
assurance to Abbot Whiting. By the beginning of 1539 Glas-
tonbury alone remained in the whole county of Somerset,
During the days of suspense which followed the abbot cheerfully
performed the daily calls of duty, and awaited in patience the
final doom. Monks, driven from their homes, wandered through
the country seeking shelter and food. The poor, deprived of
their traditional alms in monasteries, crowded to Glastonbury
during the last few months of its existence. For eleven weeks
the royal wreckers swarmed through the country dismantling
the churches, selling vestments, breaking bells and tearing away

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460 Blessed Richard Whiting. [July,

the lead from the roofs, defacing and destroying the monas-
teries, and carrying away their plunder. Tin chalices were to
be substituted for the gold and silver vessels used at Mass,
and many other such sacrilegious enactments were to be en-
forced without regard to the conscience and will of the people.
It was not until the autumn of 1539 that the final steps
were taken towards the destruction of Glastonbury. On Sep-
tember 19 the royal commissioners arrived and commenced the
work of search. Among the abbot's papers were discovered a
book of arguments againsf the king's divorce and a counterfeit
life of Thomas k Becket. Here was the required evidence. The
abbot was verily a traitor, and the monastery's wealth must

Ruins of Bishop's Palace at Wells, where Whiting was condemned to

THE Gallows.

pass into the king's coffers. From letters exchanged at that
time we have accounts of the quantity of plate and valuables
which were handed over to the royal treasurer as the posses-
sions of " attainted persons and places." Abbot Whiting was
imprisoned and sent to the Tower of London. Here he was
subjected to the most searching queries. According to the law
of the land, the abbot should have been arraigned before Par-
liament, as he was a member of the House of Peers. But
no such bill of attainder was ever presented, and the execution
had taken place before Parliament had come together. Crom-
well, acting as prosecutor, judge, and jury, arranged the con-
demnation of Whiting and his two companions, the abbots of

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i897-] Blessed Richard Whiting. 461

Reading and Colchester, and they were to meet death without
a trial.

Whiting knew only too well the path which led from the
Tower. More and Fisher had trod it before, and, like them, he
could ofler no satisfaction. He hoped, however, his age and
weakness would exempt him from extremities ; but Henry and
Cromwell had decided that he should suffer before the eyes of
the world the most shameful indignities.

Dragged back to Wells, in sight of his life-time home, in the
presence of those whom he had befriended, he was subjected
to a mock trial in the episcopal palace and condemned to die
on the gallows. His physical suffering must have accounted
not in comparison to the pain of seeing Glastonbury polluted
by the vandal's touch, stripped of her treasures and unin-
habited.

HIS CRUEL MARTYRDOM.

Cromwell's captive reached Wells on Friday, November 14,
and there was no delay in his execution. Father Gasquet de-
scribes the last moments of the great abbot in the following
terms : " At the outskirts of his own town his venerable limbs
were extended on a hurdle, to which a horse was attached. In
this way he was dragged, on that bleak November morning,
along the rough, hard ground through the streets of Glaston-
bury, of which \\jt and his predecessors had so long been the
loved and honored lords and masters. It was thus among his
own people that now, at the age of well-nigh four-score years,
Abbot Whiting made his last pilgrimage through England's
*Roma Secunda.' As a traitor for conscience' sake he was
drawn past the glorious monastery, now desolate and deserted ;
past the great church, that home of the saints and the sanc-
tuary of his country's greatness, now devastated and desecrated,
its relics of God's holy ones dispersed, its tombs of kings dis-
honored ; on further still to the summit of that hill which rises
yet in the landscape in solitary and majestic greatness, the per-
petual memorial of the deed now to be enacted. His last act
was simple. Now about to appear before a tribunal that was
searching, just, and merciful, he asked forgiveness first of God
and then of man, and even of those who had most offended
against justice in his person, and had not rested until they had
brought him to the gallows amidst every incident that could
add to such a death ignominy and shame. In self-possession
and patience the great man followed the footsteps of the Lord

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462 Blessed Richard Whiting. [July,

and Master in whose service he had spent his life. There is
no need to dwell on the butchery which followed, and to tell
how the hardly lifeless body was cut down, divided into four
parts, and the head struck off. One quarter was despatched to
Wells, another to Bath, a third to Ilchester, and a fourth to
Bridgewater, whilst the venerable head was fixed over the great
gateway of the abbey as a ghastly warning of retribution which
might and would fall on all, even the most powerful and the
most holy, if they ventured to stand between the king and the
accomplishment of his royal will."

Of all the atrocities perpetrated by Henry VIII. and his cor-
respondents, the execution of Abbot Whiting stands foremost,
an indelible stain upon a blackened character. Those who have
been robbed of their faith preserve the memory sacred of good
Abbot Whiting, and even to-day it is a household word in every
hut and mansion in Glastonbury and surrounding country. May
the venerable, now Blessed^ Abbot Richard Whiting intercede for
us and his country I

The work of destruction began at Glastonbury shortly after
the death of Abbot Whiting, and has descended to the very
foundations of England's most famous abbey. Of the vast
range of buildings constituting the abbey proper nothing re-
mains. Considerable portions of St. Joseph's Chapel can still
be seen. The grand church itself was a cruciform structure,
with a choir, a nave, and transepts, and a tower surmounting
the centre of the intersection. Its length was apparently four
hundred and ten feet and its breadth eighty feet. The remain-
ing ruins give evidence of the grandeur of this once illustrious
ecclesiastical structure. " Nature has pity upon these ruins
now, which testify to the pitiless ingratitude of men. She has
wrapt them as in a shroud with her immortal robe of ivy and
eglantine, with creeping plants and wild flowers. She attracts to
them thus, even from the most indifferent, a sympathetic and
attentive gaze."

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1 897-] I^ THE Parish of the Sacred Heart. 463

IN THE PARISH OF THE SACRED HEART.

BY MARGARET KENNA.

A SNOW-BIRD.

^ILENCE in the snowy streets and darkness, save
for the trembling morning-star. Silence in the
little church, as the congregation waited for
Father Salvator.
The warmth of Christmas candles opened the
lilies and drew the fragrance out of their chaste hearts. It
mingled with the incense, and, sweeping down the aisle, seemed
to touch the faces of the people with murmurous, living ten-
derness.

There was little Margaret Kilduff in the first pew, her
dream-like child-beauty almost lost in her white hood ; and next
to her, her brothers, four little Scots, and then one or two
other little girls like Margaret.

Behind the children knelt John McClosky, the marble-cutter,
who seemed to have carved his own rude image as a first at-
tempt, and his fat little wife, on whose winter bonnet the
same gray dove had fluttered for twenty years, and over whose
pudgy knees one or two sweet-faced Marys or Kathleens must
always climb to get into the pew. Mrs, McClosky knew some-
thing about war, and her own face confessed it as truly outside
the confessional as her own lips confessed it behind the crim-
son curtain. From time to time she looked at the crimson
curtain and sighed.

Mary Kilduff, the noble Scotchwoman, gathered her plaid
shawl closer about her gnarled form, and her eyes burned with
love as she watched the tremulous fire in the altar lamp. Be-
tween her and Kathleen McCoy was an empty seat, which
Kathleen kept for her runaway boy, if he should come back.
Mary longed to speak some word of comfort to the poor,
fragile woman, this Christmas morning ; but she knew she could
never trust herself to speak it, so she had tenderly laid one
red rose in the empty place between them. Kathleen McCoy
was the parish Mater Dolorosa. The time was coming soon

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464 In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [July,

when she would be judged by her sorrows, and meanwhile, when
she knelt in the little church, there was a beatitude in her eyes.

Rory McCarthy was with his sister Madge close to Kath-
leen — so close that he could see the purple and gold crosses
from the stained-glass windows glance upon the pallid cheeks of
the bereft mother. His heart was full of pity for her.

A long row of old women in black bonnets knelt in the
back of the church, with their beads in their trembling fingers
and holy water glistening on their brows, A little boy nestled
close to his mother, and played hide-and-seek with her crepe
veil, A scarlet ribbon dangling from some young girl's golden
hair made the faded shawls and alpaca bonnets look old and
sad ; a white straw hat bobbed like a little spectre of summer
in one of the middle pews ; a child coughed or the leaves of
a prayer-book fluttered in the turning.

Such was the congregation which waited for Father Salvator.
He came at last, his black curls and eyes shining above his
white vestments.

The organ murmured a spring song, which had its own
beautiful significance, since Jesus was the Violet who lived and
died in loneliness, for our love !

In the midst of the soft music the latch of the little church-
door lifted and fell, and the people in the church — human on
Christmas as on Calvary — turned their heads.

A girl entered. She was wrapped in furs, but there were
chill, crimson spots in her cheeks. She paused a moment, look-
ing about with startled eyes. Finding no place, she knelt in
the crowded aisle. When she felt herself forgotten, she looked
about the little church, and her eyes came back from the blaz-
ing altar and rested in humility on the great mission cross
which hung between the windows. They were a child's eyes in
a woman's face; and yet, as they gazed on the cross, an
anguished penitence burned in them.

The sexton watched her from behind his straggling lashes.
When he passed around the box she dropped in a little gold-piece,
which made her very interesting to Michael Cumisky, whose
Christmas coat was patched with six colors. When the crim-
son left her cheeks he got up noisily and put coal in the stove.
He left the stove-door open and went back to his place, watch-
ing for the glow on her cheeks. It came no more.

Her fingers travelled her amethyst rosary. It seemed a long
journey for those trembling fingers. They paused sometimes, a
tear fell on them, and then they went bravely on.

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The Christmas music folded the flock in an ecstasy of
peace.

" Watchman, tell us of the night ! "

The world was forgotten while that contralto voice of
divine passion and pathos filled the silence with its sweetness.

When Father Salvator turned to speak the eyes of the con-
gregation rested on him with a spirited, sweet impatience. But
at that moment the latch lifted once again and harshly fell.

Father Salvator blinked his black eyes.

'*On Christmas morning," he said, "there is always a con-
tingent of snow-birds. People who never come when there is a
place for them, come then to crowd others out. They come
from no good motive either — come, perhaps, because there is a
little inore style then ; come because it is the one day in the
year when it may be a credit to them to be of this humble parish.

" We do not want them. There is no room for them. They
have denied us all the year. We deny them now — snow-birds !
We want the little brown and blue coats that are ours in
summer and winter too. To them I offer my Christmas greet-
ings. To the snow-birds I say, Make your own reflections as
to whether you deserve any Christmas greetings ! "

The sexton looked at the girl. Her head was bowed, but
her fingers pressed her beads until they were pink, and tears
ran in scalding haste over the silver chains.

When Mass was over Father Salvator lifted an arresting
hand. " My good people," he said, " I was disturbed by those
persons at the door, who irreverently went out when I was
about to preach. I spoke in wrath.

" There was not room for Jesus Christ in Bethlehem on
Chriistmas morning. I should be sorry to make the least of
you feel there was not room for you here. What is the blue
robe of Mary for if not to huddle snow-bird^ ?"

The congregation smiled and crowded out into the aisle.

The young girl kept her place in the shadows under the
gallery. The sexton toiled for fifteen minutes with the fires and
came back to find her still kneeling there. There was a stillness
over her young figure that was more like death than devotion.
He went to the sacristy. »

"Would your riverence come down into the church?" he
said. " There is a young lady still in the cold near the door.
They say she belongs to the company at the theatre."

Father Salvator laid his breviary down and followed him.
The girl was still there.

VOL. LXV.— 30

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466 In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [July,

The handkerchief at her lips -was stained with blood and the
tears on her cheeks were frozen. Father Salvator took her in
his arms to |the fire. He worked over her until the sweat
rolled down his cheeks, but the glow from the stove fell up-
on her face only as fire falls upon marble.

" Who are you, my child ? "

"Just — a snow-bird," came the whisper; and as she smiled,
he said in anguish :

" Oh, will you not stay with us, dear little snow-bird ? "

His tortured heart beat in his hand as he laid it on her icy
cheek. There was silence — a silence in which Father Salvator
could feel his suspense seemingly bending his shoulders and
whitening his black hair. Then she said ;

" Yes, father, I will stay " ; and her smile had a faint valiance
that was not like death.

" God be praised ! " said Father Salvator, when he felt her
cheek warming under his hand, and Michael Cumisky saw the
tears glisten on his furrowed face.

It was thus that Angela Menterro came into the parish of
the Sacred Heart, and she did not leave it till she was a sweet
young saint !

II.

A CROSS OF PEARLS.

Mary Kilduff was a tall woman, with a gnarled, ugly figure,
and no more could be said of her face than that it was Scotch
and sweet. All bleached it was and tremulous with little blue
veins, but when she smiled — when Mary Kildufl smiled . . !

After many years in America she still spoke with an ac-
cent, with a sweetness in the words which triumphed over her
own sad lot and filled one with the sense that she was whisper-
ing in church. Yet Mary Kilduff would be the last in the
Sacred Heart parish to whisper in church.

All the parish knew her struggles — a drunken husband, a
large family of little bairns, a pitiful income from two crum-
bling cottages. Though young, poor Mary was already old, and
there was nothing left of the blithe Scotch girl but the smile,
which was sadder than death because it was so gay.

Father Salvator looked on with something near to reverence
in his eyes when, after a long day at the tub, Mary came down
to the church fair and, rolling the sleeves away from her willing
red arms, worked and worked and worked. In his heart he
blessed this strong, silent woman. Duty had become pleasure

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1 897-] I^ ^^^ Parish of the Sacred Heart. 467

to her — the duty of paring potatoes and washing dishes at the
fair.

" Should auld acquaintance be .forgot ? " she said, when
some one demurred at her having always this work to do. In
truth, these fifteen years had seen her doing it.

Once, at the fair, a strange thing happened.

A cross of pearls was raffled and Mary Kilduff's little Mar-
garet won it. She ran to her mother in the kitchen with the
purple velvet box. A red rose blossomed in the mother's
pallid cheeks. Margaret hovered around her, on tip-toe with
joy ; but Mary said never a word. It was soon time to go
home. Through the rainy streets the children trudged after
her in trembling excitement, four sonsie boys and Margaret.
They could not understand their mother's silence, but they re-
spected it.

Once in the house, she washed each little Scot's face and
kissed him good-night. Last she kissed Margaret. The white
mother lips pressed the pink lips of the child in an agony of love.

" God be wi' ye, little Margaret ! " she said, with a smiling
touch at the flaxen hair.

Then Mary was alone. Sitting in her little, low chair, she
gave herself up to a dream, the first dream since her wedding-
day. She felt her youth return in warm blushes. She went to
the glass to look at herself, almost crying out at the picture
she saw there — the Mary of long ago, pink, seraphic, smiling.
She took the purple box from her great pocket and, opening
it, watched the light kindle on the pearls. In her dream they
were little Margaret's wedding jewels. For herself it mattered
not ; the wind and the rain might beat on her for all future, as
they had done all the past. Her fortune was made ; but Mar-
garet ! Pearls, great glowing pearls, as pure as her mother's
tears, should glorify Margaret's wedding-day, and change her
from a peasant to a princess.

" Mary Kilduff, is that you ? " said a voice in the stillness ;
^^ you who have struggled all your children s lives to keep them in
their places^ their bonnie little Scotch places^ with a little loaf and
a great love ? "

Mary let the cross fall, and slowly looked about her. The
candles shone with cruel certainty upon the poor furniture in
the little chamber. An empty bottle stood on the window-shelf.
From this, daily, Andy drank his wine of life — her wine of
death. Almost from the first the children and the mgther
played a game of hiding bottles from the father. It was the

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468 In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [July,

first game they learned ; it was the one they would never
forget. She heard them breathing in their cots, the little
beggars ! She cried out in anguish. An angel heard her, and
coming, carried away the truth of life and the tears, and she
fell asleep. Now a real dream touched her blue eyes.

The church-bell was ringing, with a world of joy and love
in its human tones. Mary was on her way to the church, Mar-
garet walking blithely before her, in a white muslin gown, with
a sprig of orange-blossoms at her breast. A young man walked
at her side. The pearls were years back in the past, but as the
mother thought of them now she felt the warm tears tremble
on her cheeks.

She started from her dream. The red of dawn flashed
across the frosty window and wrapped itself like a flag of
victory around her little iron crucifix. She rose and kissed it.

A thrill of joy and fear went through her at the thought of
the Holy Communion she was that morning to receive.

She bathed her face and brushed the rough hair swiftly from
her temples.

Little Margaret crept to her in her night-gown. The
memory of her mother's silence shone like the wistful morning-
star in her eyes. She was old for her bonnie years, this Margaret.

" Margaret, bairn, I will gie back the pearls to the church.
I canna keep them. I want only one pearl — Margaret ! "

III.

THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK.

When Rory McCarthy had first come back from Paris, with
his palette and brushes, he had painted a picture of his young
sister Madge, as she appeared to him then, with a face all pure
and eyes as bright and holy as a seraph's. The picture had
brought a little fortune, and he had made his mother glad with
a black silk gown.

A black silk gown made a queen in the parish of the Sacred
Heart. Rory's heart was in his throat when, on Easter morn-
ing, he saw his mother dressed in hers the first time. To him
she was as blushingly beautiful as a girl. But when she went
to the shelf to take down her old Irish prayer-book she trembled
and sighed.

"What is it, mother?" said Rory, as he stood waiting for
her, with a white flower in his coat.

" Rory, boy, you will not be angry with your poor mother ;

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but this fine dress and Gran's prayer-book can never be friends.
All her silks went into the poorbox before the scissors saw
them, and God knows I want but to imitate that dear old
saint. Let me wear my old cashmere. Then, if she hears the
Alleluia in heaven and looks down, she will know me in the
crowd. I am old now, Rory, and not very pretty, and all I
ask is that I may live long enough to say these dear prayers
as often as Gran said them."

Rory looked at her a moment, awed by these simple words
and touched to sudden tears. He wound his arms around her
waist and his cheek sought hers.

" I worship you for those words," he whispered. " You need
never wear the gOwn if it hurts you, little mother ; but you are
not old, and if you have not the beauty of earth you brought
the beauty of heaven with you from Ireland, and

" God bless the green flag.
We must have old Ireland free ! "

sang Rory, as she went out of the room, unbuttoning her dress.

There was ample time for his mother's second toilet, for she
always went early to Mass ; and to-day, when she came forth in
the faded cashmere, they walked slowly and joyfully down the
street, separated only for a moment by the huge silver maples
that stood in the sidewalk. In the cool church, Rory knelt be-
side her and peopled the sunshine and the shadows with wist-
ful memories.

How serene Gran had been in her smiling piety ! She had
even laughed in church once when his little black dog had
promenaded innocently up the aisle, and some one had whis-
pered, Granny, will your dog bite? and dared to laugh again
when Father Salvator had called out, " This is neither the hour
nor the place for mirth."

And when Rory had asked her why the Irish letters in her
prayer-book were so large, she had said, with twinkling eyes:
" Acushla machree, the Irish are such sinners that they have
to talk louder to the dear Lord than other people !"

She had often told him that the blue wind-flowers which
clouded the hills in April were the prayers which the tired
angels let fall from their wings as they were going home at
night-fall. It was her voice that Rory heard now in the Easter
music.

The parish was happy to have Rory back again — none hap-
pier than Father Salvator.

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470 In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [July,

" Do not work too hard, my boy ; your mother is not a
poor woman, and you did not receive as a birthright any great
share of good health. Paint when it is stormy ; and when it is
sunny go out and ramble over the hills and bring home wild
flowers and chestnuts, as you used to do before Paris laid siege
to your heart."

Seeing a shade in Rory's eyes, Father Salvator added :
" Paris has not changed you, my boy ; you are still, still Rory."

And Rory, who had known three homc-sick years in a
strange country, gave himself up to the joy of being with his
mother again. But in one short evening his roses were changed
to ashes.

At the fair it was that he first saw Madge in her own
startling colors. She flitted here and there amongst the pretty
things, and with her smiles bewitched every young man in the
room into buying her something. When the evening was over,
in the place of the placid, empty-handed little girl Rory had
loved — loved unto death, as is the way of these shy natures —
Madge stood at the door with a new blue shawl over her
shoulders, a bunch of red roses in her belt, a coral brooch at
her throat, and a little pearl ring on her finger.

Mrs. McCarthy had gone on before. She would not have
felt as Rory did. She was so unworldly that she did not
know worldliness when she saw it. To her Madge had never
ceased to be a baby, and she did not dream that any one
in the parish regarded this slender, golden-haired young woman
as more than a guileless child. Rory's love was hurt and a
storm of words rose to his lips, but did not pass them. He
waited till they were alone in the darkness.

" Madge," he said then, " it was wrong of you to accept
gifts from those men ? "

"Why?"

"Does not your own heart answer? You stand in the place
of a lily to me, and I feel to-night that I have seen that
sweet blossom rudely jarred, its perfume scattered."

" I've been taking gifts from young men this long time,
Rory McCarthy, and you needn't imagine because you've been
off in Paris, living in the company of angels and Madonnas,
that you can come home and rule me. I'm not like you, and
I don't want to be."

'* I do not ask you to be like me, Madge " — oh ! there was
white passion in Rory's voice. " Do you think mother would ever
have behaved as you have to-night ? I know she would not.

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I know there is not one of those young fellows who would
have dreamed of urging such attentions upon her, when she
was a girly as you have courted to-night. Send back the ring
and the pin. Tell Dick Hardesty and Jack Fleming that you
did not realize the impropriety of accepting such costly trink-
ets — tell them that your brother does not approve — tell them
anything, but, for God's sake, be the little Madge of old, and
not a parish scandal in the way of flippancy and conceit ! "

They had stopped at the gate, and as Rory finished Madge
struck him with the roses. It was a fierce lash and the roses
had terrible thorns. He could feel the blood purl over his
cheek, as she laughed and ran to the house.

His knees trembled under his slender weight and his heart
bounded and stopped. He would have made himself, believe
that Madge had only brushed his face lightly with the roses
but the blood was a witness against this, and he plucked a red
thorn from his check. The truth deepened upon him, in the
hush of the starry night. The world's beauty was gone. His
little sister had put out the joy of his life as lightly as she
would presently put out her candle and lie down to her foolish
dreams.

When the house was dark he went softly to his room. He
was painting a village child — little Margaret Kilduff — with, her
hands full of violets. For many nights he had fallen asleep
thinking beautiful thoughts of his little model, of the divinity
of art, of the Madonna whom he loved, with the love of a man
and a child. Now all was changed, and he could not close his
eyes. At sunrise he went into the garden, to breathe the morn-
ing air.

Margaret was already there, her little white bonnet swing-
ing by its strings around her throat, her blue frock fresh from
her mother's iron, and her bare feet wet with dew.

" I'm gatherin' the violets for the picture, Mr. Rory," she
cried, the laughter rippling from her blue eyes, in tears.

**Yes, Margaret," said Rory.

He walked down the garden path and leaned over the gate.
He was too sensitive for this great world — this tender Rory.
Even as he watched the morning march along the hills, he
saw the dream die from the sky, the mist break into blind-
ing sunbeams. And as the sun dried the dew from little Mar-
garet's face and bare feet, she changed from an angel to a child.

Rory wrestled with himself.

Would it be better — he asked his loyal heart — to paint when

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472 In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [July,

the divine hope had gone once and for ever from his brush,
than to disappoint little Margaret? Would it not be a sacri-
lege to paint Madge as the Madonna on the altar-piece he
was planning for the village church, now that he had seen be-
yond the seraphic eyes into the barren little soul?

A young lady came down the village street. She was in
white, and Rory made out her identity by her delicate tread.
She walked as if it would hurt her even to crush one little
star of dog-fennel by the way.

It was Miss Agnes la Garde. There was a certain royal-
heartedness about this girl, under which her frail form seemed
to tremble and grow more ethereal every day. Her self-
effacing sweetness made an atmosphere in which anger could
not live, and sorrows changed to joys.

" Rory, Rory, why are you sad ? "

" Miss Agnes," he said, " I can never paint again. I have
lost my sweetest ideal."

"Ah, I am sorry, Rory; but ideals are not of this earth, or
we should never wish to leave it. And for you — you must not
expect the world to live up to your exquisite standards. You
must not expect it even of the parish of the Sacred Heart.
Don't you know, Rory, that you are the flower of the flock?"

" No," he said, and his mouth closed and quivered. But
Agnes smiled.

"You have suffered, I know," he said, reading the writing on
the pale face with his pure eyes. " Tell me how to bear it."

" I have suffered — yes. When I lose an ideal, I go out and
look for it, as children do for wild flowers. If I cannot find
it, sometimes I hear the song of a bird in heaven or breathe
the fragrance of a flower, and that takes its place. The birds
and flowers are close to God, Rory, and they never disappoint
us, though we must often disappoint them. If I find my ideal,
I carry it home, like a flower — in my hands, near my heart
— and place it at our Lady's Shrine in the church. If it is
dying, her smile restores it. If it is dead, sometimes — some-
times our Lord brings it to life. If he does not, I say a De
Profundis with my lips, or sob it with my soul.

" Come with me into Mass now, Rory. Leave your lost
ideal there. Perhaps when you come out you will bring a
Mater Dolorosa in your heart, or an Ecce Homo."

Rory followed her silently, and little Margaret, with her
apron full of violets, sat down on the steps to wait for him,
with a patience half Scotch, all sweet !

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i897-] Edmund Burke. 473

EDMUND BURKE, THE FRIEND OF HUMAN

LIBERTY.

*BY REV. GEORGE McDERMOT, C.S.P.

HUNDRED years ago this month Edmund Burke
died. Death came as a relief to him. His son
Richard, in whom all his hopes centred, had died
a short time before. He himself had ceased to
be a power in the great Whig party with which
he had acted all his life, and which owed to him more than to
any other public man its influence with all that was respectable
aiid talented in English political circles. He saw it allied with
the crimes of the French Revolution, and lost the hope that it
would ever again be an instrument to advance true liberty.
Mr. Pitt was leading the government in the path of despotism
which seemed to many wise men safer than the atheism and
license to which French principles were hurrying the friends of
progress in England. Between the reactionary Toryism of Mr.
Pitt and the fury of the Age of Reason there seemed no place
for the constitutional principles which combine liberty with
order. He passed from this world with a sense of defeat upon
him ; but with the consciousness that in his own public career
he had been actuated by the purest motives; that he had ad-
vocated no cause which did not seem to him just, assailed no
man whom he did not consider an enemy to personal and pub-
lic liberty.

A FRIEND TO THE AMERICAN COLONIES.

In no part of the world should his name be held more in
honor than in this country. He was among the earliest, as he
was the greatest, of the defenders of the rights of the Ameri-
can colonies. He gave to the cause of the colonies all the
powers of his intellect, and the resources of his peculiar and
unapproachable knowledge of their affairs and the interests of
the empire. No one in England knew the colonial side of the
question as he did ; few understood as he did the dangers and
difficulties of a vast. colonial empire; no one could unite as he
could the interests of the colonies and of the mother country

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474 Edmund Burke, [J«ly.

in one comprehensive view, in which rights upon the one hand
and duties upon the other would be harmoniously blended.
The War of Independence vindicated his statesmanship.

There is no question but that Burke suffered for his advo-
cacy of the claims of the Americans. Two powerful influences
were directed against him, if not in avowed alliance at least with
effective hostility. He was regarded as a rebel by the great
landed interest, which could see nothing treasonable in Chatham*s
advocacy of the cause of the colonists. The commercial classes,
which found a profit in the subjection of the colonies, hated
him because his views would deprive them of a field of invest-
ment which the support of ministers rendered favorable. To
one who understands the cares of public life it must be plain
how greatly they are aggravated by the injustice of interested
criticism and the undefined ostracism of social opinion. Burke
was described at that time as the greatest living Englishman ;
and yet he had less influence outside the House of Commons
than any of the Whig leaders — less weight even than any place-
expectant who followed Mr. Fox. To a man of his haughty and
sensitive nature this invisible but potent weapon of exclusion
was in the last degree trying. Whether it impaired the qual-
ity of his work it is impossible to say, for no one has ever
spoken as well, no one written as well on political affairs ; but
that it made his life unhappy in a great measure there is no
doubt. He said, with a touch of pathos, that the moment he
entered his own house all the anxieties of public life vanished.
It was a refuge from misconstruction, from the malice of im-
puted motive, from the want of sympathy which damns with
faint praise the greatest achievements, from the want of appre-
ciation that renders the greatest exertions vain.

A MARTYR FOR HIS AMERICAN SYMPATHIES.

Whether this aspect of his career has been presented or
not, there can be no question of its existence ; and if so, such a
shadow upon his life gives Burke a claim upon Americans for
especial veneration. It was no less a martyrdom in their cause
that the wounds were only those of the heart, the torture of a
proud and affectionate nature, in its very affluence craving for
affection, but so strong that the sense of honor and the dictate
of duty sustained it when affection was denied. He was isolated
not because he was an Irishman, but because he was the friend
of America ; but this isolation fretted him, made him irritable,
jealous, and exacting, and in its turn the consciousness of these

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I897-] THE Friend of Human Liberty. 475

moods, at times almost childishly displayed, rendered his life
miserable.

It is true that the War of "Independence let in some light
to the rulers of the British Empire. It went before them in
their dealings with colonies since ; but the judgment of Burke,
which predicted the result, and his policy, which would have
averted it, have not made and cannot make him a favorite with
the ruling classes. '^ Scratch a Russian, and you will find a Tar-
tar," says the French proverb. Under his liberal skin you will
find the Englishman a tyrant. Under his talk of the finest con-
stitution in the world there runs the spirit of the master who
oppre^sses India, and the tone of the jingo who construes con-
ventions with weak nations into treaties for the concession of
territory. The flag that protects the slave on the high seas
waves over the slave-owners of the Chartered Company, and
even the great colonies which are called the jewels of the
Empire would have broken away if imperial officialism had not
been compelled to put its insolent aggressiveness in the limbo
of defeated policies. Concession to Australia was granted be-
fore it was too late, though even then not graciously; conces-
sion was obtained by Canada only when there was a rising that
might have ended in union with America; and any man even
to-day who advocates the cause of a dependency or of a pro-
tected people has to pay the penalty in the black looks of
royalty and the frigid courtesy of Belgravia. It is no wonder
that in the last century Burke should have incurred a similar
dislike until the attitude he took on the French Revolution in
some degree removed it.

HIS EARLY LIFE.

It is somewhat difficult to find in the birth and early life of
Burke the influences which shaped his mind and career. Born
in 1730 in Dublin, in a respectable but not a distinguished posi-
tion, public life would not appear open to him. It was a time
that even in England persons of small means and without influ-
ential connections did not dream of serving their country in
Parliament. At that time there was something like a national
life pulsating in Ireland ; but the Nationalists, take them for
what they were worth, and that was not much, were great law-
yers or great country gentlemen. The son of a Dublin attorney
would be only the son of a gentleman by act of Parliament,
as I heard an attorney once described. The descendants of the
Puritans planted in Ireland by*the Commonwealth, though an aris-

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476 Edmund Burke, [July,

tocracy of only eighty years' standing, were the haughtiest, fierc-
est, and most irresponsible oligarchy that history records. The
only good blood among them was derived from intermarriage
with the daughters of dispossessed Catholics ; and though they
quartered the arms of their mothers' houses on their appropri-
ated or invented paternal shields, they treated the Celts and
Normans, of whose blood they were secretly proud^ with an
arrogance which might have its parallel in Norman England
when a Saxon franklin appeared before a Norman baron, or in
Turkey a century ago when a Servian land-holder sought favor
from the pasha of his province.

In his very early childhood Burke was sent to the County
Cork, to his mother's family, in order that he might have the
benefit of country air needed to give strength to a delicate con-
stitution. He remained with those relatives until he was twelve
years old, and insensibly imbibed that sympathy with the weak
and oppressed which in later years launched him on the policy
of justice to America, and caused him to spend a great deal of
time and labor and anxiety in his efforts to bring to justice the
great delinquent Hastings.

OF CATHOLIC ORIGIN.

Those who charged him with dishonesty in his policy of con-
ciliation with regard to the North American colonies because he
attacked with a passion verging on fanaticism the Revolution-
ists of France, can only be excused on such grounds as I have
already mentioned — namely, an utter intolerance in the British
mind of any man who would restrain its land hunger. Those
who now think it was the influence of party feeling, intensified
by personal rancor, that moved him to impeach Hastings, can-
not have considered that Burke was in all except the accident
of Protestantism the son of an oppressed race. His relatives
on the mother's side were Catholics, and many of his relatives
on his father's . side. It was very little more than a century
before that a great estate belonging to a family of which his
father's was a younger branch had been confiscated on account
of religion. Relatives on both sides had suffered in the civil
war of Charles I., and their losses had been infamously con-
firmed by the Court of Claims. Some of them had lost their
all when James II. lost the crown of Ireland, and he had rela-
tives in every army of Europe giving their valor and their blood
in foreign service because, in their own country service was de-
nied them. As he grew on in 'boyhood fuller opportunities

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1 897-] THE Friend of Human Liberty. 477

came to estimate the bitterness of slavery, even though, thanks
to his creed, the iron had not entered into his own soul. But
there are men not altogether compact of thankless clay ; men
who, because they escape the evils themselves, do not think
that they are free to disregard common humanity outraged, in-
jured, and oppressed in others ; and Burke was one of these.

While he was an undergraduate in Trinity College an officer
in the service of Maria Theresa had come home to see his
friends, and while at home attended a hunt with the other gen-
try of the county. Attention was called to the exile, and there
was a movement made to arrest him by some few of the Ascen-
dency gentry ; but well-disposed persons among the sportsmen
rode in between them and the officer.* The latter rode off,
chased by those who desired his capture, but escaped over a stiff
country which tried the courage or horsemanship of his pursu-
ers. This incident marks the spirit of the Ascendency as dis-
tinctly as any of the strange, wild stories that are told of Cath-
olic gentlemen compelled to embrace the state religion in order
to save their estates, and selling them that they might return
to the creed of their fathers in some land not cursed by tyran-
ny like Ireland. These and such as these were the consider-
ations that induced him to shake the dust from his feet
against his country and carry his future to England. The de-
cision cannpt be regretted. His name became known over the
whole extent of the British Empire ; and his spirit survives in
every act that has since enlarged liberty, improved the admin-
istration of justice, and contributed to the purity of parliamen-
tary government.

HIS OFFICIAL CAREER.

His first appointment was as private secretary to the chief
secretary of Ireland, known as Single-speech Hamilton. The
sobriquet was earned by one good speech which this gentle-
man is said to have delivered. For some years government in
Ireland had been carried on by a combination of great Irish
nobles, who were called The Undertakers. They were so called
because they undertook to provide a majority in the Irish Com-
mons, provided that they should enjoy the whole patronage of
the country and that the viceroy should be simply a figure-
head, with no functions other than the ornamental ones of per-
forming the duties of the court at levee and drawing-room. It
would appear that a change of system was attempted to be in-

• Praed's Jacobite ballad, •• Sir Walter," was probably suggested by this incident.

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478 Edmund BuRXEy [July,

troduced by Lord Halifax, the lord-lieutenant, on the advice
of Mr. Hamilton, who certainly must have been indebted to the
advice of Burke. But it could be only an attempt. To-day
the traditions of Dublin Castle are too strong for reform.
Archbishop Whately's Diary contained an entry in the gener-
ation just past, to the effect that the business of the lord-
lieutenant was " to do the dancing," and that of the chief
secretary "to do the hunting." When Drummond, as under
secretary, a very little earlier, endeavored to carry out a policy
of justice, the official class was too strong for him. He died
broken-hearted at the close of a hopeless struggle. Instances
of the solid, unassailable corruption of Dublin Castle could be
multiplied indefinitely; and so it could not be expected that a
man in Burke's very subordinate position, and so far back as
the beginning of the reign of George HI. would be able to
effect anything. His connection with Ireland may be dismissed
in a few words. From time to time in his early manhood he
used to go down to his mother's place for relaxation. He saw
there how the rulers of the country lived. Of the great land-
lords we have a specimen in Lord Eyres, as described in Mr.
Lecky's England in the Eighteenth Century. ThjB small landlords
and the cadets of the great houses lived like garrison soldiers
in a conquered country. Riot and debauchery filled their days
and nights. They oppressed the people by every form of wick-
edness and wrong. The forms of the law were constantly vio-
lated. Any man who made himself obnoxious by sympathy with
the wretched people was unsparingly hunted down, justice it-
self being made the instrument of his ruin. Only a few years
before the " old arches of Irish oak " that span Westminster
Hall echoed to the closing words of the impeachment of
Hastings. Burke had subscribed to the defence of an Irish
priest whose crime was having spoken of the hardships of his
people arising from famine and the exactions of their land-
lords. He possessed in this transaction, which took place in the
County Tipperary, a county adjoining that in which he had
spent his childhood, and where so many of his relatives lived,
an epitome of the rule of Hastings. Sir Thomas Maude's gal-
loping into Clonmel at the head of the Protestant gentry of
the county, assassinating the priest's witnesses, overawing the
judges, and compelling the attorney to fly for his life, were in-
cidents similar in spirit to the judicial murder of Nuncomar, the
outrage on Cheyte Sing, the whole system of violence, robber)',
and murder by which Hastings extended the Indian Empire.

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1897.] THE Friend of Human Liberty. 479

In his childhood Burke heard from the nurse and servants at
Castleton Roche tales of real life that would affect his imagina-
tion more powerfully than stories of goblins and giants would
the minds of other children. There were fearful characters
who could only be spoken of with awe by those women, as if
in so .speaking they ran the risk of summoning them. The
informer or priest-hunter or spy appearing to a group of
peasants in 1740 appalled them as if an incarnate horror or some
embodied crime or visitation stood amongst them. The fear
and bewilderment which fell upon them in the presence of
those ill-omened and dreadful ministers can hardly be realized.
A great Irish advocate once described the wave of people
dividing at the approach of an informer — some nameless dread
producing on the multitude an effect which the arms of the
soldiery had failed to accomplish. In such sources we may in
part discover, the working of memory and imagination all
through the impeachment of Hastings, The testimony which
the . apotheosis by the natives bore to his humane, rule was
handled by Burke in a reply that Macaulay properly regards as
the best ever made. He was not surprised — he said — that the
Indians had raised a temple to Hastings ; he knew that as they
worshipped some gods from love, so they worshipped others
from fear; they erected temples to small-pox and famine, as
well as to the beneficent deities that preside over light and
plenty. Now, in his own country some effects of fear, similar to
this deification, could have been heard of by him from those
entitled to his affection and respect; and I think he would be
destitute of the heart he is credited with by those who knew
him best, the sense of justice and regard for the dignity of
human nature which his whole life and works display, if he
had not considered Hastings' entire rule one continued and in-
finitely varied political and social crime against the vast popu-
lation then living, and whose effects, if ever effaced, would con-
tinue through many succeeding generations. Burke saw all this,
and when he impeached Hastings in the name of human nature,
it was the memory of his own poor countrymen and country-
women that went like a cloud of fire before the processions of
his fancy.

FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Who with recollections such as these on the horizon of his
mind, and darkening over all of it at times, could tolerate the
dancing and the fires, the blood and madness, of France let loose

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48o Edmund Burke, [July,

— of bedlam let loose ? There was not a single grievance of the
French people that would not have been redressed if the good
and unhappy king were allowed time. Those who infer from
the excesses of the Revolution the depths of debasement into
which oppression had plunged the people, suggest an explana-
tion plausible but false as anything can be. An outbreak in
Paris to-day would be attended with the horrors of the Reign
of Terror. The license or liberty Frenchmen have enjoyed
since 1793 has not made them wiser, more just, more stable.
If the Commune by some chance displaced Freemasonry,
which is my equivalent for the French Republic, there would
be paper constitutions from the Quatier Latin enacting " inalien-
able rights of man," creeds, philosophies, and economics. These
documents would display the young student's acquaintance with
classic literature in trite quotations and familiar names, and the
final amendment, in the name of some Proudhon, would decree
that property is robbery, and, in the name of some new Marat,
that good birth or piety is reprobation from the religion of
humanity: To the lamp-post with the priest or gentleman!

If Burke saw such things he was justified in declaiming
against them. His passion did not obscure his judgment.
Before the Revolution attacked Europe, he predicted that it
would do so ; that it was a necessity of its existence that it
should do so. He alone saw that it was not a policy — that it
was an irruption systematized. His fire no more diminished
the value of his foresight than a prophet's denunciation of
iniquity should blind him to its doom. He saw that in no
sense of the word could the Revolution be regarded as the
rising of an injured people ; in every sense of the word justice
he saw that the movement in America was the action of people
insisting upon their rights, and determined to maintain them
without wrong to others. It is not necessary to point out here
that his views on the question were sound — every American
admits it — but the most remarkable thing about them is, that
they embraced the whole bearing of American interests ; that
he explains the causes of the growth of the colonies in wealth ;
that he was able to predict, at least within measurable distance,
the marvellous advancement of them since they became the
United States. It would be hard to find a more just estimate
of the spirit of the people to-day than a word or two he said
in his great speech in 1775 on conciliation. If he had before
him the future unrolled, if he saw the steps by which the
colonists went on until they declared themselves independent of

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1 897-] ^^^ Friend of Human Liberty. 481

the mother country, if he possessed prophetic knowledge of
the gravity of the counsels which guided the action of Congress
and the government, the solemn earnestness which hung over the
acts of the leader of the national army, if he had before him the
growth of civil and religious liberty within each of the States
from the termination of the war until the present time, the
provision for all the resources and hopes of the highest civili-
zation in the educational system of the country, the incredible
increase in the population, and the unexampled development of
material wealth, he could not have possessed a truer perception,
by the aid of such illumination, than he exhibited in that
speech. It is in matters of this sort one discovers the superioi'-
ity of Burke to all statesmen, ancient or modern. His judg-
ment of affairs went for its materials to the depths of the
national character, and searched all the avenues of national
progress and all the by-roads of difficulty and danger. He
arrived at conclusions which resemble in their exactness the
results of deductive reasoning. Unlike the speculations of
Bentham and others, they never "travel from the record'* of
things as they are, and as they must be in the future, owing to
permanent conditions founded in human nature, the laws of
physical geography, and certain unalterable economic facts.

Consequently he brought to practical politics the gift of a
philosophical statesmanship which saw things not merely in
accidental and temporary relations but in their permanent and
essential ones. Like that justice of which he had so passionate
a love, his policy was not measured by a party triumph: by a
centralized interest on the one hand, or a provincial one on
the other. It embraced the whole empire and went on far into
the future. Fervid and impulsive, he was free from prejudice ;
an Irish Protestant, which meant an acrid bigot, his toleration
was as wide as the world ; devoured by an enthusiasm for im-
perial greatness, he gave his powers to the service of black men
in India without a thought of acknowledgment, as he had
given them to his countrymen in North America with the
certainty of earning hatred and obloquy from their enemies.

VOL. LXV.— 31

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An enchanting Picture. in its Frame of Green Trees.

THE SOUL OF SOUTHERN ACADIA.

BY COLUMBA C. SPALDING.

ic ARDON et bon jour, Mademoiselle! We will

soon reach St. Michaers. Did you not please
to be called?**

" Bon jour, indeed ! '* I said, opening my eyes

I on the darkness in answer to a rap at the

door of our state-room. " Can it be morning ? "

" It is minuit and one-quarter, and the convent lies only
three miles distant, around the bend of the river. Vous com-
prenez, n*est pas?**

** Yes,'* I answered, for I was growing used to this delightful
mixture of English and French, and our party hastily followed
the gallant captain on deck. We were on board a large boat
on a trip from St. Louis to the Gulf, and, having passed Louisi-
ana*s plantations of cotton and sugar-cane, neared the City of
New Orleans on the 15th of April. Our interest was not un-
usual. There is a general curiosity among travellers on the
lower Mississippi to view the castle-like structure of St. Michael's,
so long a land-mark and now entitled to a place in history.

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1 897-] 1^^^ Soul of Southern Acadia. 483

It was a glorious night, calm, clear, star-lit. Balmy air soft as
summer-breeze of Southern climes, Southern moon, water splash-
ing on the vessel's prow — were not all these inviting to a crowd
of merry tourists? Finally a long, low whistle gave warning,
and the exclamation was heard : " Oh, there it is — the beautiful
Convent of St. Michael's ! '*

Yes, there it lay asleep in the moonlight ; an enchanting
picture in its frame of green trees covered with a grayish-green
moss called " Spanish Beard.'* The vast building shining in its
whiteness, with projecting wings and wide galleries supported
by massive columns, looked like a typical Southern villa and
recalled good old days ** befo' de war," when peace and plenty
reigned in ** Dixie." And there it has stood unchanged amid
all the changes of half a century. In this secluded spot, so
beautiful in the silent watches of the night, the gentle yet po-
tent influence at work attests the glorious record of full fifty
years.

Shall not the sun of a Golden Jubilee cast its bright gleams

At the Shrine of Our Lady.

far and wide, revealing to the world the history of this grand
old l\ome of the Sacred Heart? Histories of many convents
grown old in service have found their way into print of late.
They are much alike, inasmuch as their chapters alike record

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484 The Soul of Southern Acadia. [July.

The Trees covered with "Spanish Beard."

deeds.^of heroism and holiness, humble beginnings and glorious
endings ; but a peculiar interest seems to attach to this insti-
tute, founded long ago in the quaint parish of St. James, among
a population composed chiefly of French emigrants, who, after
the treaty of 1754 delivered up Canada to the English, left
their Northern homes, and took possession of the tract of land
in Louisiana called by them the " New Acadia." Fifty years
ago, when Monsieur le Cur6 Delacroix raised a subscription of
$7,000 among the people and invited the Ladies of the Sacred
Heart to found an establishment, the village of St. Michael's
numbered about 4,000 inhabitants, French or semi-French. They
remained so long and so faithfully attached to their mother
country that the Indians said: "When the Grandfather (the
King) of Spain gave the land to the Grandfather (the King)
of France, trees were cut down and fires lighted in token of
joy ; but when the Grandfather of France gave the land to
America we saw no trees cut down, no fires lighted — only ashes ! '*
France had given all her colonies in the New World to Spain ;
Spain to France again, and France to the United States, so
that even to-day we find foreign customs and hear the sweet
accents of strange tongues among the Creoles of Louisianji.

As early as 181 8 the saintly Madame Duchesne, worthy-
daughter of the Venerable Sophie Barat, commenced her apos«

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i897«] ^^^ Soul of Southern Acadia. 485

tolic work in America, the vast valley of the Mississippi being
the scene of her labors. She founded houses of her order at
St. Charles, Mo.; at Grand Cdteau, an estate sixty miles south
of New Orleans, and in 1825 sent Mother Eugenie Aud^ to lay
the first stone of the Academy of the Sacred Heart known to-
day as St. Michael's. " Four hundred and fifty dollars," wrote
Mother Aud6 to her superior-general, on reaching the scene of
her new apostolate, " is all I have wherewith to feed nine per-
sons until we get pupils, to furnish the house and to buy a
negro; little indeed, but with God it is enough." Then she
adds, alluding to the magnificent boarding-school at Paris :
" St. Michael's will yet be the Hdtel Biron of America." The
prophecy begun to be realized in 1848, when the religious
with two hundred pupils took possession of the large and com-
modious building occupied at present. Mother Audi's work
was blessed with singular success, though while she was supe-
rioress, in 1853, yellow fever devastated the South. Then the
religious of the Sacred Heart became Sisters of Charity, minis-
tering to the sick and dying. Among the victims of this fear-
ful scourge may be mentioned the heroic Mother Gallitzin, sis-
ter of Prince Demetrius Gallitzin, the Russian missionary priest
of America.

Madame Aloysia Hardey's life-work commenced at St.
Michael's. Her name now recalls the foundations in the East,
those of New York, Philadelphia,, and Rochester, to whose wel-
fare she devoted her remarkable talents. Under Mothers Bratz,
Shannon, De Sartorius, and Boudreaux, who in turn have
governed at St. Michael's, it has continued its mission, and in
1897 is ready to celebrate with rejoicing a fiftieth anniversary.

One can hardly rest satisfied with the mere mention of
those who have identified themselves with the educational in-
terests of the South and endeared themselves to its people.
To Mother Anna Shannon's able guidance St. Michael's owes
its preservation during the Civil War. Her administration, from
1856 to 1872, was a continuous chapter of brave deeds. No
military threat, no tyrannical proclamation, daunted her cour-
age when an oppressed or suffering creature appealed to her
noble heart. Mother De Sartorius, for two years superioress
of St. Michael's, was afterwards elected Mother-General of the
Sacred Heart Order. Mother Susanna Boudreaux ended a long
and useful career at a foundation in ,New Zealand of which
she \vas pioneer and superioress. In the cemetery at St.
Michael's unpretentious crosses mark the resting place and

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486 The Soul of Southern Acadia. [July»

bear the names of heroines, and, as if to help immortalize
their memories, flowers bloom in bountiful profusion over their
graves, making everything beautiful at this dear old place the
whole year round, for the Sunny South is the land of endless

The Chaplain at his quiet Home.

bloom. True, the winter of 1895 brought a rare visitor to St.
Michael's — a snow-storm. How the children danced when they
saw the white flakes fall, and how gratified when they were
allowed to see, touch, and taste the curious snow ! " How
softly it falls!** one little one said; "it does not hurt at all. I
always thought snow fell in balls."

The genial sun hardly allowed the photographer to take
the photograph of St. Michael's lawn. To the front of the
picture may be seen the levee, which holds in bounds the
mighty Mississippi. At the present season the avenue leading
to the main entrance of the convent building is bordered by-
rose-bushes in full bloom. To the south lies a spacious park,
where white-oaks bend over a bright green turf. The happy-
hearted Southern girls love to flock to the Pecan Grove when
a long-looked-for congi permits extra hours of recreation. Each
Wednesday afternoon brings the pleasure of a promenade to
the railroad or a far-away stroll in the woods.

To the north of the main building is the parish school, where

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1 897-] Th^ Soul of Southern Acadia. 487

the French and English languages are taught. The house is
substantial, airy, well built, and accommodates about eighty-
seven pupils.

Not far distant is a new frame building to whose erection
Miss Drexel contributed, proving herself interested not only
in the Indians of the Western missions but also in the
colored children of the South, for whom the Ladies of the
Sacred Heart have conducted a school on their grounds since
1866.

Entering the Academy of St. Michael's, one is impressed
with the idea that the architect of St. Michael's knew well that
light and air are essential to life and health, for high ceilings,
loi^g galleries, wide, deep windows and doorways, make a cheer-
ful, sunny home. Nowhere, in spacious corridors or cozy class-
rooms, does one lose sight of soft skies, waving boughs, or

At the Cemeterv unpretentious Crosses bear the Names of Heroines.

vine-covered trellis ; never can the sweet-scented breeze miss
you as it makes its fragrant pathway through the building.

In fifty years more than 2,600 names have been inscribed
on the register, and pupils of this institute dwell in every
part of the land. The refined and gentle-natured Southern
girl has been the especial care of this academy. To those

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488 The Soul of Southern Acadia. [July

whose names could be secured, and to all other friends, cordial
invitation is extended to be present at the jubilee celebra-
tion. Who among the invited that can be present will be
missing on July i, 1897, at the gathering and at the imposing
religious ceremonies of July 2 ? In the beautiful convent
chapel, lately improved by a handsome altar of carved oak,
raised to commemorate the jubilee year, Solemn High Mass
will be celebrated. The convent, linked to the world through
the hearts of devoted children, will echo with their voices that
day, when countless blessings will be implored in the name of
gratitude. A spiritual retreat will be given for those who care
to follow the exercises.

After a valiant struggle through times of disease, flood, and
war, St. Michael's rises exultingly. There have been dark
days for her since 1865, but the clouds have passed away and
the sun of peace is smiling upon the land.

Four houses of the Sacred Heart Order have been founded
in Louisiana, two of which are in New Orleans. St. Michael's
has been for many years the novitiate of the Southern Vicari-
ate. The growth and success of the schools of this order
attest the ability with which they are conducted ; but it is the
boundless charity and untiring zeal for religion and education
that have made the religious of the Sacred Heart so much be-
loved and united them so closely to the people.

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1 8970 Celebrities I HAVE Known. 489

CELEBRITIES I HAVE KNOWN.

BY "ALBA."

^T is not to be expected that the intercourse of
a very young lady with the owners of the great
names I am about to cite could supply either
voluminous or important reminiscences. The
lively interest which clings, and will long cling,
to those names is my inducement to retrospection, as it must
also be my excuse for the same. It is scarcely necessary to
say that in fhese few pages I shall treat exclusively of the im-
pression those celebrated personages made upon myself, and of
the mostly trivial circumstances which constituted what I may
call points of personal contact. To present the portraits on a
larger scale is for better qualified pencils.

At the time I was received into the church the Catholic
partition of Scotland was into three districts, each under a
vicar-apostolic whose see was in partibus. Of these the West-
ern District, of which Glasgow was the centre, was the most
important and populous, both as regards priests and people.
But the Eastern^ with Edinburgh for "cathedral city," took
precedence of the other two ; and to it belongs the first
of my great names — that of the Right Reverend James
Gillis, Bishop of Limyra (wherever that may be), and Vicar-
Apostolic of the Eastern District of Scotland. To Bishop Gil-
lis, under Providence, was mainly due the restoration of Catho-
licity in the North. The spiritual destitution of the adherents
of the old faith at the time he came to the front can hardly
be exaggerated. It does not belong to my programme to de-
pict it, or to enumerate, even if I could, all the noble works
he carried out. A most interesting account of them is given
in the History of St. Margaret's Convent^ published about six
years ago by that community. My remarks concern only
what I personally remember of him. He was a little, dark
man, with a very peculiar but rather pleasing face. Two char-
acteristics dominated hJm. One was an intense sense of humor.
It actually brimmed over from every pore, and underlay al-
most every expression of countenance. The other was a won-
derful zeal for the glory of God and of his church. Full of
plans to achieve these, and of great energy in carrying them

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490 Celebrities I have Known. [July,

out, he gave himself no rest. It was no more for him to set off
for France, Spain, Germany, Italy, on some mission or quest of
importance to the church, than for another to cross the street.
Of his great talent and fine preaching, both in English and
French, I need say nothing ; they are widely known. But it
may not be so widely known that he possessed a highly culti-
vated ear and taste for music, and a most beautiful bass voice.
To hear him sing the part of our Lord in Palestrina's Passion^
or chant certain portions of the Tenebrce, was a thing never to
be forgotten.

For myself personally, I owe Bishop Gillis a literary debt
of gratitude. I had written a somewhat lengthy poem, which,
notwithstanding the pressure of engagements which left him,
like the apostles, hardly time to eat, his lordship most kindly
consented to look at. It was written in the octosyllabic meas-
ure, of whose "fatal facility*' Byron so feelingly speaks, and I
was rather proud of the rapidity with which I composed.
On returning the manuscript the* bishop said: "Tell Miss
A that there are a good many prosy bits in it."

The remark opened my eyes to the dangers of the "fatal
facility," and the lesson was niever forgotten. Needless to say,
the " prosy bits " were promptly overhauled.

From Bishop Gillis to Miss Trail is hardly a step, since she
became, under his lordship's direction, the foundress of the first
religious house in Scotland since the days of the " Reforma-
tion." Miss Trail — in religion Sister Agnes Xavier — was the
daughter of a Presbyterian minister, and became a convert at
a time when such were almost unheard-of. Being a person of
strong character, and prominent in certain circles, her conver-
sion made an extraordinary sensation. I was often told by my
governess, when a child, about the Miss Trail who went to
Rome to convert the pope, and lo ! the pope converted her.
She was held up to me as an awful example — I presume, of
rashness or something. I little thought, at that time, she would
one day be numbered among my dearest friends ; but so it
was. We became very intimate and mutually attached ; and
many a laugh we have had together over the version of the

story given by poor Miss B . In point of fact, Miss Trail

went to Rome in company with Sir David Wilkie and other
friends, not to convert the pope but to study art, she being a
professional artist. There is, in the History of St. Margaret's
above mentioned, an autobiographical account of the whole
affair, written by Sister Agnes Xavier under obedience. Most

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1897.] Celebrities I have Known. 491

of the incidents recorded in it I had from her own lips. I re-
ceived beautiful letters from her while in London, and after I
came to Canada.

Very shortly after my mother's reception (my father had
been dead for several years) our family removed to London,
in the interests of my second brother ; . the eldest was already
in France, studying for the priesthood at St. Sulpice. It was
intended to make it our permanent home ; but at the end of
four years our plans were changed. We went to the great
metropolis fairly well supplied with introductions. One of these
was to his lordship Bishop Wiseman, shortly afterwards cardi-
nal ; another to the Reverend Father Brownbill, provincial supe-
rior of the Jesuits ; and a third to the Reverend Father Dannel,
afterwards Bishop of Southwark. In presenting the last two
I accompanied my brother. Father Dannel was at St. George's-
in-the-fields. He showed us every attention, took us all-over
the church, and pointed out whatever was of special interest,
notably the splendid marble pulpit covered with alto-rilievo
sculpture, and the beautiful blue Lady Chapel. He also showed
us through the large sacristy with its treasures of ecclesiastical
silver-ware, all of the most orthodox design. " We are all Gothic
here," said Father Dannel in his cheery voice. We did not
find Father Brownbill at home when we called at Hill Street,
Berkeley Square ; but the very next day he called on us at our
lodgings on the Vauxhall Road, and won all hearts by his quiet,
kindly manner. On taking his leave he would not permit any
one to see him to the door, but insisted on piloting himself
out in the humblest manner. I was struck by the studied
secularism of his dress. He wore a brown swallow-tail coat, a
stand-up collar, and a colored vest and neck-tie. I have since
learned that from the days of the persecutions the English
Jesuits have always appeared in secular dress. It may be differ-
ent now, but such was the case up to a few years ago.

Our speedy removal to the northern part of London prevented
our cultivating these two friends, as we should have desired to
do. It was somewhat different with the cardinal. Of course
it could not be expected that a great dignitary, absorbed in the
most important matters, should cross half London to call on a
very unimportant family ; he sent his carriage and his card,
which, from some points of view, amounted to the same thing.
But he was very kind to my brother, and at once invited him
to attend the levees which he held every Tuesday evening at
his house in Golden Square. So long as my brother remained

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492 Celebrities I have Known. [July,

in London he missed very few of those Tuesday evenings. The
cardinal introduced him to all sorts of celebrities, both native
and foreign. In connection with these levees I may mention
what I think a charming incident, in which the late Mr. Ward
was a central figure. My brother was one evening conversing
with him, when a priest approached and entered also into con-
versation with Mr. Ward. Ecclesiastics of every degree, it may
be remarked, had the entree in virtue of their character; and,
as may be supposed, they systematically utilized it to further
their various schemes for the advancement of religion. The
begging was carried on skilfully, and with a delicate perception
of the probabilities in the matter of responsive power. On the
present occasion the priest was not long in dropping a hint
that he was on the look-out for subscriptions towards ian organ
for his church.

** How much will it cost ? " inquired Mr. Ward.

"About five hundred pounds," answered the priest.

" Well," returned Mr. Ward, " call on me to-morrow and I
will give you a check for the amount."

Cardinal Wiseman, like Father Dannel and Father Faber,
was a man of splendid presence, and his manner was delightful
— so simple and so hearty. I had once the honor of breakfast-
ing in his company, on the occasion of a prise-cT -habit at the
Convent of the Good Shepherd, Hammersmith, to which, with
my mother and eldest brother — over from France for the vaca-
tion — I had been invited. Father Newman preached on the
occasion ; but, owing to some mistake about our conveyance, we
did not arrive in time for the sermon, which was a great dis-
appointment. After the ceremonies breakfast was served in the
convent, on two long tables ; at one of which sat about twenty
gentlemen, the cardinal presiding, and at the other about an
equal number of ladies. After breakfast we enjoyed a stroll
in the grounds, accompanied by one of the lady visitors and
one of the religious, Miss Baimbach — in religion Sister Mary
Joseph — authoress of the beautiful story entitled ** The Home of
the Lost Child." Miss Baimbach, herself a convert, took us to all
the points of interest mentioned in the story. But the point of
greatest interest was Father Newman, standing in his Oratorian's
habit, conversing with a small group of gentlemen. His tall,
spare figure, and sharp, sallow, but very pleasant face, are to
this day a cherished memory.

Another celebrity of the day, Canon Oakeley, was parochus
of St. John the Evangelist's Church at Islington. He was a

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1 897-] Celebrities I have Known. 493

little, plain-looking man, slightly lame, and somewhat irritable;
but with large sympathies, a heart of gold, and the zeal of an
apostle. He made a lovely confessor, and was, without a per-
adventure, the finest preacher I ever heard. Many preachers
of world-wide fame visited St. John's from time to time. The
cardinal came often, always attended by Father Dannel and by
Mr. Richard Doyle, caricaturist of Punchy looked upon as his
eminence's enfant chM. Then there were Father Faber, and
Father Ferrara of the Roman G^su ; and once Archdeacon Man-
ning — then a recent convert. He gave us a splendid sermon,
but I never saw or heard him again, as he left shortly after-
wards for Rome. Father Faber and Father Ferrara were sub-
lime, given a sublime subject ; but ordinary topics did not call
them out. Not so Father Oakeley. Whether he tackled the
great dogmas of the faith or the commonplaces of the parish,
he was always at high-tide. Depth of thought, clearness and
simplicity of expression ; above all, a self-forgetfulness and ab-
sorption in his subject whatever it was, such as I have never
seen in any other, marked his preaching. Only those who, like
myself, listened to him from right under his pulpit, Sunday in
and Sunday out for three long years, can realize the perfection
to which he brought these qualities. As he hobbled around the
church to make sure that every detail was attended to, prepar-
atory to solemn functions, one could not miss seeing that the
last man in the world of whose very existence he took thought
was himself. This utter self-effacement, and a corresponding
fervor, gave to his preaching an appearance of inspiration, and
invested his otherwise plain face with a supernatural beauty.

Apropos of Father Oakeley, I may be pardoned for men-
tioning that I once had the honor of being in some sort asso-
ciated with him in a small literary matter. Father Louis di
Lavagna, a Genoese Franciscan who, subsequently, became
parish priest of St. Mary's, Toronto, and who left his bones
there, had improvised at Islington a temporary novitiate for
the benefit of four postulants, preparatory to taking them over
to France. These postulants were converts, young gentlemen
of good family; and one of them occupied a portion of his
time in translating from the French a Life of the Saint of
Assisi. At the end of the volume there were some poems
in honor of St. Francis — some in Latin and three in Spanish.
Not being a poet himself. Brother Francis prevailed on Father
Oakeley to undertake the translation of the former, and en-
trusted the latter to me.

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494 S^- Monica's Eve. [July.

An amusing anecdote may wind up this short reminiscence.
One Tuesday evening my brother set out, as usual, for Golden
Square, and reached the *' Angel" Inn, whence started the om-
nibus for that neighborhood, just as a contingent bound for
the same terminus came up. It consisted of Father Oakeley
and several other priests, secular and regular, in their respec-
tive clerical garbs, Father Louis and some of his postulants in
the hooded brown cassock, hempen cincture, and uncovered
head of their order, and one or two prominent laymen of the
congregation. As the cortdge filed into the omnibus the con-
ductor stared at them in open-mouthed amazement ; then,
slamming-to the door with a bang, he called to the driver :
** Push along, Jim. Weve got a queer covey inside ! "

Were any of these I have mentioned still on earth, it is
hardly possible that one among them, with the exception of
Sister Agnes Xavier, would have any remembrance of me.
But now they are all ** gone home for the Holidays," as the
cardinal said when taking his leave, I may fairly hope they
sometimes offer a little prayer for me and mine, seeing I have
not failed to remember them, especially when kneeling in St.
Mary's on the grave-stone of Father Louis di Lavagna.

ST. MONICA'S EVE.

BY|F. X. E.

HEAR the whispered music, sweet yet sober!
— The angel-music shed at Life's October —
As now a seraph flees the clasp of clay,
Wherein the Lord hath made her spirit stay
To test a mother's love.

O rhapsody of grace! but calm, her brow
As stills, a twilight wind the willow's bough !
No more the pang of woe is hers to share.
For now the Raven thing she bore, through prayer,
Hath proved a spotless Dove.

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Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

CATHOLICS AND THE REVOLUTION.

BY FRANCIS T. FUREY.

HE relation of Catholics to the American Revo-
lution is peculiar. In its origin and early stages
anti-Catholic feeling fanned the flame of revolt,
and before its close Benedict Arnold alleged,
as an excuse for his treason, that it would be
beneficial chiefly to Catholics, and prepare the way for their ul-
timate domination in the country. Its success certainly marked
the dawn of an era of religious liberty. Was there a special
providence in this reversal of its original spirit and bearing, a
providence which, in spite of the prejudice and intolerance offi-
cially declared against them, from the start enlisted in its sup-
port the vast majority of the Catholics then living in England's
American colonies? This question I do not pretend to answer,
but will confine myself to the leading facts, leaving the hidden
reason to those who delight in speculation. The writer's aim
is to give an historical outline, not to indulge in fancy; there-
fore another difficulty has to be encountered. Two extreme

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496 Catholics and the Revolution. [July>

views have to be avoided, namely, that of the enthusiast, who
finds an ardent and active patriot in every Catholic, and that
of the iconoclast, who would demolish patriot idols only to sub-
stitute for them a Tory collection, exaggerating the few Ameri-
can Catholic Tories of the War of Independence into a repre-
sentative body. That they were comparatively few is easily
ascertained from an examination of Sabine's Loyalists and
other records of the time and the events.

CATHOLICS IN THE COLONIES.

The Catholics who aided in the achievement of American
liberty may, for the sake of convenience, be divided into four
classes : those residing in the Colonies, the Catholic Indians of
the North and North-west, Canadian volunteers, and the French
and Spanish allies. With the class first named we are more
concerned than with the others, for it is their position that has

mainly been the subject of discussion
and controversy, the others serving
only as strong corroborative evidence,
not so much in support of the pa-
triotism of our coreligionists who were
inhabitants of the Colonies when the
war broke out, as in establishing a
claim in favor of Catholic citizens of
the Republic. 4 It must be borne in
mind that Catholics were very few in
number in the Colonies compared with
the total population, and even much

STEPHEN MOVLAN. BROTHER OP ^^^'^^'' ^"^ ^^^^^^^ ^"^ ^^^^^^ preStigC.

THE Bishop of Cork, Commis- In 1/75 there could not have been more
sary-General of Washington's than twenty-five thousand of them in

the thirteen Colonies — that is, about
one per cent, of the entire population ; and nearly, if not quite,
four-fifths of these were to be found in Maryland, almost all
of the other fifth residing in Pennsylvania — all, in fact, ex-
cept two or three dozen families scattered through New
Jersey and Delaware. From the other Colonies they were ex-
cluded by penal statutes, for the most part of prohibitory
severity. And what was their status before the law even in
the Colonies in which they were to be found ? In New Jersey
they were not supposed to exist. In Maryland, the colony
which they had founded and had made the cradle of religious
liberty on this continent, the public exercise of their worship

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1897.] Catholics and the Revolution, 497

was suppressed, so that they were obliged to hear Mass ia
private houses ; but in Pennsylvania and Delaware they en-
joyed almost complete freedom, being debarred only from
holding office and bearing arms, and those of them who were
not born under the British flag, from acquiring title to real es-
tate. Though not allowed the full enjoyment of civil liberty,
they were almost universally unmolested on account of their
religion, and had their houses of public worship, not only in
Philadelphia, but also at Goshenhoppen, Reading, Concord,
Lancaster, and Conewago. When we come to consider the anti-
Catholic feeling accompanying the Revolution in its origin, this
explanation will enable us to understand why the Maryland
Catholics were patriots to a man, and why in Pennsylvania such
was naturally not the case. A few prominent Catholics in the
latter colony, and their retainers and personal following among
the lower orders, took the side of England, but yet by no means
as many in proportion as of the other
elements of the population ; for, out-
side of the city of New York, Penn-
sylvania was the stronghold of Tory-
ism. Its patriots, indeed, were mainly
made up of Irish Protestants, Ulster
Presbyterians for the ^most part,
driven hither by England's commer-
cial oppression and rapacious Irish
landlordism. No less than thirty
thousand of these people had settled
in the colony during the four years

preceding the revolt, and from among

-^ ° . ** Commodore "Jack" Barry,

them came most of the recruits who, father of the u. s. navy.
from Pennsylvania, enlisted in Wash-
ington's army. Events proved that they were little better than
mercenaries; for in the days of reverse around New York,
amounting almost to disaster, they were at home in mutiny
for their pay, while the non-combatants, the merely talking
patriots, were engaged in bringing about a revolution in the
State government.

BITTER FEELINGS AGAINST THEM.

East of Pennsylvania the feeling against Catholics had al-
ways been bitter and vindictive. The liberty guaranteed to
the Catholics of Canada by the treaty of cession from France
to England, in 1763, and constitutionally sanctioned and ex-

VOL. LXV. — 32

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498 Catholics and the Revolution. [Ji^ly^

tended by the Quebec Act passed by the British Parliament in
1774, intensified this feeling. Ere long, the anger of New York
and New England Protestantism at this establishing of religi-
ous liberty along their northern frontier found official expres-
sion in a resolution adopted by the Continental Congress, in
session in Philadelphia, and forwarded as an address to the
people of Great Britain. The author of this document was
John Jay, of New York, afterwards Chief-Justice of the Su-
preme Court of the United States, the
direct ancestor of his equally bigoted
namesake of our own day. In this ad-
dress we read :

" We think the legislature of Great
Britain is not authorized by the Consti-
tution to establish a religion fraught with
sanguinary and impious tenets, and to
erect an arbitrary form of government, in
any quarter of the globe. By this the Do-
CouNT D'EsTAiNG. Hiinion of Canada is so extended, modelled,
and governed as that, being disunited
from us, detached from our interest by civil as well as religious
prejudices, by their numbers daily swelling with Catholic im-
migrants from Europe, they might become formidable to us,
and on occasion be fit instruments in the hands of power to
reduce the ancient free Protestant Colonies to the same state
of slavery with themselves."

JAY PREVENTS CANADIAN RECIPROCITY.

Yet only a brief interval was to elapse before the same
Congress, in alarm, would ask the same Canadians to join in
the rebellion, and would meet with refusal because of the in-
tolerant address formulated by Jay. This is one of the para-
doxes of history, as is also the Revolution itself, which, begot-
ten in intolerance, brought forth religious liberty. The rebuke
administered by the Canadians may have been one of the
causes of this change ; but it will be seen that there were
others. At a time when Catholics in Great Britain and
Ireland were still amenable to the Penal Laws, described by
Edmund Burke as the most perfect system ever devised by
the perverted ingenuity of man for the degradation of his
fellow-man, under similar circumstances here, it would not
have been easy for Catholics on this side of the Atlantic to
choose sides in the nascent contest, if it were to be conducted

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1 897-] Catholics and the Revolution, 499

by the Revolutionists on the religious principle enunciated in
the address issued by Congress. But, as has been seen, free-
dom was secured to the Catholics of Canada, and in Pennsyl-
vania their co-religionists had always enjoyed a large measure
of liberty. It is not, then, to be wondered at that the Cana-
dians were repelled by the action of Congress and declined to
enter into an alliance with the revolted Colonies, though
among those sent to entreat their aid were the illustrious
Marylanders, Charles Carroll of Carrollton and his cousin, the
Rev. John Carroll, afterwards the first Bishop and the first
Archbishop of Baltimore ; and for the same reason it was not
strange that Catholics in Pennsylvania should hold aloof. Yet
the majority of the more prominent among the latter imitated
the example of the Carrolls, and of all the Catholics of Mary-
land, who, having no choice between the state of affairs under
which they had lived and that which was threatened in the
new order of things by the Jays, took their chances of
the charter of the latter becoming a dead-letter. And this in-
spiration guided them aright ; for New York and New Eng-
land bigotry was soon to receive a rebuke which announced
the dawn of religious liberty, ere yet the revolted Colonies
had determined to strive for complete political independence.

WASHINGTON'S REBUKE TO BIGOTRY.

Late in the autumn of 1775 George Washington went to Bos-
ton to assume the chief command of the
Revolutionary forces, and at once em-
braced an excellent opportunity for re-
buking the bigotry that was injuring the
American cause. In many of the New
England towns an old custom was still
in vogue of celebrating the anniversary

known in England as Guy Fawkes' Day, ^ ^ ^^x^/^^^^^v^^^
November 5, as "Pope Day," by in- .^ ^ ^^ 'V^ ^^"^
dulgence in unmeasured abuse of the
Catholic Church and in vile orgies of
rant. The Quebec Act had intensified
the feeling that entered Into these un- Rear-admiral meade, great-
Christian scenes. Finding unusually Grandson of George meade.
active preparations being made for the commemoration in Bos-
ton, he resolved to stop it, and to that effect issued the follow-
ing order :

"As the commander-in-chief has been apprised of a design
formed for the observance of that ridiculous and childish cus-

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torn of burning the effigy of the pope, he cannot help express-
ing his surprise that there should be officers and soldiers in this
army so devoid of common sense as not
to see the impropriety of such a step. It
is so monstrous as not to be suffered or
excused ; indeed, instead of offering the
most remote insult, it is our duty to ad-
dress public thanks to our Catholic breth-
ren, as to them we are indebted for every
late success over the common enemy in
Canada.*'

Here, then, we have the highest author-
ity for asserting that our co-religionists had
already rendered signal service to the cause of liberty. And
this was before Captain John Barry began his glorious career
on the seas, a career which almost eclipses that of Washington
himself. But even Barry had predecessors in his special field,
for the Catholic O'Brien brothers had already won the first
American naval victory over England, "the Lexington of the
seas." Nor is their glory the less illustrious because they
were only privateers. But it was especially to the Catholic
soldiers from Maryland that Washington here paid tribute.
He could even have said more, for General Stephen Moy-
lan, of Philadelphia, was already on his staff, and he knew
that at 'home in the same city George Meade, one of its lead-
ing merchants, the grandfather of General
Meade of Gettysburg fame and of Commo-
dore Meade of the Mexican War, and great-
grandfather of the lalter's son, the recently
retired Rear-Admiral Meade, had not only
signed the non-importation resolutions of
1765, but was now one of the most active
leaders of the patriot cause. Living as he
did on the right bank of the lower Poto-
admiral de grasse, mac, he must have been well acquainted
WHO RECEIVED THE suR- ^j^^ many of the old Catholic families of

RENDER OF THE BRITISH ''

Vessels of War at Maryland, occupying the part of that colony
YoRKTowN. ^^^ ^2^g flfs^ settled ; and on his own side

of the river he had as a near neighbor one whom he had long
since learned to esteem so highly as to have taken him into
his most intimate confidence.

COLONEL JOHN FITZGERALD, OF ALEXANDRIA.
"Washington," says Dr. Richard H. Clarke in a recently pub-

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Hshed study on the religious life of the '* Father of his Coun-
try," " had no more devoted friend, or one whom he esteemed
more highly, than Colonel John Fitzgerald, of Alexandria. It
was Colonel John Fitzgerald who, in 1774, first introduced Moy-
lan to George Washington, at Mount Vernon, where they were
both welcome guests even before the war. Again, we find Fitz-
gerald a guest at Mount Vernon with Dr. Diggs, a Catholic
gentleman of Maryland, and again with Daniel Carroll ; and on
the latter occasion Fitzgerald offered his services to the newly
appointed commander-in-chief, and they were accepted on the
spot. Appointed an aide-de-camp to Washington, Fitzgerald
served him gallantly to the end. He
was the intermediary and medium of
communication and information between
the general in the field and Martha
Washington at Mount Vernon, and was
thus the confidential friend and aid to
Washington.**

And as time wore on he was to be
enabled to speak with vastly more favor
of Catholics than he had done at Bos-
ton. A few months later the Declara-
tion of Independence was signed and
promulgated ; and among the signers ^^ Rochambeau, co-operat-
^ff ^ 11 1.^ 11 f ED WITH Washington's Army.

was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who,

by attaching his signature to that document, risked more than
all his colleagues combined, for he was one of the very
richest men then in America ; while Barry had already won
immortal fame by his earlier naval exploits, which, however,
he was to surpass as the war progressed. But the times
that tried men's souls were approaching. It was mainly the
Maryland regiments that saved Washington's army from annihi-
lation on Long Island, and by their bravery enabled him to
retreat to Manhattan Island, where again they distinguished
themselves by winning on Harlem Heights the only success of
that retreat. The story of the further falling back to White
Plains and the reverse of fortune there, of the evacuation of
Forts Washington and Lee, the retreat through Jersey, the
crossing and recrossing of the Delaware at that bleak Christ-
mastide, and the victories of Trenton and Princeton are too
familiar to be dwelt on here. But every reader of these pages
may not be aware that it was a Catholic, Patrick Colvin, who
conveyed Washington across the river ; that Captain Barry tem-
porarily gave up the sea to bring his sailors to the aid of the

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502 Catholics AND the Revolution. [July,

American Fabius, and that Thomas FitzSimmons, another wealthy
Philadelphia Catholic merchant, rushed at the head of a cohort
of his own enlisting to assist in obtaining those victories. The
list of names of the Maryland officers who were Catholics is a

long one, and that of the rank and
file of course very much more so ; but
the name of one of the bravest of those
soldiers is worthy of special mention
here. This was Thomas Lloyd, a native
of England, who had been educated at
St. Omer's. He afterwards taught and
published a system of shorthand, and be-
^ came the first official stenographic re-
porter to the Federal House of Repre-
sentatives organized in accordance with
the Constitution of 1787. At Trenton

The gallant Kosciuszko. , . , «...

no one made such strenuous efforts to
save the day and Washington's life as Colonel Fitzgerald,
and it was he who first carried the news of that victory and of
Princeton's to Mount Vernon. In that glorious campaign Cap-
tain John Barry also was specially honored by being appointed
to serve on Washington's staff. But he soon departed to win
fresh laurels in his special field.

In the following summer the British changed their plan of
operations, and moved upon Philadelphia from the south. The
battles of Brandywine and Germantown were fought and
lost by the Americans, and Philadelphia was occupied by the
invaders in the autumn of 1777. They held it until the fol-
lowing June, the remnant of Washington's army in the mean-
time encamping and suffering great hardships at Valley Forge.
It was during this time that a reputed Catholic, Alfred Clifton,
whom Sabine describes as " an English gentleman of an Irish
mother," entered the service of the British and organized the
so-called Catholic Tory regiment, into which, despite the gloom
then overhanging the cause of American freedom, he was able
to muster only nine score men of all conditions. When the
British evacuated Philadelphia, in the following June, Clifton
and his band went with them, and we trace them as far as the
battle of Monmouth, in which Washington might have annihil-
ated the British but for the treachery of that other Benedict
Arnold, General Charles Lee. But Clifton and his handful of
mercenaries were an insignificant band compared with their
Tory fellow-townsmen ; for over four thousand other Phila-
delphians departed with the enemy, never to return. Then, too,

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came the great financial crisis of the movement, when Irish
and Catholic credit gave so much help towards saving the in-
fant government. Robert Morris is called the Financier of the
Revolution ; but it was on the money staked by Thomas Fitz-
Simmons and others of his circle that Morris made his reputation ;
and when Morris failed financially, FitzSimmons likewise suffered
financial ruin. It was also during the British occupation of Phila-
delphia that Barry achieved one of his most brilliant exploits —
his famous night-raid on the English vessels lying off Port Penn.

FATHER GIBAULT, PATRIOT PRIEST OF VINCENNES.

But from the Americans let us now turn to their allies. It
has been explained why the Canadians did not join with the
English colonists in revolt ; but neither did they fight against
them. There is no record of any Canadian regiment, or even
company, enlisted under the British banner. On the other
hand, however, two regiments of volunteers from Canada joined
the Americans, and were known as Congress* Own on account
of the valuable services they rendered. With them we may
group the Catholic Indians of the North and the North-
west, especially those under the celebrated chief Orono, and
following the guidance also of Father
Gibault. Orono bore a Continental
commission and led his tribesmen to the
field of battle. And it is to the exer-
tions and services of Father Gibault, the
patriot priest of Vincennes, that we owe
the raising of the Anierican flag over
the stations of the North-west, which
gained for us a vast territory now divid-
ed up into several powerful States. By
the aid rendered to General Clark by
this priest and by Francis Vigo an em- Lafayette.

pire of States was saved to the new Republic. He led the Catho-
lic Indians as well as Catholic white men into the patriot cause;
and later on, in 1790, Washington's own State, Virginia, recog-
nized his services by a public resolution of its legislature.

And what of Catholic France? Before uniting with us in a
treaty of alliance, and sending an army and a fleet to fight for
American liberty, she had furnished many officers of scientific
as well as military accomplishments. Mention need be made
only of Lafayette, Duponceau, Conway, Dugan, Arundel,
Arnaud, De Fleury, Du Portail, and Ducoudray, with whom
may be joined the brave Pole, Pulaski. Later on, the French

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504 Catholics AND THE Revolution. [July,

alliance led to the first religious celebration of the Fourth
of July — that in the Catholic church in Philadelphia, in 1779,
attended by the members of Congress and the army officers
then in the city. The two resident priests, Fathers Farmer
and MoHneux, and the chaplain to the French Legation, the
Abb6 Bandol, officiated, the last named preaching. Historians
admit, indeed, that had it not been for the services rendered
by the French on land as well as on sea,
the achievement of American indepen-
dence was impossible. And at the same
time Catholic Spain drew the other con-
tinental nations of Europe into an armed
neutrality which defeated England's
machinations ; nay, further, she finally
drew the sword in behalf of the new Re-
public, operating from the Gulf of Mexico.
The war was virtually closed by the sur-
render of Cornwallis at Yorktown, and
that result was brought about by Ro-

1 1 » .1. J T\ The brave Pole, Pulaski.

chambeau s auxiliary army and De

Grasse's fleet, though the Americans did their full duty. And
there, as in Boston six years before, by Washington's side stood
General Moylan and Colonel Fitzgerald, along with the Catholic
troops from Pennsylvania and Maryland. Two weeks later, on
November 4, another solemn thanksgiving service was held in the
same Catholic church. But the glory of the Catholic record in the
war was not yet completed ; for, just as the treaty acknowledging
American independence was being ratified. Captain Barry, off the
coast of Florida, won one of his most brilliant victories. His
whole career, indeed, compelled universal admiration of his
abilities, and led to his being chosen by President Washington,
nearly a dozen years later, to organize and command the navy
that was to maintain the honor of the new Republic. 'And, as
already intimated, a new era had now dawned for freedom, re-
ligious as well as political and civil. The anti-Catholic spirit
which characterized the Revolution at its beginning had passed
into history, owing to the fact that without Catholic aid the
Revolution could not have been successful. At the same time
with political liberty that of religion was won — and won not
only in America, but in Great Britain and Ireland as well ; for
it was under the pressure of the American war that Parliament
was first prevailed upon to relax the Penal Laws.

This hurried, cursory, and superficial sketch may appro-

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1 897-] Catholics AND the Revolutivn. 505

priately be concluded with a reference to the first loud echo of
the signal service that Catholics had rendered during the Revo-
lution. In New York, on March 3, 1789, while Washington was
preparing to be inaugurated as the first President of the United
States, an address of congratulation was read to him on behalf
of the Catholics of the new Republic. It was signed by the
three illustrious Carrolls, namely, John, who was soon to be-
come the first bishop of Baltimore, Charles of CarroUton, and
Daniel of Duddington, and by Thomas FitzSimmons of Phila-
delphia and Dominic Lynch of New York. In the reply which
the President made to it he used these words, which should
be committed to memory and treasured for life by every Ameri-
can citizen :

** As mankind become more liberal, they will be more apt to
allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy mem-

St. Joseph's Church, Philadelphia, 1757-1821.

bers of the community are equally entitled to the protection of
civil government. I hope ever to see America among the fore-
most nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I pre-
sume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part
which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution and
the establishment of your government, or the important assist-
ance which they received from a nation in which the Roman
Catholic faith is professed.**

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So6 Some Characteristics of the Normans. [July,
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NORMANS.

BY CHARLES GIBSON.

F we pause for a moment upon the threshold of
Normandy, before landing at Havre or Caen, the
thoughts which this country calls up to mind
seem at once to savor of the picturesque, the
mediaeval, of yesterday. With the very sound of
its name rises before the mind a picture of domestic scenery.
The rolling country is wonderfully green and fertile. The hill-
sides are cut by hedges, or dotted with apple-orchards. The
roofs of miniature cottages, showing here and there above the
trees, are covered with deep plum-colored tiles, or overgrown with
moss. An old ruin rises upon the summit of a hill and over-
looks a little valley twisting and turning at its feet, while a blue
mist overhangs all and gives to the landscape a faint tinge of
the ideal. In many respects the country reminds one of the
County of Kent in England, only, as a witty Frenchman once
remarked, " The trees here look less self-conscious.** And, in-
deed, it is true in a certain way. Everything is unconscious, in-
formal, domestic in an almost idyllic state, unaffected by the
affairs of the rest of the world, and contented with its own
simple life.

But if we go farther into the country, we are at once inter-
ested in the character of the Normans and the part which they
have played in the history of the western world. To all those
who have even the most primary acquaintance with history the
name of William the Conqueror is inseparably associated with
Normandy. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more cor-
rect exponent of the force, the shrewdness, the prudence, or the
calculative self-interest of the Norman people than in William,
their seventh duke.

The stormy atmosphere in which his childhood was spent,
and which first developed those qualities "which were to aid
him later in life to defend his birth, his title, and his throne,'*
seems to have left its effect of sternness upon his descendants.
The force and power which circumstances rendered necessary
to the character of the Conqueror appear to have been so grafted
into the Norman that even now, after many centuries, we may

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1897.] Some Characteristics of the Normans. 507

trace their existence. In fact, this influence of character, ex-
erted by William the Conqueror, has gone far beyond the
shores of Normandy; for had he never crossed the English
Channel and sat upon the throne of England, the character of
that country — ^as well as of a large part of America and the
other nations which have been the offshoots of the Anglo-Sax-
on race — would have been, doubtless, very different. It is, there-
fore, not remarkable that the Norman of to-day contains many
qualities to be found in other countries so closely allied by
blood, and many characteristics which are different from those
of the rest of the French nation.

In the first general view of the Normans, their manners
and their customs, almost any one would be impressed imme-
diately with two great facts. He would find in Normandy the
hyphen between France and England, and in the Normans the
link between the different temperaments of the French and
English.

As we look at the almost hopeless differences between the
manners, the temperament, the point of view, of these two
great nationalities, we hail, as an oasis in the social desert, the
point where the two seem to meet upon common ground. For
it is in Normandy that we find the scale upon which to gauge
these national differences. It is in Normandy that we find even
the country and its scenery changing from the romantic type
of France into the rustic character of England.

Upon a closer acquaintance with Normandy, the fact of its
being a stepping-stone between two great races shows itself in
every one and every thing that one observes. The temperament
of the people, though warmer than the English, is cooler and
more temperate than that of the rest of France. The excitable
manners and violent gesticulation of the people of the Southern
countries — of the Midi, as it is called — are excessive and weari-
some to the Normans. And, on the other hand, if we go a
step farther and cross over into England, we find the same
effect produced there by the Normans.

An amusing story is told by a French lady, as an example
of this difference of manners.

Whenever she visited London from her chateau in Norman-
dy, she was continually finding herself holding both her hands
in order to prevent the gestures which she feared would have
caused her hosts to think her crazy. One might well smile at
the picture of this lady, sitting at a London dinner-table, with
her fists clinched beneath it, or at the probable expressions of

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5o8 Some Characteristics of the Normans. [July,

her companions if she gave way for a moment to her natural
inclination and indulged in gestures which to them would have
been little more than a gymnastic exercise. But this example
is not an exaggeration, and only shows the more clearly the part
which Normandy plays of a medium between the unfathomable
differences of France and England. It is shown as plainly in
the lady from Bordeaux who arrives at a chateau in Nt^rmandy,
and insists upon throwing her arms about each member of the
household and embracing them then and there. Though un-
pleasant to the Norman, it is the most natural thing in the
world to the lady from Bordeaux. And so we should find if
we took a hundred other examples through the rest of France.
Everything bears testimony that, as we move northward, tem-
perament and manners change from the warmth and effusion
of the Italian and the Spaniard into the reserve and calmness
of the English. And the country where this change is most
noticeable is Normandy.

That vanity which is so visible a quality in all their country-
men is not absent in the people of Normandy. But in
them it has taken a more temperate, perhaps a deeper, form.
With them it has lost much of the French character, and in
many cases is almost entirely Anglo-Saxon. Again, the Nor-
man pride, stronger and more inborn than anywhere in France,
partakes of the same elements, to a great extent. In many
cases it becomes but a false pride, so far-reaching is it in the
lesser as well as in the greater things of life. Among the
poorer classes, where it is more predominant than elsewhere,
and where it is fanned by ignorance and superstition, it will
often prevent them from receiving charity, though they may be
penniless. In the country this does not often occur, for the
Norman peasants are a thrifty and prosperous people, and there
is little or no poverty among them. But there is one case
which we are tempted to mention here as illustrative of the
extraordinary pride of the Norman peasant.

There was a chateau which had been in the family of the
lady who lived in it for a hundred years. Wishing to do some
good in the village which was built about the gates of the
park, she carried a basket of fruit one day to an old woman
who was very poor. She found the old woman knitting in
front of her cottage door, and as she offered her the fruit,
slipped a gold-piece of twenty francs into the basket. The
thatched roof of the cottage, which evidently had not been re-
paired since it had been built some two centuries before, was

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1 897-] Some Characteristics of the Normans, 509

little more than a ruin. One window even was without glass,
and had been allowed to overgrow with ivy. Everything be-
spoke the need of money. But the old woman replied to the
lady's " Bon jour " with a suspicious glance, and continued knit-
ting. The half-dozen steel needles continued moving as the
basket of fruit was set down beside her.

" TeneZy ma bonne femme" said the lady, " I have brought
you some fruit."

" Ah ! *' was the only reply. And then the old woman looked
up and added, still suspiciously : " Madame is very kind — very
kind. But how does madame know that I like fruit ? Perhaps
I never eat fruit. Perhaps I never eat fruit," she continued, as
if to herself, but keeping one eye upon the lady to see the
effect which her remark might produce. Suddenly she caught
sight of the gold-piece which was lying in the basket, half
hidden by the fruit ; the knitting was cast aside, the old
woman seized the basket, with the fruit and the money, re-
turned it to the lady's hands, and was knitting again — all in a
moment. The lady endeavored to insist, and to persuade her
to accept the fruit, if not the money; but it was useless.

"Madame is very kind,'" returned the old woman. ^^ Ah,
madame est bien bonne. But I never eat fruit. I do not need
money. Madame is not of this country. Madame est une hor-
zains. Why, madame's people have not been at the chateau
even a hundred years — only since 1802."

And as the lady moved away she could hear the old woman
saying over her knitting: ^^ Ah, madame est bien bonne. But we
do not need help. We do not need money."

The lady concluded her story by saying : ** If my people
had owned the chateau for two or three hundred years, and if
I had * been of the country,' as they express it in Normandy,
not only would the old woman have accepted the fruit, but
she would have taken the money without thanking me. She
would have considered it as due to her, and not as charity.

The Comtesse de N had just such an experience the other

day."

Another characteristic of the Norman is his fear of com-
mitting himself. This non-committal principle regulates every
action of his life. Indeed, it is said that a Norman would
rather lose father, mother, children, and wife than allow his real
opinion upon any subject to be known. The Norman peasant
would rather lose his life, we believe, than allow his thoughts
to be known by a neighbor upon the other side of the garden

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510 Some Characteristics of the Normans. [July,

fence. He is miserable for a week if he thinks he has said a
word too much, for which he might be held accountable, and
he is out of sorts for a month if he has said too little and
given a wrong impression. Although this non-committal qual-
ity is perhaps more Anglo-Saxon than Latin, still it often
assumes that amusing character which the French temperament
naturally lends to everything. This is especially so if one is
anxious to obtain a direct answer from a Norman peasant.

One day a number of French and English gentlemen were
sitting about the "table-d'h6te " of a small inn, in a Norman
village. A peasant chanced to be sitting near one of the
gentlemen, taking his glass of cider, and eyeing the rest of the
company somewhat suspiciously. The gentleman leaned over
to one of his companions and whispered in his ear : *' I am
going to try to make this peasant answer me a question:
* yes ' or ' no.' Listen to our conversation and see with what
success my efforts are crowned." But although the gentleman
in question was not without experience in debate, and although
he cross-questioned the peasant for more than three-quarters of
an hour, he failed to obtain an answer of either 'yes* or 'no,'
and he would doubtlessly have failed as signally had he con-
tinued his efforts for the rest of the evening.

Another anecdote occurs to us, as illustrative of this trait
so accentuated in the Norman peasant.

One day a lady met one of her peasants on his way home
from the market-day in the village belonging to her chateau.

" Eh bien, le mattre^^ said she, " for how much did you sell
your calf at the market ? "

"Ah, Madame la Comtesse," replied the man, "I cannot
tell exactly ; my wife took the money while I had gone to the
cafdr

"But," pursued the comtesse, "you must know the amount;
you would never have sold it if you had not. Was it one hun-
dred francs, or two hundred ? "

"Ah, madame, I really do not know exactly," answered the
man. " It may have been more than one hundred, and it may
have been less. I really cannot tell."

Although he knew the exact amount, and doubtless had
the money in his pocket, it was impossible to obtain the de-
sired information from him ; and the lady was obliged to con-
tent herself with the rather indefinite amount of either more or
less than one hundred francs.

The Normans are always suspicious, and at times defiant,

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i897-] Some Characteristics of the Normans. 511

of the rest of France, and especially of England. Full of defer- ^
ence, and even obsequious in conversation and argument, they
are the first to take advantage of any opportunity when the
back is turned. They are prompted ever by self-interest, and
in all their dealings show that inborn shrewdness for which they
are so noted. The following anecdote is an example of the
suspicion, and at the same time of the servility, existing between
the Norman tenant and his landlord.

A gentleman had just bought a chateau not far from Rouen,
and had requested the tenants upon the estate to sign a paper
stating that they intended to retain their farms. On the day
appointed all had come to the chaLteau to sign the paper. The
notary was seated at a large table writing with the quill of a
goose, and the farmers, standing in a group at one end of the
hall, came up to sign as their names were called. Our friend
could hear them muttering to one another, and eying both
himself and the notary with suspicion.

" Ah, ha ! " said one, pointing to the notary, " so he is writ-
ing with the quill-pen of a goose, is he?'*

" Yes," said his neighbor. " I wonder if he knows that I
bred that goose, and gave the quills to the chateau only the
other day? "

** Ah^ mon amij' said the first man, coming close to his neigh-
bor, " nobody thinks of it ; perhaps nobody cares to think of
it ; perhaps they do — I don't say which. But it's we who raise
the goose ; it's Monsieur le Vicomte over there who eats the
goose, and it's Monsieur le Notaire there who robs us with
the quill. For he is robbing us, I am sure."

And the two old farmers fairly glared at the notary and
the quill-pen of the goose. But just at this moment the speaker's
name was called out in a loud voice, and, changing his air
immediately, he marched up to the table as readily as any and
signed his name. He was doubtless looking out of the corner
of his eye the while to see if any one had overheard his remarks.
For the Norman is as time-serving as he is shrewd.

This same suspicion not only exists among the Normans
themselves, as regards one another, but extends to any stranger
whom they may chance to have among them. It will cause
the inn-keeper of a country village to think twice before he
opens his door to the visitor arriving without warning. It will
prompt the tradesman to turn over the gold-piece in the palm
of his hand, and eye it narrowly, before accepting it as good*
Nobody is received at first sight without the feeling that he or

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512 Some Characteristics of the Normans, [July.

she may have some evil intention. Nothing is accepted as fact
without the certain proof that it is so. For the instinct of the
Norman is to suspect and doubt, until something may occur to
change his opinion and assure him of the honesty of a person,
or the true value of a fact. Upon the other hand, this quality
of suspicion, when not too strongly influenced by prejudice, is
not without its beneficial effect. It has served to make the
Normans one of the most successful people in affairs and busi-
ness of all kinds. And it is a significant fact that in Paris
alone many of the largest and most influential commercial es-
tablishments have been founded and are now controlled by Nor-
mans. In all branches of industry the Normans excel, from
banking to farming ; from the enormous establishment of the
Bon MarM to the tiny shop in the Rue Cambon. His suspi-
cion adds to his natural shrewdness, and his care of self-inter-
est increases his caution. He never spends more than a certain
portion of his income, and never risks more than he can well
afford to lose. With such qualities, it is not surprising that his
efforts in business are crowned with success, and that in town,
as. well as in country, the average man lives in comfort and
prosperity.

It would be impossible to conclude even this slight coup
cTasil of the Norman character without a word upon the
women of Normandy. Here, as in many other countries, their
virtues are inextricably blended with their faults. They are
handsome, as a rule, in comparison to the other women of France.
But they cannot be called graceful ; nor are they endowed with
those charms which are peculiarly attached to the weaker sex,
and characterized as feminine. Indeed, they are very awkward
in their movements, so that they have at times been compared
to the movement of a wind-mill in the way they walk. They
need several generations to acquire either the piqtiante manners
of the Parisian or the dignified bearing of the Englishwoman.
Still, they combine many practical and excellent qualities with
a character that is full of force and perception.

In the different departments of Normandy the women of
the lower classes vary oddly with their occupations. In the
agricultural counties — such as Le Calvados and parts of La
Manche and TOrne — where the women are much in the fields,
they are more masculine in appearance, in manners, and in size.
About Rouen, where the religious and artistic instincts have
been so strongly developed by the influence of its beautiful
monuments and buildings, the refinement of their feminine

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i897-] Some Characteristics of the Normans. 513

qualities is noticeable in the women. At Caen the delicate
features and expressive faces of the women recall the personal-
ity of Charlotte Corday. At Bayeux the women are remarkable
to the observer for their dignity and reserve — always in com-
parison to their neighbors in France. For it is at this point
that they seem nearest to approach the personality and appear-
ance of the English. At Vire they are prettier and more
coquettish. In La Manche, toward the west, is the greatest
charm of manner and appearance, and at Granville, near the
Mont Saint Michael, there are said to be the most beautiful
women of France.

As a rule, the Norman woman is hard-working, level-headed,
and practical in everything which enters into every-day life.
If she is a good housekeeper, she is a still better shopkeeper.
And if she has a more artistic temperament than her husband,
hidden under her practicability, she balances his shrewdness by
her wit and her decision. In all questions of the family it is
to her that the husband looks for the answer. And in marriage
she shares with him an equal division of duties, of powers,
and of interests. Though she may lack either the quickness,
the finesse, or the charm of other women of France, she has
perhaps a truer worth ; for her character is made up of more
lasting qualities. Though often practical to the expense of the
poetic and artistic sides of life, she is made for high ambitions
and is capable of great things.

In a word, the character of the women of Normandy has
proved it no idle boast, that they are all "daughters of
Corneille and sisters of Charlotte Corday."

VOL. LXT.— 33

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Governor William A. Newell, Founder of Life-saving Service.

LIFE AT A LIFE-SAVING STATION.

BY FRANCES ALBERT DOUGHTY.

E Life-saving drill on the Lake shore was al-
ways a popular exhibition at the White City
during that summer of '93 which so many Ameri-
can citizens now recall as the most memorable
conjunction of pleasure with education they ever
managed to effect.

Again, at the Atlanta Fair that drill was watched day after
day by hundreds of interested visitors. It was a drama in one
short act, played to an orchestral accompaniment from the
neighboring Plaza or the more distant Midway, the sun beam-
ing joyously down on the man who was pretending to be
wrecked, while shouts of laughter and applause attended his
jumping into the " breeches-buoy " and his safe convoy, with
dangling legs, across the sparkling waters. All went merry as a
marriage-bell in that fleeting semblance of danger and of rescue.
But to the finer ear and sense of many a spectator ever and
anon there came an echo, as it were, from a storm-tossed mid-
night ocean ; and then the little play became a curtain-raiser to
a great transformation scene, and the boom of the toy-like can-
non, as it shot the line out to the mimic wreck, resounded with

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1 897-] Life at a Life-saving Station. 515

the soul-stirring reality that belongs to human needs and the
issues of life and death.

Every line of effort which requires prompt and courageous
action in an emergency exacts a painstaking routine as a pre-
paration for it. The Life-saving stations must be object-lessons
of order and cleanliness. The Life-savers themselves must make
them so, no matter what else they have to do ; and Saturdays
are always devoted to house-cleaning. On all other days except
Sundays there is professional practice of some kind : either the
boat, the gun, or the gear drill, a lesson in the international
signal code, or one in the resuscitation of drowned persons.
Every rule and every regulation of the service is calculated to
develop manly virtues and to repress vices ; for constant, hourly
fidelity to duty cannot fail to operate favorably on character.
To a great extent, however, character must have been already
formed before a man can become a " Knight of the surf."
The experts among boatmen and surfmen along the coast who
present themselves as candidates for the service must have not

There are 251 Stations on Coast-Line of the Great Lakes as well
AS THE Ocean.

only strong muscles and hardy frames as their physical endow-
ment, but a mental and moral capacity for dangerous self-
abnegating work, without which the strength of Samson would
not constitute a vocation, for the staying quality would be
lacking. It has been noticed by students of physiognomy that
every business or calling has a tendency to produce, after a
time, a certain distinctive look in the human countenance. The
faces of most keepers and surfmen in the service are character-

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5i6 Life at a Life-saving Station. [July,

Major Horace Pipbr. Supbrintbndbnt Kimball.

General Superintendent*s Office, in Treasury Department, Washington.

ized by an expression of fearlessness and kindness, by a thought-
ful gravity and a rough-and-ready philosophy.

While turning over snugly in bed, under several blankets, on
a winter night, few of us think of the brave patrolmen who
only once a week have a chance to spend a night of unbroken
rest. They have to wade through shifting sands and cold
breakers along an uncertain coast-line, one guard standing
ready to relieve another, in order that an ever-watchful eye
may question the dark, unknown deep and flash back an an-
swering beacon to a red danger signal from the water. In the
day-time signalling is done by flags.

A patrolman always carries, slung across his shoulder, a
small satchel containing four Coston lights. If he has been sig-
nalled, and has answered according to the international code,
his next duty is to return to his station as quickly as possible
and report the occurrence, so that the crew can go to the aid
of the ship in distress. Should he be wool-gathering, and fail
to notice a signal from the sea, or neglect to report it, not
only would he be discharged on the spot, but he would forfeit
all pay due him from the last quarter. Worse still, he would
be a disgraced man in the eyes of his comrades and all the
coast people. There is little danger of such a catastrophe.

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1 897-] Life at a Life-saving Station. 517

The mental attitude of every man in the service, so far as can
be ascertained, is one of eagerness to be on the spot if a wreck
occurs within reach. These unpretending heroes long for action.
They like to feel their mettle, to realize that their chosen pro-
fession means help — life-saving ; that their every-day monotony
of discipline leads up to deeds of prowess in supreme moments.
Two men from each station are kept out on watch all night ;
a patrol consisting of four consecutive hours. When the dis-
tance is not too great, the patrolman goes to a half-way house,

Captain Valentine and his Crew, Monmouth Beach.

waits there for the watch from the next station, and exchanges
tickets with him as a proof that the full letter of the law has
been fulfilled.

Summer visitors to many of the popular beaches have no
adequate idea of their condition in the winter season. Patrol-
men have to wade through places where wind and tide are so
high that in their struggle to keep a footing they do not even

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5i8 Life at a Life-saving Station. [July,

know when they are passing the deserted hotels. If they cany
a lantern, it makes misleading lights and shadows, and most of
them prefer to accustom their eyes to the darkness. Men who

Life-Boat mounted on Carriage.

have had experience at sea before entering the service consider
shore work more detrimental to health, owing to the continuous
wading through sand and water, and the excessive perspiration
induced by the oil-silk suits which have to be worn as a protec-
tion to clothing.

It is always the aim of a keeper or captain to retain at his
station enough men for a boat-crew, in case there should be a
danger-signal from the water ; six being usually sufficient. The
life-boat in which they respond to any call, at any hour, in any
storm, is self-bailing and self-righting. Two valves underneath
it are opened by the pressure of the water which gets in from
above, and closed again by the pressure from without. The
crew provide themselves with lights, which may be burned either
to facilitate the work of rescue or to communicate with the
party they have left on the shore.

If the signalling when the wreck is reported shows it to be
within six hundred yards and in reach of the Lyle gun, a sav-
ing-line is fired to it and recourse is had to the famous breeches-
buoy before mentioned ; this consists of a circular cork life-
preserver attached to a pair of canvas knee-breeches. Three
ropes are used in the relief of a sinking ship — the hawser and
the whip-line connected with the shot-line. A small wooden

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1 897-] Life at a Life-saving Station. 519

tablet, called the tally-board, is always fastened to the shot-line
and fired along with it, having on one side directions in English
and on the other in French for securing the rope to some part

of the vessel. The fiery trail of rockets reveals the measures
taken by the life-saving crew, and if the crew in distress is
equally alert and present-minded, one by one they will be trans-

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S20 Life at a Life-saving Station, [July,

ported to dry land by means of the breeches-buoy, each trip
taking little more than three minutes.

If the ship is sinking too fast for her passengers to be taken
off singly in this way, a more ponderous arrangement, called

Wreck of Fishing Schooner *' Fortuna."

the life-car, is brought into service. This is a large cylindrical
boat, closed at the sides, something like that of Captain Nemo
in Jules Verne's story. Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea%
There is an opening on top large enough to admit one person
at a time, and five or six can be stowed away in it together,
and the lid tightly closed down on them. They obtain air
enough to breathe by means of some finely-drilled holes, as
they go across the lines, bumping up and down in the raging
surf for five or six minutes, until they are hauled in by the
powerful set of arms on the shore.

The almost superhuman efforts that have been made by
these crews will never be known. Many a brave, unselfish man
has gone to the verge of death, and then across the verge, so
simply, so quietly that his name remains unhonored and unsung
outside of his own limited circle. Like those priests and sisters
who live and die among lepers, with only an occasional Father
Damien brought to the knowledge of the world, they ac-
complish everything as a matter of course and in the ordinary^
line of duty. In one case, after a preternatural struggle in the
life-boat with a fearful sea for seven consecutive hours, when
the shore was regained at last, and all the shipwrecked saved,
the captain merely turned to his crew and said pleasantly:

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1 897-] Life at a Life-saving Station. 521

"Now, boys, straighten up the house and let's get out a
patrol ! ''

It is gratifying to know that the " boys " do have occasional
diversions in their hard lives. About once in a fortnight each
member of a crew has a chance to spend twenty-four hours
with his family, if he has one near by. The keeper may have
his with him in the summer at the station, where he is obliged
to reside at all seasons. In the long winter evenings there is

Wreck of German Steamship ** Gluckauf," 12 miles from Fire Island, 1893.

considerable time for reading, and the mess-room is kept warm
and comfortable, the Seamen's Friend Society providing books.
The boys have many a hearty laugh over impossible sea-tales
of wrecks and rescues ; the accounts of damsels who remain
beautiful with water dripping from their hair and their noses;
of sailors who swim with them through holes in coral reefs to
tropical islands, where obliging monkeys wait at table and
chocolate caramels drop from overhanging trees. These

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522 Life at a Life-saving Station. [July*

Life-boat returning from Wreck.

readers know how to appreciate the forethought of that
heroine of Frank Stockton's creation who wore a flannel petti-
coat to keep her warm in the water, and the adroitness of her
companion, who extracted a bologna sausage from her pocket at
a hungry moment, while her life-preserver kept her from sink-
ing. The novelist can perform feats which are beyond even
the Life-Saving Service.

About Christmas-time the neighbors around some of the
stations give the men a party — not wholly a surprise, for the
boats and buoys must be moved out before the musicians can
take possession of the boat-house. After a rousing dance they
all repair to the adjoining mess-room to partake of the supper
which the guests have provided.

By an act of Congress of August 3, 1894, the term of active
service on the Atlantic coast was prolonged. It now extends
from the first day of August until the first day of June, the
pay of surfmen being sixty dollars per working month ; the
seventh man, brought in the first of December for the worst
months, getting sixty-five, and the keepers, or captains, receiving
nine hundred per annum. These are appointed from the crews,

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i897-] Life at a Life-saving Station. 523

solely on their merits and record of usefulness. On the Pacific
coast and on the Great Lakes there has been no change in the
term of active service and wages.

All the men have the expense of their three uniforms — the
thick blue one with overcoat, the white duck suit for domestic
purposes, and the oil-silk overalls; an entire outfit costing its
owner thirty-five dollars. His mess costs him eight dollars a
month, and he shares the expense of a cook. Sometimes he
gets a chance to go fishing on his own account. When the
shipwrecked have to be entertained at the stations, government
allows twenty cents a meal for their board.

Uncle Sam is proud of his Life-saving Service, but he is
still disposed to be economical toward it in some directions.
He has spent millions in pensioning those who helped him to
destroy life, but he hesitates to show equal consideration for
those who have helped him to save it. Perhaps when arbitra-
tion takes the place of war civilization will take another great
leap forward, and an
ampler provisic
be made for tl
ers. At pres(
year's pay — in
ordinary cases
is given to a d
surfman, and
two years*
salary to his
wife or chil-
dren if he
dies in the
line of duty. *

The ser-
vice is the
product of
evolution. It

v^ .1 Wreck of *' Louis V. Place" off Lone Hill, L. L

admirable, far-reaching organization it is to-day by the fidelity
and breadth of vision of its superintendent, Sumner L Kimball,
and by the persistent advocacy of large-hearted congressmen who,
for once in their legislative careers, worked together irrespec-
tive of party affiliations and prejudices. A moment of divine
inspiration seems to have marked its inception, like the fall of
the apple to Newton, the motion of the pendulum to Galileo.

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524 Life at a Life-saving Station. [July*

In the winter of 1839 ^ young medical graduate, William
A. Newell, afterwards governor of New Jersey, saw a party of
villagers dragging from the surf the bodies of thirteen drowned

Wreck of British Steamship " Lamington " oj f Long Island, 1896.

persons, their wrecked brig being in sight on the bar only a
few rods from Long Beach. It came to Newell in a flash that
the disaster might have been averted if communication could
have been established between the shore and the brig at the
critical juncture. He began a series of experiments by firing
strings of different lengths from an old blunderbus ; the very
first attempt demonstrating to his satisfaction that a ball would
lead a string beyond the surf, and that when it had sunk the
line could be pulled taut. About nine-tenths of the wrecks
have always taken place within three hundred yards from shore.
This young man was not destined to renown as a physician ; he
was to labor in another sphere of humanitarian effort. From
that initial hour he never rested until he had matured a scheme
for the saving of life and property, and his election to Congress
gave him the best possible opportunity. The first resolutions
he offered were for the benefit of his native State, New Jer-
sey, asking for an appropriation for surf-boats, mortars, rockets,
and other apparatus to be kept at designated stations. As
might be expected, Mr. Newell had to go through a stage of

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1 897-] Life at a Life-saving Station. 525

being considered chimerical and quixotic, but eventually his
theories were so well exemplified that, after locating stations
on the Jersey and Long Island coasts, appropriations were
made for placing life-boats on parts of the coast of Rhode
Island, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and
Texas — eighty-two in all, and providing for their preservation.
Honorable William A. Newell has the distinction of being the
father of the Life-saving Service, not only in America but on
this planet. In centuries to come historians of every race
and country will trace it back to his name and give him its
glory.

Much of the early success of the service must be attributed
to the suggestions and labors of the officers of the revenue
marine ; but, unfortunately, a series of appalling disasters had to
convince our nation that its scope and usefulness must be en-
larged — in short, that Mr. Newell's achievement could not be al-
lowed to stand still. As time went on, the widely separated sta-

Drill with Life-boat.

tions on the coast became dilapidated, and the apparatus incom-
plete, rusty, and ineffective for want of proper care. The keepers,
receiving salaries of two hundred dollars a year, were usually
appointed for services rendered the party in power, and lived
away from the stations under their charge ; consequently they
were oftener a disadvantage to the shipwrecked than a help,
for they kept the keys and could not be found when the call
for aid came ! Nobody else had any authority, and finally some

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526 Life at a Life-saving Station. [July,

intrepid volunteer would have to break open the door in order
to obtain a boat and life-preserver to use in the rescue he
had undertaken.

It was Samuel Sullivan Cox, of New York, orator, statesman,
and humorist, who first turned the attention of Congress and
the public to the rescue of the shipwrecked by means of or-

Wreck on Lake Michigan.

ganized concerted help from the shore, urging an entire recon-
struction of the service, with adequate appropriations of money
for that purpose. An important step toward the end desired
was taken by the appointment of Mr. Sumner I. Kimball, from
the Bureau of Revenue Marine, to the position of General
Superintendent of the Life-Saving Service. He at once began
to apply practical business principles to the revised code and
morale that Cox and his confreres were inaugurating.

And so the work of evolution went on. Politics were elimi-
nated, regular crews appointed to assist the keepers, new sta-
tions built, improved appliances furnished, one appropriation
after another made by Congress.

Throughout his long term of twenty-five years in Congress Mr.
Cox never ceased to bear it on his mind and heart. His mem-
ory is cherished by the " boys," and among the older ones many
a lonely patrolman on his trackless midnight beat thinks with
gratitude of the long, hard fight for his welfare waged by the
genial humorist, who could be so deeply in earnest when occa-
sion moved him. In the later years of his busy life, Mr. Cox
said, in one of his most eloquent speeches : "What little I have
accomplished in connection with the Life-saving Service is sweet-
er than honey in the honeycomb. It is its own exceeding great
reward. It speaks to me in the voices of the rescued — ay, in

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I897-] Life at a Life-saving Station. 527

tears of speechless feeling; speaks of resurrection from death —

" ' In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false Hghts from the shore/ "

A number of other congressmen from both Houses are on
the roll of honor as workers for the service : Hamlin, Freling-
huysen, Stockton, Thurman, Hale, Dawes, Lynch, Hooper, and
Conger were some of the most prominent.

It is a grand, heroic subject. Most writers who begin with
praises of it are content to end with statistics as a more forci-
ble appeal to the mind of the reader than any rhetoric of their
own. A recent chronicler has estimated the present ratio of
the efficiency of the Life-saving Service as follows i

"The average loss of life per annum throughout the entire
domain of the service along the Atlantic and the Gulf from
Maine to Texas, along the Ohio River and the shores of the
Great Lakes, from California to the Strait of Fuca, is equal
now, with our increased commerce, to what used to occur on
the New Jersey and Long Island coasts alone, during the twenty
years preceding its organization. Formerly one out of every
twenty-nine on wrecked vessels perished ; now a hundred and
twelve out of a hundred and thirteen are saved. An amount
of property is also saved annually that exceeds many times the
cost of maintaining the whole service."

Life-boat going out.

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528 The Genius of James C. Mancan, Poet. [July,

THE GENIUS OF JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN,

POET.

HE knight on the title-page seems riding to the
" battlemented castle by the Maine," where the
" queenly," " lovely," " stately," " haughty," " no-
ble," " hapless," and finally *' wooden " Lady
Eleonora von Alleyn lived, moved, and became
transformed. The mockery of this production, or translation, is
very happily suggested in the picture, which in its manner is a
Mangan-like, saucy imitation of mediaeval painting. Perspective
is unnecessary, and this, oddly enough, appears to be the editor's
estimate of Mangan's presentation of the world within him, which
reflects the world without behind a magic vapor all his own.
There is some incisiveness in her analysis of his work, apd much
kindness — some sharp sayings proceeding from the judgment of
artistic sense with its responsibilities, but softened by the
graciousness of other sayings which a woman's taste knows how
to utter. The Study deserves great praise for placing before
us a singular conception of mind embodied in a vesture and
linked to accessories inseparable from it for evermore. The
poet Mangan, the soul Mangan, is cloaked, hatted, spectacled,
and umbrella-armed before us, moving like a shy ghost in day-
light streets, or hanging over books as he stands on the top of
library ladder-steps. So we have him in the memory hence-
forth, as we have Don Quixote. Thriftless poet with thine um-
brella, immortal knight on Rosinante, let them meet in that
ideal world which Berkeley's portcullis guards for the illus-
trious dead, and the not less illustrious — the "athanatoi" born
of poesy!

But the fair editor does not seem quite to have grasped all
the qualities of Mangan's work, and this we think is due to
some theory about his translations, genuine or feigned ; namely,
that he supplied to genuine translations embroidery of his own,
and that he palmed upon a much-enduring public his own in-
ventions as the renderings of other minds. If he did the latter,
barring the immorality, we say with Ned Poins, concerning his

* James Clarence Mangan. Selected Poems, with a Study by the Editor, Louise Imogea
Guiney. Boston : Lamson, Wolflfe & Co.

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1 897-] The Genius of James C. Mangan, Poet. 529

sister's marriage with Prince Hal, we " wish " the many-headed
" no worse luck."

It seems, on the surface, strange that verses of such power
and truth to life as " The Last of the Barmecides *' should not
have the small foundation in fact of an adaptation. Imitations
of Schiller, . Heine, and Goethe under the title of " After the
German " or " Translations from the German," have been sent
into the world and unmasked ; the first having nothing German
about them but mistiness, the last untraceable beyond an image
or a line which in more honest work would be called piracy.
** The Diver," by Lytton, is called a translation, yet it is said
that Lytton's characteristics are there and nothing else. Now,
on the contrary, there are lines, good judges say, as distinctly
Schiller's as any line in Coleridge's great translations of his
plays. Pope's Iliad is said to be by the author of " The Essay
on Man " himself, and not a rendering of Homer ; that it belongs
about as much to the Heroic Age of Greece as Addison's Cato,
in a bob- wig and knee-breeches, is Uticensis himself, who, in
early days in the Senate, when Rome was quivering with excite-
ment, threw back the billet-doux to Caesar with the word ** Sot."

In fact. Pope's Homer recalls, with a good deal of spirit.
Homer's characters and the scenes in which they moved, though
Pope himself might seem his least fit interpreter. The baldest
translation of the letter by which a school-boy ever " cribbed "
his class-work cannot kill the deathless, the "swift-footed," the
" king of men," the " man of many wiles." Thirty centuries
have decreed their apotheosis, and thirty more shall see them
living. We may not hear in " the loud resounding deep " the
onomatopeic boom of the sea, or see how Homer saw its dark
waves riding under their white crests at the summons of "Thra-
cian winds," but in men there is the reality of miction and the
truth of passion, and these can never be totally obscured even
by a translation. If this be correct, it may, moreover, be sug-
g^ested that ideation from book-images is not the same as the
idealization of facts of experience, or the results of introspec-
tion, preceding the work of that shaping Spirit of imagination
which lifts individual (eelings and emotions to the universal and
eternal, to the sympathy of all tongues and times. No better
illustration of the two processes can be had than in the Satur-
nian Age of Keats, and the Greek cast of thought in Shelley's
rendering of the " Cyclops." We shall say a word on this
presently, but applying the principles suggested, which are the
true canons of criticism to be used here, we think Mangan's

VOL. LXV.— 34

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530 The Genius of James C. Mangan, Poet. [July,

versions, if they carry the spirit of the original, are translations
in the truest sense — the poetic one. We are not speaking of
mere paraphrases ; we distinctly mean poetic equivalents in the
relation of original and version.

It is not the same — though the editor says so — as if
Mangan had laid laces, gold, and jewels on cloth of frieze.
The figure of Christopher Sly, with his shock hair, face and
hands of tinkerdom, revealed in the dress and amid the sur-
roundings of a man of the highest rank, is sufficiently incon-
gruous, and may serve to illustrate such performance as this
would be. But such work is not art in any sense ; it cannot
be understood why it should be attempted, unless on the theory
that Mangan's taste was so debauched that all that was spiritual
in him had been extinguished. The editor has justly seized on
the quality of his work in cynical moods, when she praises
Lady Eleonora von Alleyn. Even the subtle mockery hinted
in the variations of epithet — though a mere perfume, a breath of
other quality than the words teach, — even this intangible
mockery has not escaped her ; then why not infer a purpose
in similar work? He is not laughing at himself, not poking
fun at the enlightened public ; but there is a sort of Mephis-
tophelean joy in his conception of this German Clara Vere
de Vere, and he does her more than poetic justice — such jus-
tice as Puck would execute by command of Oberon. She
is a real object to him ; she is so peculiarly unamiable, cross
as a disappointed vestal who would be queen of hearts, he cannot
tolerate her, and so with a narrowness of heart, like the school-
boy who is cruel through love of mischief rather than know-
ledge, a sort of childish petulance, sweetly unreasonable, he
delights in crystallizing her, immortalizing her, by a punishment
not exemplary, but simply suitable in his mood. At the same
time this punishment is in keeping with the inner meaning of
Riickert, even though the latter should be disposed, as the
gifted editor thinks, to hand the fine ballad to his "friend
Mangan.'' Would he also hand him " Nature more than
Science?" in which Mangan so beautifully renders his shepherd
whose

"... pipe is but a leaf,
Yet there, above 'that stream.
He plays and plays, as in a dream.
One air, that steals away the senses like a thief."

Where did Mangan get the fury that rages in "The Kara-
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1 897-] The Genius of James C. Mangan, Poet. 531

manian Exile," mingled with undertones of home-sickness
almost Swiss in their softness? Is it asking Mangan : What is
Hecuba to him that he should weep for her? when the exile
tells us:

" Troops were few in Erzeroum,
Karaman, O Karani^n !
Their fiercest came from Erzeroum ;
They came from Ukhbar's palace dome ;
They dragged me forth from thee, my home,

Karaman !
Thee, my own, my mountain home,

Karaman !
In life and death my spirit's home,
Karaman, O Karaman ! "

We think not. There is the note that tells of wrong ; it
cannot be mistaken, it is not a fancy like ** A Vision of
Connaught in the Thirteenth Century"; it must have sounded
from some heart before it was echoed in Mangan's verse. Like
" Dark Rosaleen," it is idealized experience and not mere
fancy moulding book-impressions or pale reveries, or conjur-
ing up, by a dramatic charlatanism, the spectres of men and the
stage properties of dress and scene. The pun on Hafiz proves
nothing, or perhaps rather proves, our contention that the
poems purporting to be translations from Oriental languages
were at least adaptations.

To return to what we have been drawing from the instances
of Keats and Shelley to serve as canons for examination, we
at once say that such reality as we find in Mangan's " Dark
Rosaleen " we have in the " Cyclops " translated from Euripi-
des ; such unaided operation of fancy as the " Vision of Con-
naught " affords we possess in the Greek life and scenery re-
flected in the poems of Keats. We think every reader has ex-
perienced the distinction. In the " Cyclops," however free the
rendering, we sit down and listen under Sicilian skies to the
cynicism of Silenus, about whose unadulterated selfishness there
is no mistake, but which is perfectly amusing at the same
time. We see the Satyrs watching

"... the Maenades whose white feet
To the music glance and fleet."

We enter the cave with Ulysses ; we realize his danger from the
Cyclops' fury and strength, and can only hope that his pro-

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532 The Genius of James C. Maatgan, Poet. [July,

found craft will open a way for his escape. This vivid sympathy
is not felt with the purely imaginative characters of "Pro-
metheus Unbound," in which Shelley tries to imitate -/Eschylus;
but such a sympathy would accompany the action through
every scene of " Prometheus Bound," if he had translated it.
A great poet is the best ijiterpreter of a great poet, no matter
how unliteral he may be, if he has taken the mould and form
of the time from his original. What is missed in Keats is the
indwelling in the old world of the golden age. Beautiful as
Endymion is, life and all about it is plastic art set in scenery ;
brush and chisel peopling the young world of the golden age.
He does not dwell in that young world with the beautiful
shapes amid the groves and by the streams of which he speaks.
They are before us as though we were passing through a picture
gallery dedicated to them, or, it may be, standing on the steps
of a temple placed in the wide open of a forest, and saw in
the glades the flash of flying fauns or the slow, solemn pace
of a procession of virgins with Diana at their head, coming
up a vista.

All this we get and more, for Keats surrounds one with the
matchless blue of the Grecian sky, the russet richness here,
the olive-green there in the forest shade. We feel with a keen
pleasure the things around us ; we cannot quite articulate our
longings; there is something we want which picture or statue
will not give, not even the air with which he surrounds us, as,
save Homer, no other poet does — which Tennyson tries and
fails to give. There is a touch of sadness over the repose,
beneath the shaded brightness of the blue sky, and folded round
as we are by the lucent softness of an atmosphere of illuminated
shadow while we gaze on figures of Greek grace and beauty —
grace and beauty and a strange solemnity as well. The charm
is wonderful, but there is no life of human passion in this beau-
ty and grace and awe ; it is the same wherever we see man or
maid : we can only think of them as hero and nymph, whether
they are near us, leaning against white pillars of the shrine, or
some way off in front of a giant oak of far-spreading branches,
standing in the penumbra where the white light upon the sward
begins to darken toward the inner depths of shadow ; but there
is nothing of the joy, the passion, the sorrow, and the love
that make the moods of life.

It does not meet the point to say Keats lacks the self-re-
vealing power, and so his characters are not vivid in the energy
of feeling, like those of Homer or iEschylus or Sophocles, of

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1 897-] The Genius of James C. Mangan, Poet. 533

Dante and Shakspere and Scott ; but they have a reality of their
own, a truth of the highest character in their appeal to culti-
vated taste.

The explanation lies, as we have already said, in the differ-
ent sources of impressions. No one will deny that Shelley was
more purely imaginative than Keats, but Cenci is as terrible a
reality, though of a different order, as CEdipus. The parallel
between both is sufficient for our purpose — the power of pro-
jecting a being upon the stage which fascinates one by its
incredible wickedness and daring, so that you mentally look
down from the honored gray head to see if the feet be cloven,
while the face wrinkles with a sneer at your disappointment.
It is a great creation, whose place in the life of the other
characters, amid the accompaniments of scene and time, is set
with the inspiration of genius. The same horrible fascination
is exercised by CEdipus, though the[ moral significance is as far
away as pole from pole from the hideous tragedy of Cenci.
Cruel and capricious gods, or blind, inexorable circumstances
moving from a Fate which, like Nature, knows no remorse, are
the cause of an agony Titanic in intensity and struggle ; but at
the moment when our strained sympathy is about to give way,
from the desolated heart goes forth solicitude for his children
so pathetic that heart and imagination are taken captive.

Then it is not so much in qualities of the fancy as in the
source itself of the impressions which are the poet's material,
that the difference of effects is to be sought. We could hardly
find anything more apposite to this than Mangan's translation
from Goethe, " The Fisherman.'' The higher azure of imagina-
tion that belongs to the supreme art that has its inspiration in
nature knows no difficulty. Ages, cities of men, antres vast,
and the green caves of the sea are equally accessible. Mangan
translates this poem with an ease and power which we doubt
he has ever used in original work, as may be judged from one
of the verses in which the " woman " of the sea lures the fish-
erman to her arms :

" The moon, the sun, their travel done, come down to sleep in
ocean caves ;
They reascend their glorious thrones with doubled beauty
from the waves."

There is a gem, " And Then No More," from Riickert, others
from Korner, the well-known ** Mariner's Bride " from Camoens,
and one we miss from Heine, a clause of a line from which, as

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534 The Genius of James C. Mangan, Poet. [July,

we remember well, rang like the clash of swords in a speech in
the House of Commons some years ago.

We close this notice by again thanking Miss Guiney for the
study she has presented. Though we thought that she judged
Mangan by principles of criticism of an arbitrary rather than
a fixed character, resting on facts of human nature and the
theory of the beautiful, we still were bound to admit the taste
and skill with which, according to her own canons, she judged
his work. We cannot agree with the opinion that Mangan was
no translator, though probably he was unduly guided, or rather
ruled, by a sort of reckless spirit which might be started by-
some chance association in the work he was translating. Her
complaint, that he could not rein his drolleries even in the
presence of Goethe, may not be quite so just as would appear
at the first blush. If we do not mistake, there was in Goethe
at least the suggestion of wild humor familiar in German
drinking songs and students* ways. This would account for the
seeming irreverence towards Goethe, as it would for the sayings
and doings of very great people indeed. The whistling of
" At the Death " by Bismarck, as the method of keeping his
promise to Thiers that he would not communicate the treaty for
the surrender of Paris for a few days, offers a specimen from
real life of the moods that find expression in Mephistopheles,
and of which, we fear, queer, erratic, half-despairing child of
genius, Mangan, had a sort of diabolic appreciation that gave
zest to life.

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I897-] Historic Relics of the "Lost Ten Tribes" 535

HISTORIC RELICS OF THE "LOST TEN TRIBES."

[NY one attempting a study of American antiquities
will discover many ill-defined and ill-classified
curiosities, whose origin and significance are alike
obscure. We have many sketches of notable locali-
ties and historic events, whose interest is due to
almost incessant wars between civilized adventurers and savage
tribes, for possession of the land ; or between rival colonies,
for the sovereignty of a country which neither of the contes-
tants could justly claim. These are historic places and events
because their story has been told. But there is another and
more numerous class of monuments, relating to remoter periods
of time, whose authentic history can never be rehearsed, and
whose significance is subjected to preconceived and very doubt-
ful theories, or left to vague conjecture. Their origin and his-
toric relations are uncertain or unknown. Yet we have descrip-
tions of such prehistoric monuments extending, with frequent
intervals, from north to south, and from east to west, over the
wide territories of North and South America. In New Mexico
and Arizona, old Mexico and Central America, and the northern
countries of South America, architectural remains of prehistoric
time have long been known. The well-known ruins of ancient
cities, as well as those more recently discovered, in Arizona,
are as remarkable for the massive blocks of wrought stone of
which their temples or palaces were built as for the grand pro-
portions of the structures themselves.

WHO HOLDS THE KEY?

Who were the builders ? Who can tell their story ? The
colossal ruins of Mexico, Central and South America, afford ex-
amples of sculptured effigies and emblems which explorers have,
more or less accurately, described. But the descriptions arc
like those of long abandoned islands in unfrequented seas, whose
geography is undetermined, and whose old ruins are only monu-
ments of the unknown. The names of those to whom such re-
lics are ascribed are only names, unless we have some clue to
their connection with historic events, or with the tribes that oc-
cupied the country when European adventurers first came to
America. To say that "the Chickemecs and Nahuas were the
first inhabitants of America ; that the Toltecs preceded the

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536 Historic Relics of the " Lost Ten Tribes:' [July,

Aztecs and built the massive structures whose ruins are so nu-
merous in the central regions of the continent ; that the Olmecs
and Xicalancas migrated to Mexico from the direction of Flo-
rida, about eighteen centuries ago/* tells very little of the affilia-
tions of historic to prehistoric times ; or of the relations of the
builders of pyramids and temples to the Pueblos and the noma-
dic tribes that yet linger on the confines of modern civilization.
Writers of American archaeology give many imperfect ac-
counts of curious antiquities; of ancient mounds and fortifica-
tions, and of the ruins of massive structures which challenge
admiration. And from such incomplete and questionable data
they form crude theories that multiply the perplexities of those
who grope among old ruins to learn something of their builders
— of the races that peopled our continent before the discoveries
of Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci.

BACK TO THE FOUNTAIN-HEAD.
It is easier to talk vaguely of the Mound-builders, the Chick-
emecs, Toltecs, and Aztecs, as successive races dominant in the
trentral region of America, than to trace the obscure vestiges
of prehistoric peoples to their origin ; or to compile a true his-
tory of tribes whose genuine traditions are involved with the
fables of imposture and superstition. We have fragments of
history, or tradition, relative to tribes who came from the North,
the North-west, and " from the direction of Florida "; as if,
like swarms of insects from stagnant waters, they had risen
from earth or sea in some far distant regions of the north,
and, for reasons unexplained, directed their nomadic march
toward Mexico. These historic fragments note specific differ-
ences of tribes rather than the evidences of their generic
unity. We are confused by a multitude of names — uncon-
nected and disordered links of history — instead of an un-
broken chain. Incidental facts and observations which might
afford a clue to the labyrinth of ancient monuments are, per-
haps, deemed too insignificant for even a passing notice. The
observer who poises over or above the earth may see its oceans
and continents; its great lakes and rivers ; its mountains, and the
wide valleys through which the rivers flow to drain the lands of
half a continent ; but he will fail to discern, from so great a dis-
tance, the little fountains from which divergent streamlets run,
or the thousand rills that swell the streamlet to the flowing river.
He sees the round world ; but not the silent actions of that
creative power that, in the beginning, " gathered together the
waters of the sea into one place, and made the dry land appear."

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I897-] Historic Relics of the ''Lost Ten Tribes:' 537

The turbid Mississippi, and the clear, cold waters of the
St. Lawrence and the Red River of the North, are as unlike
as the brutalities of savage life and the amenities of civilization.
The mouths of these great rivers are more than a thousand
miles apart, and each more than that wide space from the high
plateau from which their waters flow south, east, and north, to
the Gulf, the Atlantic, and the Arctic sea. The Indians called
such localities — at the head-waters of divergent rivers — " Mini,
Akapan Kaduza ": or, where the waters run different ways.

Only the Tower of Babel, in the valley of the Euphrates,
could be, for the different races of man, what Mini, Akapan
Kaduza is to the rivers of our western land. But here we have
no Babel whence the tribes diverged ; and so we search among
ancient ruins to find such shreds of history as may yet cling
to broken monuments of the past, and multiply classes of his-
toric or prehistoric peoples whose end and origin are alike ob-
scure. We have Mounds and the Mound-builders ; pyramids
and temples of the Toltecs and Aztecs ; relics of the Chickemecs
and Nahuas ; who all came from — nowhere ; built cities whose
colossal ruins challenge our admiration ; and were succeeded
by the Pueblos and the nomadic, savage tribes of the moun-
tains and prairies, who also came from nowhere, and will soon
disappear before the advancing tide of Christian civilization !

WHY CHRISTIANITY HAS NOT MEANT CIVILIZATION.

There is something more curious than even the indications
of Indian relics in the fact that Christian nations, in four cen-
turies of contact with these savage tribes, have failed to in-
duce them to adopt the habits of civilized life. Catholic mis-
sionaries — Franciscans and Jesuits, and, in later years, the Oblate
Fathers — had notable success in effecting their conversion ; and
their ultimate civilization seemed assured. . But the rivalries
of discordant creeds weakened and, in great measure, destroyed
their influence and left the poor Indians a prey to the ra^
pacity of those who sought to civilize the landy by extermin-
ating its savage occupants.

The signal failure of a government claiming to be the
guardian of the Indians to effect their civilization, may well be
reckoned among historic relics of the land, and the war of
races for its sole possession. Our philanthropists excuse the
futility of their pretended benevolence with the oft-repeated
falsehood: "The Indian cannot be civilized; he is not only
untamed, but untamable."

To class him with the wild animals of the forest and the

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prairie may seem to excuse our cruel injustice in his regard,
and to facilitate the acquisition of his lands ; but a race that
has produced such men as Tecumseh, King Philip of the
Pokanokets, Red Jacket, John Ross, and hundreds of 'whom
these were the types, is as capable ot civilization as were our
Celtic and Saxon ancestors, or any of the hordes that over-
ran the Roman. Enkpire and became the foumi^rs of modern
Europe. Well may the remnants of the race ba> clasi^^ with
our historic relics !

Whatever may be the cause, the fact remains ttoit the
tribes which peopled America wheM- Europcansr began to colonize
the country were never civilized. They had no literature, no
historic records, no general traditions to supply their place.
Our own history gives no authentic account of permanent
colonization prior to the sixteenth century, nor of English
colonies before the beginning of the seventeenth. Whatever
may be learned of the origin of the Indian tribes must depend,
in great measure, on other evidence than that culled from their
vague and mythical traditions; though the concurrence of what
is evidently the basis of some vague tradition with authentic
fact, may sometimes be accepted as historic truth. That other
evidence may be found in physical characteristics, languages,
usages, and habits of life, combined ; but cannot be developed
by their elaborate discussion because it is not contained in
either, but in the concurrent evidence of all.

WILLIAM PENN'S CONJECTURE.

When William Penn first came to America he was so struck
by the Jewish countenances of the Indians, and the resemblance
of some of their customs to those recorded of the Jews, that
he conjectured — as have many others — that they might be
descendants of the lost Ten Tribes. "An Englishman," from
whose Account of a Journey in the United States^ about
seventy years ago, this statement is taken, " failed to discover
their facial resemblance to the Hebrew race," though he saw
a youth among the Seneca Indians whom, if he had met in
Houndsditch, or any other street of London which they haunt,
he " should have taken for one of them." Penn mentioned cer-
tain prevalent Indian customs as similar to those of the Jews;
but "Xn Englishman " discredits the inference from this, ** because
the same customs are found in one district of Africa." He
seems to overlook the fact that many Jews are found there too.

There are other indications of the affiliation of the Indian
tribes to the Hebrew race.

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HEBREW CUSTOMS IN NEW MEXICO.

When going up the valley of the Rio Grande, in New
Mexico, many years ago, my attention was drawn to the flocks
of sheep and goats, and their pastores^ gr »hepherd-boys. These
little shepherds wore neither hats nor shoes. Their only gar-
ment was a tunic, reaching a little below the knee and confined
by a girdle, from which depended a small pouch or scrip. A
quiver, with bow and arrows, hung athwart the shoulders ; and
the right hand held a sling. Presently, a stone from the scrip
was hurled forward toward the right or left, to make the flock
swerve to the left or right. It was impossible not to recognize
little " David, the son of Jesse " ; and one Ynight have almost
expected to behold Goliath, the Philistine, coming to defy the
children of Israel. The portraiture of the scene described in
the Book of Samuel was too exact to be ascribed to accident ;
and, for the first time, it occurred to me that David bore a
sling, not for the purpose of slaying bears or lions — or even
Philistines — but to guide and control th^ flock; and that these
little shepherds, of a kindred race, dwelling in a country not
unlike the pastoral regions of Judea, very naturally continued
to re-enact the scenes described in sacred history.

When one is persuaded to accept some definite theory to
harmonize passing events with historic legends, he is prone to find
" tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,*' to attest its truth.
So, on leaving the little pastores and their flocks in the upper
valley of the Rio Grande del Norte, I was prepared to view
other incidents of travel in the light of Bible history.

Those acquainted with the topography of New Mexico are
aware that its only arable lands border the Rio Grande, its
tributaries, and some smaller streams. Even there, crops are
grown by means of irrigation, because the growing season is
absolutely without rain enough to moisten the soil, and in
those high altitudes — seven to eight thousand feet above the
sea — there is very little dew. The inhabitants, a mixed race of
Indian and Spanish blood, and Pueblo Indians, depending
chiefly on the products of the soil for their subsistence, were
confined to the valleys. Near every ranchero dwelling, or farm-
house, there was a circular enclosure some fifty feet in diameter
and fifteen to twenty feet in height. It was formed of round
timber, or very stout poles, set firmly in the ground, making a
rude stockade. I supposed these enclosures to be defensive
works provided against incursions of hostile Indians from the
mountains ; but they were threshing-floors / The wheat, when

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fully ripe and dried in the rarefied atmosphere of New Mexico,
was thrown into these circular enclosures, where the trampling of
goaded cattle did the work of the threshing-machine or the flail.
" Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that ireadeth out the corn:*
The Indians, both in the East and the West, were accustomed,
at a certain season, to leave their villages or towns, and congre-
gate in some appointed place to indulge in unlicensed revelry.
In the East it was the Green-Corn Dance ; in the far West, a
saturnalia under some other name ; in both, a perversion of the
Feast of Tabernacles, in which only its gross abuses were retained.

INDIAN PHARISAISMS.

There is, or was, another observance of some Indian tribes
that seems like a curious relic of an ancient rite whose signifi-
cance, long forgotten, might help to trace a degraded people
to their origin. There is one tribe — perhaps more than one —
among the Indians of the far West which, with abundance of
food, has been known to fast for two or three successive
days because, while crossing an arid desert, it had barely
enough water to allay thirst, and its people would not eat with
unwashed hands I As they were not a cleanly people — in fact,
they were noted for personal filthiness — one may well conclude
that some religious sentiment, real or superstitious, was the
motive of such rigid abstinence. They observed a tradition of
their ancestors. What was its origin?

When, many years ago, I was stationed at Detroit, the late
venerable Dr. Pitcher, formerly a distinguished surgeon in the
ariTiy, but then an old resident of that town, knowing that I
was interested in local antiquities and other curious relics,
brought to me for inspection an old coin or medal, then re-
cently discovered somewhere in the interior of Michigan.

In sinking a well the workmen had dug through strata of
loam and gravel, and come upon a bed of dry, compact clay.
They had reached a depth of some forty feet when a large lump,
tossed from the mouth of the well, was broken into several
pieces by its fall, and exposed a small disc of metal adhering
to one of the parts. The disc was the old coin, or medal. It
was rather smaller than a silver half-dollar ; but of what metal
I am unable to say. For, though not corroded by rust, but as
smooth as when it came from the mint, it was blackened by
long contact with the clay in which it had been embedded for
centuries. I did not feel at liberty to test it with the file;
but, from its weight and blue-black color, suppose it was of
bronze. The raised letters or characters on either face were

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i897-] Historic Relics of the ''Lost Ten Tribes:* 541

thought to be Hebrew — which I was unable to read. When
shown to the rabbi of the synagogue in Detroit, he pro-
nounced it to be " ancient Hebrew — or Hebrew before points
were used." And he was unable to explain its legend. But he
was sure that it was a Semitic coin of great antiquity. Its
great antiquity was certified by the evidence of geology.

WHENCE CAME THEY?

We would not hastily accept any theory concerning "the
lost tribes." Nor can it be supposed that every tribe that
helped to people America before the sixteenth century was
descended from the Jews. But we may well suppose that a
contingent of the Hebrew race passed from Asia to America
ages before the date of its discovery by Columbus or the
Northmen. Some accident, or some great convulsion of ter-
restrial nature, such as, perhaps, changed the earth's axis of
revolution, and buried the living mastodon and the bones of
animals indigenous in the temperate and torrid zones beneath
the frozen earth of the Arctic region, might well account for
more wonderful discoveries than that of an old Semitic coin
beneath the drift of southern Michigan.

But it was not a convulsion of nature that gave to some of
the Indians the facial outlines of the Semitic race, that in-
duced them to endure long and painful fasting in observance
of a Jewish custom or religious precept, or that made the
rude agriculture of the Pueblos, and the pastoral care of their
flocks, only a repetition of the labors of the husbandmen and
the shepherds of three thousand years ago; Any one of these
incidents that indicate a possible relation to the Hebrew race
might occur from some accidental cause. But their concur-
rence under changed conditions of life, at periods so remote^
and in countries so widely separated, should exclude all rea-
sonable doubt.

WELSH REMAINS ON THE UPPER MISSOURI.

There is, or lately was, about the head-waters of the Missouri,
a small tribe of Mandans^ whose language, knowledge of cer-
tain arts unknown to other tribes, and some vague tradition of
their origin, distinguished them from their neighbors. As a dis-
tinct tribe they no longer exist. The few remaining Mandans are
merged in other tribes to which they were allied. Their lan-
guage contains many words which are distinctly Welsh. Their
tribal name — Mandan — is Welsh, and signifies color, or red
color. They have always been skilled in the production of

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542 Historic Relics of the " Lost Ten Tribes:' [July,

brilliant dyes, and in the manufacture of those glass beads
with which the Indians decorate their persons, and ornament
their moccasins, and pouches for holding tobacco and kinni-
kinic. A bunch of Mandan beads was worth five times as
much as those supplied by white traders among them. These
people had a tradition to the efifect that their fathers came
over the great lake, and were cast upon its shore far to
the south-west of their country; and in the course of years
made their way to their western home around the head-waters
of the Missouri. Though allied by intermarriages with dififer-
ent tribes, they always have preserved distinctive traces of
their Celtic origin.

There is historic record of the sailing of two Welsh ships
{sic)y that were driven by violent winds far to the south-west
from the British islands, and never returned. This was about
eight or nine centuries ago — or about the period of the Nor-
man conquest of England. In effect, the Mandan tradition of
the time and place of landing of their fathers who came over
the great water, would at least offer no contradiction of the
theory that the stranded Welshmen were the progenitors — the
Pilgrim Fathers — of the Mandans.

Words and phrases of Welsh or Manx cannot have been
formed by chance in the language of an Indian tribe two
thousand miles west of the Atlantic ; nor need we suppose
that one of those freaks of nature to which some people are
prone to ascribe what they cannot explain, gave to the Man-
dans an intuitive knowledge of arts, and a language to which
the neighboring tribes were utter strangers.

Some of the idiosyncrasies of particular tribes are, in fact,
characteristics of the race from which they sprang. Could we
trace them to their different ancestries, as in the case of the
Mandans, the Mexicans of Spanish and Indian blood, or those
of French and Indian descent in the North, we should, per-
haps, find the Hebrew element as widely diffused among the
Indian tribes as among the civilized nations of Europe and
America.

A POSSIBLE MAGYAR KINSHIP.

In the straight, black hair, the high cheek-bone, and olive
complexion we recognize the marks of kindred between our
savage tribes, the Tartars of northern Asia, and the Magyars
of Hungary. And here, if physical resemblance be deemed in-
adequate proof of kindred, a comparison of the languages of
North American Indians, eastern Siberians, and the Magyars

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I897-] Historic Relics of the ''Lost Ten Tribes" 543

of Hungary make doubt almost impossible. An intelligent
English traveller, Paget, in his account of travels in British
America, Siberia, and Hungary, gives a long list of words in
the languages of those countries so widely separated, I think
he has given nearly a hundred words of the same meaning, and
so nearly identical in sound that to doubt their common origin
would be absurd. A single example of a word in common use
in our Northern and New England States may not go far to
prove our theory, but will serve to illustrate its argument.

We have on our tables, in summer, a preparation of Indian
corn and beans, called " succotash." All New-Englanders know
it; and that the name, as well as the dish itself, is derived
from the Indians. During our Civil War a Hungarian captain
of artillery, serving with my commander in Florida, chanced
to dine at my mess. Hearing some one ask for " succotash/'
he almost jumped from his chair, declaring that the word was
the Magyar name for precisely the same preparation of maize
and beans. " Well, captain," some one replied, " I always sus-
pected that the Magyars and our Indians were kindred peoples —
cousins at the least ; now I know it." The facial evidence is
too strong to be doubted by those familiar witli the lineaments
of the Tartar races.

Two or three years after the arrival of Kossuth and other
Hungarian refugees in this country, I was on a visit to ray
brother, then a practising lawyer in Chicago. A room adjacent
to his private office was occupied by his son and a Latin tutor.

The latter was introduced as Major B , a Hungarian officer

who had served on the stafif of one of the Hungarian leaders.
When we had left the room, one of our party jestingly asked
if the tutor might not be an impostor. " For," he added, " if he
is not a half-breed Ojibway or Ottawa Indian, I never saw one."

LIKENESSES AS IMPORTANT AS DIFFERENCES.

To suppose that our Indian tribes are all descended from
Hungarians, Tartars, and Jews would be as absurd as to deny
the essential unity of the human race ; yet our archaeologists
are sometimes so intent on the classification of tribes and fami-
lies, in reference to such differences as time and the vicissitudes
of human life have wrought, that they disregard the clearest
evidences of their common origin. But no truthful history of a
nation or a family could be possible if only the differences of
its component members were of record. In some countries of
Europe, where the peasantry rarely stray beyond the near

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544 Historic Relics of the ''Lost Ten Tribes:' [July,

neighborhood of their birthplace, those dwelling in districts ten
miles distant from each other speak different dialects; this is
notably true of Belgium. In England, the dialects of Lanca-
shire, Yorkshire, and Devonshire differ so widely from each
other that they might well be counted as different languages.
If classified by their differences, they are three nations; if by
what is the common characteristic of the three, the roots of
significant words and their arrangement, they are one people.

TALLAHASSEE RELICS.

In a brief sketch of service in Florida in 1838-9, published
in The Catholic World for February, 1892, there is a par-
tial description of prehistoric remains then existing in the
neighborhood of Tallahassee. An old fort and covered way,
and traces of a large town buried, but preserved, under what
seemed to be the "forest primeval"; bits of ancient pottery —
sometimes unbroken — resembling the old fabrics of Mexico and
Central America, were discovered by the ploMgh. And reference
is made to other relics, of ancient but unknown people, found
at intervals between Florida and the Mississippi valley; and
thence to the country of the Aztecs and Toltccs, where massive
ruins remain tp serve as monuments of races which, else, were
known only by the narratives of their Spanish conquerors.
These scattered relics might be of more interest to the collector
of curios than to the historian, but for their accordance with
the Mexican tradition, that the Xicalapcaa and Nahuas contri-
buted to swell the population and ppwer of Mexico ages before
its conquest by Hernando Cortez. " They came from the direc-
tion of Florida about eighteen centuries ago/'

Among the monuments of ancient occupation, such as the
pyramids and massive ruins of the central regions of America,
the mounds and old earth-works in the valley of the Mississippi
and its tributaries — notably in the Ohio valley — as well as in
isolated places on the sea-coast and the shores of the great
lakes, we have found inscriptions upon the rocks, and else-
where in sheltered positions, which, could they be deciphered,
would probably throw some light upon the history of the
Indian tribes ; and perhaps upon that of those early voyagers
who, by accident or design, landed on our shores.

ROCK WRITINGS.

On the south shore of Kelley's Island, in Lake Erie, and
some ten miles west of Sandusky City, there is a large sienitic

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1 897-] Historic Relics. 545

rock, two of whose faces are nearly covered by an incised
inscription in characters more like alphabetic writing than what
are called hieroglyphics. Whatever they are in form, they
doubtless had some meaning, which, by comparison with similar
inscriptions in other localities, and with those ancient records
which the learned antiquaries of other countries have been
able to decipher, might prove a key to some of the obscurities
in the history of the Indians; or, perhaps, tell something of
an antecedent people.

Such inscriptions on the rocks are not of frequent occur-
rence, but are found on the sea-shore of New England — where
they have sometimes been credited to the Northmen, who have
also left such evidence of their visits to our coasts — and on
the shores of the upper lakes, where our Indians have dwelt
for ages, and where their predecessors wrought implements of
native copper ages before our people knew of its existence.
As the frail vessels of Thorfinn and Eric the Red could not
have ascended the falls of Niagara, whatever inscriptions may
be found on the shores of the great lakes must be credited to
other hands.

NOBODY cares!

In north-western Texas, a few miles east of the Rio
Grande, are several caves whose walls are partially cov-
ered with rude inscriptions in colored earths. They may
have no historic significance, or they might afford a key to
some of the obscurities of Indian history or of prehistoric
peoples. How long they have existed on those sheltered walls,
where neither rain nor wind could efface their record — if,
indeed, they have any significance — we cannot tell, for no one
has yet attempted to explain their meaning. My guide said, in
reply to my inquiry : " I suppose the Indians who took the
trouble to do all that writing knew what they meant by it ; but
they are all dead and gone — and nobody cares what that was."
There spake the great American people !

Ceramic relics of those ancient tribes — possibly of those who
" eighteen centuries ago came from the direction of Florida " —
are lost or broken, and perhaps thrown upon a highway, or
used to fill a ditch. They were relics of a people who had
passed away ; but ** nobody cared for that." The well-marked
site of an ancient city, and an old fort of prehistoric time,
have been ploughed and planted with corn and cotton ; for no-
body cared for them.

VOL. LXV.— 35

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best novels, but what was wanting to make them perfect was
the infusion of the lofty ideal and heroic devotion. In the Ro-
mance of a Jesuit Mission* the author has utilized, with a high
appreciation of its value, much of this material, and has given
us a story of considerable interest. She selects as the special
scene of her Romance the missions among the Hurons, and per-
chance in all the Relations there were no more brilliant instances
of heroic devotion and single-eyed missionary zeal than those we
find portrayed in the lives of the eighteen priests who were the
master-spirits of that series of missions in what is now Simcoe
County, Ontario. The martyrdom of the brave-hearted Br^beuf
and the gentle Lalemant is well described in the book, and
though the author is not a Catholic, yet she does not fail to
measure with the proper standards the intense love of souls and
the devotion to highest ideals that led these heroic men to
sacrifice home and the refinements of civilized society and to
embrace with courage, and indeed willing eagerness, the martyr's
death in the wilderness.

But though there is, all through, an evident sympathy with
her subject, and a desire to be honest and fair, yet it seems
impossible for one without the faith to understand motives and
to interpret actions at their real value. Leon de Charolais,
the hero of the story, is an impossible character. His mother
requires him to solemnly vow to her before her death that he
will serve God in the sanctuary, rather than serve his country
in the camp. In obedience to his vow he becomes a Jesuit,

* Romance o/ a Jesuit Mission. By M. Bourchier Sanford. New York: Baker, Taylor
&Co.

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1897O Talk about New Books. 547

but all the time his heart is in the world ; he, however, tries hard
to keep his feet in the ways of rectitude. His superiors see his
half-hearted service and send him to the wilds of America to
get him out of harm's way. But even here a most beautiful
maiden falls across his path, and the struggles of his heart to
preserve its fidelity to its vows, woven in and out with its
leanings towards the beautiful maiden, constitute the ** romance."
In the first place, no Catholic mother would exact of her son
a solemn vow to be a priest, for she understands that .no one
can take on himself such a burden unless he be called as
Aaron was, and in no case, unless there be a divine vocation,
would the taking of such a rash vow be looked upon, for an
instant as the impelling motive to sacred orders. Moreover,
Protestant as she is, the author does not appreciate the bind-
ing force of the vows of a Jesuit scholastic. They constitute
a diriment impediment to marriage. De Charolais could never
get into such impossible states of mind and still preserve his
rectitude of conscience ; so the chapter on the temptation, one
of the strongest in the book, loses its motif.

Moreover, the allusion to the confessional all through the
book is a misapprehension of the Catholic spirit. It is con-
sidered simply as a means, probably devised by human shrewd-
ness, of worming out secrets in order the better to retain the
mastery over confiding hearts, for some selfish purpose or other.
It is easy enough for any non-Catholic to know that only sins
committed are matter for the confessional, and the bare, bald
sin stated simply, bereft of all personal allusion and particularly
of any circumstance that would inculpate others, is all that is
expected or can be demanded in the confessional ; and, more-
over, if facts of personal history are learned, of what service
could they be ? A confessor could never use such knowledge
in any way outside the confessional. It does seem a pity that
such intimate knowledge, so easily obtainable, is not acquired by
Protestant writers of such good will as the author before they
venture upon the ground of Catholic teaching and practice in
writing fiction. Many other flaws could be picked in what is,
on the whole, a very charming narrative. But, notwithstanding
these, the class of readers among whom this book will circulate
will be greatly edified by the recitals of heroic devotion of brave
missionaries, and will learn that in the garden of the true
church there grow some of the richest and rarest flowers that
humanity can boast of.

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548 Talk about New Books. [July,

The second volume of the Letters of St. Alphonsus,*
translated by Father Mullaney of his Congregation, affords still
another proof of the fertility and power of this great saint.
At the age of eighty he writes with the clearness and vigor of
the prime of manhood. Taking at random from the volume
before us some one or two of the subjects he discusses, the
force and light we speak of are most evident in the manner of
handling them. An instance of this is letter 309, defending his
moral theology against accusations made against it to the Royal
Chamber. He had to contend in this document against power-
ful prejudices of a political character as well as the charges of
a lax morality. It was charged, for instance, that his doctrine
endangered the authority and safety of the king, and was
opposed to the morality of the gospel. We shall not enter
into the defence ; we only say that of course he completely
refutes the charges, and his authority as a moral theologian
ranks second to none. Letter 8 of the Supplementary Letters
to a Religious seems to us a most masterly dissertation on the
art of preaching. A critic on the Selva (which is a collection
of materials for the spiritual exercises of priests) dissented
from his view that all sermons should be simple and popular.
St. Alphonsus fortifies his opinion by some twenty-eight texts
from the Old and New Testaments, besides a vast array of
authority from the works of spiritual writers and preachers.
The principle on which he bases his view, and the spirit of
which runs through the whole essay, for this is what it is in
effect, is expressed in a quotation from St. Bernard : " I like
to hear the voice of that teacher who seeks to gain of me, not
applause but tears."

There is a good deal of variety in the matters appearing in
these letters. Letters 324, 325 contain references to the death
of Voltaire ; Letter 372 is written to Ferdinand IV., defending
himself against the charges of not residing in his episcopal
city of Sant* Agata, and conferring canonries by preference on
those who were not citizens of that city. There are letters to
his publishers in which we see how particular he was concern-
ing the correct printing of his works. Even saints must keep
their eye on the printer or his devil.

The pile of children's books on our table demands a special
word of notice in view of the coming holiday time, with its

* Letters 0/ St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, (Centenary Edition.) New York: Ben-
riger Brothers.

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I897-] Talk aboltt New Books. 549

empty hours. The special facilities now given to public-school
children in most free libraries make it increasingly necessary
for parents to keep a watchful eye on»their book-straps for
" Elsie Books '' and " Pansy Books " and ** Daisy Books/' and
all manner of gay-covered, be-pictured, storified false teaching.
All that a boy wants in a book of adventure can be found in
one or another volume of Tales of Foreign Landsy collected by
Rev. J. Spillman, S.J. Three Indian Tales is vol. ii. of the
series. Jasper Thorny by Maurice Francis Egan, is **a story of
New York life/' which takes its hero from brown-stone front to
tenement-house, and shows him most phases of working-boy life
on the road there and back.

Benziger Brothers have issued four attractive volumes by
writers whose names guarantee healthfulness, at least. We must,
however, enter a protest against the language used by the
children one meets in An Heir of Dreamsy by Sallie Margaret
O'Malley. The most orthodox sentiments could scarcely recon-
cile a mother of the least refinement of. feeling to the vulgarity
of these little paragons. The mind of the best teachers of the
day is steadily set against slang and so-called " dialect " in
books to be read by those in whose minds habits of speech
are crystallizing. It is almost needless to say that Nan and the
Others, by Anna T. Sadlier, is free from this blemish, as are
The Blissylvania Post-Office and Three Girls, and Especially One,
by Marion Ames Taggart.

Laughter and Tears, by Marion J. Brunowe, does not seem
to have so presumptuous a title when one has read it through
from a child's stand-point. " Grown-up " eyes might even
moisten over some of the child-struggles with self and selfish-
ness recorded in its bright pages, while we defy anybody of
any age to peruse " How Jimmy got the Cholera " without
laughter.

The Taming of Polly,''' by Ella Loraine Dorsey, has had so
unusual an amount of attention bestowed upon it, that we
decided to put it into the hands of a reviewer who has only
just entered her teens. Her opinion is as follows :

" I like the book most because it makes you see things. She
(the author) doesn't just say a thing is so and leave it. She
tells you a lot, and you know how it all was. The part about
the Marquette relic is very funny. Of course, / understand it

• The Taming of Polly, By Ella Loraine Dorsey. New York : Benziger Bros.

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because I'm a Catholic. But if I weren't, I should think it
was a bit out of a fairy story, and I shouldn't believe a word
of it. I like Polly. But she got tamed too quick. I'm sure it
really took her longer. Marie Van Houten is awfully natural.
It's just like what a girl would do — to make up a fine name
and pretend she is somebody great."

THE MAGAZINES.

The Chauiauquan, with much good matter throughout its
pages, contains a fairly good estimate, upon the whole, of Mira-
beau's part in the Revolution. It is written by Professor A.
M. Wheeler, of Yale University. Some views we have elsewhere
expressed concerning the intention of the king to grant ample
reforms arc, to say the least, confirmed by implications con-
tained in his view of the political situation. We should have
been glad to receive an account of the scene in the National
Assembly after the publication of the Great Treason of M. de
Mirabeau. Mr. Wheeler does not allude to it, but it would
have been the finishing touch of a picture accurate as far as it
goes, and not without force. We miss the Titan in this portrait ;
we have a very capable man — more even, a man of genius
possibly, but we have not the Mirabeau who was first of men
with no second ; the man who, if he had lived another year,
would have made the history of France, and therefore of the
world, different. He expressed the knowledge of this in one of
the illuminating flashes in the intervals of terrible pain on his
death-bed : ** I carry in my heart the death-dirge of the French
monarchy ; the dead remains of it will now be the spoil of the
factions." There is an article on " France in the American Re-
volution," by Dr. Woodburn, professor of American history in
Indiana University, in which he discusses in a tentative way the
relations of France and the colonies, France and the States,
during the war, and the measure of obligation of America to
France. He seems to have reached the opinion that freedom
would not have been obtained without the assistance of France ;
and yet, strangely, does not think that any gratitude is due to
France because she was serving her own interests and gratifying
her hatred of England. This view does not deserve much criti-
cism even on the assumption of Dr. Woodburn, which amounts to
this : that France, in acting her friendly part, was a mere money-f
lender putting, out her cash at interest, and not a disinterested
protector and ally. Even on that utterly false analogy, it would

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seem that France was the ally of America and that England
was not ; but we are not inclined to think France was solely
gratifying hatred in these relations. We think there was some
chivalry at the bottom of them. There are interests stronger
than prejudices, take them one by one ; stability in France
was a more immediate interest than the prejudice or jealousy
which would like to see England weakened ; the right to tax
was a more valuable inheritance of government in France than
the vindictiveness which would delight in the separation of her
own lost colonies and the purely English colonies from the
power that had been an instrument of her own defeat and hu-
miliation. The other articles are not without merit.

The Review of Reviews, as usual, is a great gathering and glean-
ing. Mr. Stead gives a retrospect of sixty years under the title
of "The Queen's Empire.'* He considers the evolution of the
police the most beneficent transformation effected in that period.
We are disposed to say that it is not the least important ex-
pression of the transformation, an outward sign of the triumph
of great principles, by which order and activity were united in
society so as to make it the possession of poor and rich alike
to an extent never before enjoyed by mankind. But the Vic-
torian age is not the creator of the possession ; it is the heir
of the struggles of a thousand years. We do not quite follow
the philosophy of his opinion that this era has witnessed two
movements, the dispersion of the Anglo-Saxon race and the
sudden revival of the sense of race unity, the latter the com*
plement of the former and " rendered possible by the shrinkage
of the world." He surely does not mean that the Anglo-Saxon
empire is to inherit the earth. Yet if this bit of political phil-
osophy be anything but verbiage, it means this and nothing else.
It would look like it when he refers with emphasis to the fact
that in North America and Australasia British possessions cover
one-ninth of the earth, that in this reign one million square
miles have been added to the empire in Africa, two hundred
and eighty thousand in Asia, and so on.

I. — PIUS THE SEVENTH AND HIS TIMES.*

The history of Pius the Seventh, by Miss Mary H. Allies,
has two distinct excellences. Treating as it does of the rela-
tion of Pius the Seventh to Napoleon, it is full of dramatic

* Pius the Seventh^ iSoo~/S2j. By Mary H. Allies. London : Burns & Oates, limited ;
New York, Cincinnati, Chicago : Bertziger Brothers.

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situations. The two central powers of Europe are brought face
to face. The self-crowned emperor is set against the sovereign
who received his sceptre from on high. It is a battle of genius
and* diplomacy against simplicity and faith, terminating in the
restoration of Pius and the exile of Bonaparte.

But with the interest of the narrative is combined philo-
sophical depth. The author traces events to their logical
causes.

"The eighteenth century, culminating in that awful crisis
(the French Revolution), still clamors for its Catholic Gibbon.
The philosophy of its history lies hidden to the superficial eye,
and the ordinary historian of results, rather than of causes, is
content to deal with the outcome, which was in reality the
logical consequence of events. He points out tottering thrones
and a chaos well-nigh universal, for there was one exception to
the general instability ; but he does not attempt an explana-
tion."

A study of the ideas and customs which were in vogue long
before the torrent swept over society affords the explanation.
Universal insecurity was the result of contempt for authority.
In France Gallicanism and Jansenism grew apace, and spread
their influence far beyond the French boundaries. When the
Christian spirit died, the " non serviam " first spoken to the
church was said to the state.

In reading this book one is convinced of two facts. First,
that the throne of the pope rests upon a foundation which
neither the storms of time nor circumstance can shake ; and
second, that Pius the Seventh was a friend of humanity and a
dispenser of justice to all men, irrespective of nation or sect.

"By a singular disposition of providence, the head of the
Catholic Church had estranged the emperor of the French
Democracy, because he had fearlessly defended the honor of a
Protestant girl, the daughter of a simple American citizen.
And now he was destined to witness the gradual deprivation
of the remaining fragments of his temporal power, because,
at a time of peace, he refused to close his ports against the
English."

The book reads well. In style it is pure, strong, and pro-
gressive. It is brief ; twenty-three eventful years are treated in
three hundred and ten pages. Although there is neither pre-
face nor introduction, the author's point of view is clearly stated
in the first chapter.

The treatment is scientific. The sixteen chapters may be

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brought under three great headings : The Formation of the
Concordat ; The Workings of " Gallicanism, and The Works of
Peace. Whenever an authority is quoted the reference is given
in full at the bottom of the page, and there is besides an alpha-
betical index to the authorities consulted.

Perhaps the magnanimity of Pius, on the one hand, and the
selfishness of Bonaparte, on the other, are painted with too
broad a brush, but the perfectly unbiased historian will come
only with the millennium.

2. — COCHEM ON THE HOLY MASS.*

Father Cochem's work on the holy Mass was published for
the first time in English during the year 1896. We must thank
Bishop Maes for suggesting its translation, and the publishers for
the simplicity, neatness, and care with which they have done their
task. Nor must we fail to express our sense of gratitude to
the unknown translator who has enabled us to read this two-
hundred-year-old book in an English style that unites to the
spirit of fervor and spiritual attractiveness the touch of variety
and graphic narrative characteristic of the original.

Of the thirty-one chapters none will prove dull reading.
Each has its doctrine, its well-chosen texts of Scripture and
quotations from the writings of the Fathers of the Church, its
little heart-felt prayer. And then the happy selection of
anecdote — here it is a tale of some great saint ; there, a story
which tells of the soul-struggles of a hard-working laborer, or
of a merchant, or of an obscure peasant — the hidden saints who
have lived and wrought out their salvation in the heart of a
work-a-day world.

3.— SOCIALISM AND CATHOLICISM.f

The excellent work of the above title, by Count Edward
Soderini, the English translation of which has lately appeared,
is pronounced by Cardinal Vaughan to be the " best and
fullest commentary on the encyclical Rerum Novarum which
has appeared in Italy." The importance of social problems
in the present generation is obvious to all, and this work is
a timely as well as a temperate and valuable contribution to
the Catholic literature of the subject. Its appearance in Eng-

• Cockem's Explanation of the Holy Mttss. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago : Benzigcr
Brothers.

t Socialism and Catholicism, From the Italian of Count Edward Soderini, by Richard
Je&ery-Shee. Preface by Cardinal Vaughan. Longmans, Green & Co. Chap, xxvii. p. 335.

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lish is specially welcome, since the English literature dealing
with these social problems from the Catholic stand-point is not
abundant. Professor Niti's work on Catholic Socialism^ which
appeared some time ago, is an indication of the great interest
felt in the study of the relations of the church to the great
democratic movement of our times and the propaganda waged
by the leaders of socialism. Count Soderini's treatment of this
subject is likely to prove more satisfying to Catholic students.

The writer begins with a discussion of socialist theories, and
pays special attention to the theories of Marx, who, in truth,
was the founder of the so-called modern scientific socialism.
The excesses to which anarchists and socialists have been car-
ried in their activities are described with some detail. A dis-
cussion and criticism of some of the ground concepts of modern
economic science follows, from which we might infer that the
author is partial to the older views. The last part of the book,
which comprises seven chapters, is devoted to " remedies."

The chief merit of the book consists in its sound ethical
treatment of economic questions. To qualify himself for this
task the author has made a study of economic literature, and
his work derives its main interest from this circumstance. Too
many writers who discuss economic problems have ignored their
ethical aspects, and when they attempted to treat problems
which at their core were questions of justice, their treatment of
them was incomplete, unsatisfactory, and untrustworthy.

Many, if not all, of the leading economic problems of our
day have important ethical aspects, and to strive after a solution
of them while ignoring the ethical considerations involved, is
much like trying to solve problems in algebra by mere arith-
metic. On the other hand, many who treat economic problems
from the ethical stand-point have failed to familiarize them-
selves with the economic conditions out of which these pro-
blems arise. It is an easy matter to announce a principle, but
where a principle is discussed with a view toj its application to
particular conditions, it is essential to a just judgment that a
study be made of these conditions. We so often find, again,
that in disputes which arise between employer and employee
each party looks at a different set of facts ; and when both
parties can be made to view all the facts, the application of the
principle becomes clear. Ethical treatment of' these matters is
often accused of verging on cant, and the writer, who wishes to
be helpful in his discussions should not ignore the data given
by economic science. Count Soderini has, as we have above

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stated, made a study of the conditions to which he applies prin-
ciples ; he looks at his subject from both points of view, and
this is the special recommendation of his work to those who
wish to study the relations of the church to this modern move-
ment.

The most important defect apparent in the work is the lack
of unity of design. A miscellany of topics enter intg the con-
sideration of the writer, and, as might naturally be expected,
there is not that logical cohesion of the parts which would be
expected in a carefully prepared scientific work. This same de-
fect is found in greater degree in Niti's work above alluded to,
which is in large part a series of historical references held to-
gether by the thread of a- phrase. Count Soderini takes up too
many important subjects for the compass of a brief volume,
and in many cases the bearing of these subjects on that indi-
cated by the title of the book is only remote. Naturally, also,
when so many topics are touched on, the treatment of them in
many respects is incomplete, and possibly in some cases slightly
misleading. Thus, he tells us : " The rate of wages depends on
the demand for labor, which depends on the amount of cap-
ital " (p. 191); and from this and other passages we are not
sure whether he still adheres to the theory that wages are de-
pendent on the amount of capital — a theory which is not
held by any economist of note at the present time. Again,
when he tells us (p. 220-1) that enough importance has not
been attached to the relation of monometallism to the pre-
sent economic crisis, and that the correlation of the depres-
sion in the price of cereals with the depreciation, in the price
of silver has not been perceived, we receive these, statements
with some degree of surprise. Other defects might be pointed
out which indicate a lack of thoroughness, rather than a lack
of familiarity with the subject. We might complain, how-
ever, that the author fails to give us as clear an account of
the relations of the church to socialism as might be desired,
and it is to be hoped that the writer will pursue his subject
further. But these criticisms are of minor importance, since
the book is not one for the special student, but for the gener-
al reader, though it may be read with profit by all who are
interested in the subject.

The best part of the work is that which discusses the reme-
dies. In this part Count Soderini closely follows the encycH-
cal Rerunt Novarum. Remedies, of course, are largely mat-
ters to be discussed in relation to the local conditions to which

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they are to be applied, and the point of greatest importance,
as shown in this work, is, that good understanding and a mu-
tual desire to promote the ends of justice are the essential re-
quisites of healthy and effective social reform. The English of
the work is, in some places, a trifle awkward, and the value of
the work would be enhanced by a good index ; but, on the
whole, th« work is one that may be cordially recommended.
It will do much good and it deserves a wide circulation.

4.— HIS DIVINE MAJESTY *

By various of his works, especially by his Divine Teacher^
Father Humphrey has rendered great services to the cause of
truth, and his name is deservedly held in high esteem. But of
this, the latest, we are forced to question the usefulness.
Those who are likely to be helped by it could read with much
greater pleasure and advantage the originals from which it is
derived ; for, as Father Humphrey avows, the bulk of his
material is taken from the lectures of Cardinal Franzelin and
Father Palmieri. In those lectures the baldness and crudeness
(if we may so speak) which is characteristic of text-books
would be relieved by the oral explanations of the lecturer.
In Latin, moreover, these defects are not so apparent as they
become when literally translated (if it may be called transla-
tion) into English that bristles with technical theological terms,
unilluStrated and unexplained — we do not say undefined. What
will the ordinary reader make of the following? which is a fair
sample of the whole: "The metaphysical imperfection of
being, which belongs to accidents, necessitates the exclusion
of them from our conception of God. God is the sum of
metaphysical perfection, and so in God there are not, and can-
not be conceived to be, any accidents." What the English
reader wants is that abstract technical terms such as these should
(if it be possible) be brought home to him. In order himself to
understand language of this kind. Father Humphrey was segre-
gated from active occupations and cares ; how can he expect
to find readers living and working in the world capable of
mastering matters of this kind put in this way? Our fear,
therefore, is that, so far from attracting its readers towards the

♦ His Divine Majesty ; or^ The Living God, By William Humphrey, S.J. London :
Thomas Baker ; New York : Benziger Brothers.

Foundations of Faith. The Existence of God Demonstrated. From the German of
Father L. von Hammerstein, S.J. London : Burns & Oates, limited ; New York : Benziger
Brothers.

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truth, this work will repel all who have not already made a
thorough course of scholastic theology. For such it provides
a beautifully printed remembrance of what they have already
by hard study made their own. Father Humphrey, of course,
follows the beaten track of the writers of his society in such
matters as the knowledge of God and the compatibility of
faith and science. It might have been fairer to indicate that
there exists an opposed Catholic school.

The other work mentioned at the head of this notice affords
a very great contrast to that of Father Humphrey in its
method and style. It is translated from the German of an-
other father of the same society. The field it covers is not so
wide, being restricted to the proof of the existence of God, and
indeed mainly to the exposition of the cosmological proof.
The work is thrown into the form of letters of objectors giv-
ing forcible expression to their difficulties, to which the author
replies. The work deserves the attentive perusal of all, and
is calculated to do great good. Its author is especially familiar
with the works of biologists, chiefly German, and devotes a
great deal of attention to the theory of evolution. To us he
appears to be somewhat too unsparing in his condemnation of
it, but this may be because he has devoted more attention to
the subject than we can claim to have done.

5. — PASTORAL THEOLOGY*

We gave a notice of this excellent book in our April
number, and are pleased to see it has reached its second
edition. This new edition is a decided improvement in size,
shape, and print.

6. — LEGISLATION AND LIQUOR.f

Perhaps no subject has occupied more of the time and wis-
dom of legislatures, in modern days, than the drink-traffic, and
probably no other has shown itself so elusive, so unmanageable,
and so meagre in satisfactory results. As fast as laws are
made to control the ubiquitous pest new ones are found to be
needed to patch up the defective and unworkable parts. Still,
we must not relinquish the struggle by any means, nor suffer
discouragement to prevail over the imperative duty of the
decent citizen in this most vital matter.

* Pastoral Theology, By Rev. William Stang, D.D. New York : Benziger Brothers,
t The Liquor Problem in its Legislative Aspects. By Frederic H. Wines and John Koren.
Report of the Committee of Fifty. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

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The drink problem is one of those which have been taken
into consideration by the social organization known as the
Committee of Fifty. For the better examination of the ques-
tion it was divided into four branches. To one sub-committee
was given the study of the physiological aspect of the matter;
to another the legislative ; to a third the economic, and to a
fourth the ethical. The work of the sub-committee on the
Legislative Aspect has been the earliest finished, and its first
conclusions are now embodied in a goodly volume. It consists
mainly of two reports, drawn up respectively by Messrs. Frederic
H. Wines and John Koren, while a general supervision over
the work of investigation was exercised by three gentlemen of
the sub-committee — Messrs. Charles W. Eliot, Seth Low, and
James C. Carter. It is impossible to say that any certain con-
clusions or deductions have been arrived at on the general
subject, when we consider the admissions made in these
reports. The two gentlemen who have drawn them up have
devoted a vast deal of time and patient labor in the search for
reliable information, but it is admitted in the beginning that
" it was impossible, with any resources at the command of the
Committee of Fifty, to obtain satisfactory statistics on this sub-
ject for any State of the Union." Again : " The difficulties in
the way of researches of this kind are enormous. . . . The
effects of intemperance in promoting vice and crime are often
mixed with the effects of many other causes, such as unhealthy
occupations, bad lodgings, poor food, and inherited disabilities.'*
Indeed, the chief benefit which the framers of the report expect
from its publication is that it may give " an effective warning
against the easy acceptance of partial or partisan statements
on the subject."

The fields of study selected b^ the commissioners, as we
may call them, were Maine, Massachusetts (chiefly Boston and
North Adams), Pennsylvania (chiefly Philadelphia, Pittsburgh,
Wilkes-Barre, and Reading), South Carolina, Missouri, Ohio, and
Indiana. Many people judge of the effects of liquor regulation
by the statistics of arrests for drunkenness. How fallacious
and unreliable these data often are is shown by the recapitula-
tion in this report of the means taken by the saloon-keepers to
prevent arrests, and by the reluctance of the police in many
places to make arrests unless in cases of absolute necessity.
Thus, in Philadelphia since 1884 there has been a nearly steady
decline in the number of arrests made for this offence, from
31.69 per one thousand of the population to 23.80. This

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might argue a great success for the policy of high license
adopted in the city, but the commissioners do not attach much
value to that fact. This attitude is justified by the reports of
the prison authorities, who have no such decrease in crime to
note, as might be expected from a real decrease in drunkenness,
and by their belief that secret and untraceable drinking prevails
in proportion to the apparent decrease on the surface. It is
alleged that the smaller cigar-stores in Philadelphia are often
the cover for the trade in illicit drinking.

It is the opinion of Messrs. Wines and Koren that no
satisfactory survey of the whole situation regarding the liquor-
traffic in the United States is possible while it is left to
private and voluntary investigation. Such an inquiry, to be
adequate and of service for philosophic purposes, could only be
undertaken on a national basis. The Federal government is
the only authority capable of dealing with an inquiry of such
magnitude. The question is, then, is it one on which the govern-
ment should be called to act ? To our mind there can be but
one answer to such a proposition. The inquiry has a relation,
not only to the moral status of the people, but to what some
consider the more immediate concern of a government — their
physical welfare. In the case of an epidemic of any kind,
prompt measures are usually taken to obtain the earliest and
best scientific and medical knowledge on the subject by every
means known to a government ; the fact that the destructive
processes of alcoholism are slower and more familiar to our
experience is hardly sufficient reason why the evil should be
regarded with the easy indifference which is the normal attitude
observed toward it by governments which derive the great
bulk of their resources from the consumption of fermented
liquors. •

It is idle to say that all improvement in the situation as
regards drink must come from sources external to the State.
The State is called upon to check many things which pander
to the weaknesses of human nature — gambling, for instance —
and does so successfully. It is quite feasible for legislation to
diminish the volume of drunkenness, if not to eradicate the
vice in toto ; but we fear the temptations of alcohol as a source
of revenue are too great for the State's power of resistance.

So far, the legislative side of the alcoholic question is a dis-
appointing document, but it may negatively effect some good
by setting people thinking over the defects it emphasizes.

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7.— ECLECTIC SCHOOL READINGS.*
One of the most noteworthy advances of education in this
country is along the line of making readers. The close linking
of free libraries with public schools has done much toward
this, among the host of children living in cheap flats and tene-
ments, who see books treated at home merely as stand or shelf
ornaments, and who are wholly, so far as intellectual awakening
goes, at the mercy of our public-school system. Mere flinging
open of the book treasure-house is enough for the embryonic
Webster or Greeley — for the quick-witted, strong-willed few who
will collect the libraries and found the colleges of the next
generation. Not for the rest. In private schools of the most
expensive class teachers complain of the crass unfamiliarity with
books and allusions manifested by students who come from
homes where parents had neither time nor inclination to guide
them around library shelves, or to select their mental food with
half the care given to their nursery diet.

Few, nowadays, are the fathers who, like one we reverently
recall, never allow themselves to be too busy to answer a de-
mand for ** a grown-up book I shall like " ; whose cherished
plates from Catlin or illuminated mediaeval manuscripts are
trusted to childish fingers ; and who always know exactly on
what pages of Dickens or Scott or Longfellow or Hawthorne
will be found " something a little girl will like."

But the book-makers themselves are turning parents and
teachers ; and in the new Eclectic Series of School Readings
issued by the American Book Company, and intended to be
used as supplemental readings in schools, the art of skilful intro-
duction of small minds to great subjects is wonderfully mani-
fested. A full list of the series will be found on another page.
One especial feature of The Stories of the Greeks and The Stories
of the Romans is that they are told as stories, with especial in-
tent to avoid that confusion of the child mind between myth
and miracle which is often responsible later on for much of
what has been aptly termed "sophomoric scepticism." Fifty
Famous Stories Retold carries out its purpose of retelling those
stories knowledge of which is an indispensable part of our edu-
cation, in so racy a way that not a few adults may be glad
to glance over a child's shoulder and refresh their minds con-
cerning the origin of such phrases as " a Barmecide feast," or a
" laconic answer."

* Eclectic School Readings. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago: American Book
Company.

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The naive admission of one editor in this series of the in-
trinsic unpicturesqueness of American history is confuted by
Edward Eggleston's contributions. In Stories of American Life
and Adventure and Stories 0/ Great Americans for Little Americans
he succeeds in his aim of setting forth " the characteristic folk-
lore of America, . • • the quintessence of an age that has
passed, or that is swiftly, rapidly passing away, for even" He has
done for American children, with respect to the history of their
own land, what John Richard Green did for ordinary people,
with no bent for historical research, in the matter of English
history — so adjusted the focus of their mental glass that the
stage comes near enough to be interesting. Even the story of
Washington and His Hatchet has been so altered, thanks to a
lovely illustration which throws a halo of cherry-blossoms over
it, as to be readable. We can hardly say more in praise of
the editor's skill !

7.— THE HARP OF MILAN.*

This is an extraordinary book. " The Great iEolian Harp
of Milan " reproduced the dominant passions that had burnt
beneath it " ; so this lesser '' Harp of Milan " portrays the
poetic sentiment that stirs now and then the soul of the gifted
author. The music of the harp in olden times stirred the heart
of the warrior to battle and embalmed the stories of warlike
deeds, and the long-bearded bards through its enchantments
swayed the councils of the wise.

They knew the " mystery of touch," and from skilful
thrumming they could easily sweep the heart-strings of their
hearers. It was their "touch" that gave them their power.
Another, with less skill, would call forth, not the soul of music
but a ghorus of complaint and fault-finding.

• Harp of Milan, By William Shepperson. Milwaukee : J. H. Yewdale & Sons Co.

VOL. LXV.— 36

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tions it has already grown. There are now in the parish schools
in these United States over a million of children. To gather
this nation of children within suitable buildings and provide com-
petent teachers, and supply an education second to none, has not
been done without a tremendous effort on the part of the church.

But because the church has used her authority by entreaty and
by command, and thus drawn unto herself, for conscience' sake,
this million of little ones from the splendid facilities which the
state provides for children, it would be a downright injustice not
to give a training at least equal, if not superior, to the public-
school training. Religious teachers owe it to their conscience, to
the church, and to the children to make themselves perfect in
modern educational ways. They must open the curriculum of
their Normal Training School more and more to the study of
pedagogy. They must train the younger sisters with greater
exactness in the methods of teaching.

It is pleasing to note, in this connection, that the *' Sisters'
Institutes " are becoming very popular. Mrs. B. Ellen Burke, who
has inaugurated this work, is engaged during the summer months
in Burlington, Vt. ; Sisters of Mercy, Pittsburg, Pa. ; Wilkes-
Barre, Pa.; Sisters of Mercy, New York ; Rochester, N. Y.; Scran-
ton, Pa.; Springfield, Mass.; Sisters of Mercy, Providence, R.I.;
Fitchburg, Mass.; Sisters of Charity, New York; Chicag^o, 111.

The future of this institute work is very bright.

♦

The wisdom of the church is very evident in recent deci-
sions concerning the relations of foreign national churches in
this country to their young people. To attempt to keep alive a
foreign nationality in the midst of the American people is like
trying to keep snow on the ground all summer, and if churches
lend themselves to this work they will lose their hold on the
people. Still they must foster the faith among those who have
learned it in a foreign tongue. But when this system has served
its purpose, it must gradually be permitted to fall into desue-
tude, so the church says in her recent decisions.

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i8p70 Living £a tAolic AutiioHs, 563.

AUTHENTIC SKETCHES OF LIVING CATHOLIC

AUTHORS.

Marion Ames Taggart was born in Haverhill, Mass. Her
family on the paternal side was of Scotch descent, being origiil-
ally MacTaggarts, and uniting to this the names df Gilchrist,
MacDougal, and others equally Caledonian. On the mother's
side she is of English descent, her great-great-grandfather being
Captain Ames, who fought at Bunker Hill. On' both sides the
stock was New England Puritan — severe, upright, uncompro-
misingly opposed to the ^* Modern Babylon."

She was the only child of her parents, and very frail — a fact
which kept her from school and childish companionship, and
had great weight in forming her tastes and character. Her edu-
cation was not unlike Bridget Elia's, for though she had tutors,
and did tasks at home with such regularity as constantl}'^ recurring
illness allowed, her real instruction came from reading with avidity
everything that she could lay her hands on, and being " tumbled
early into a spacious closet of good old English reading.*'

The little girl was what such a child would be likely to be :
precocious, dreamy, imaginative, living in a world peopled by her
favorite characters in history and fiction, and those of her own
creation, far more real to her than people of flesh and blood.

Her family moved into Boston when she was a little child,
and purchased a home on Dorchester Bay, where in her row-boat,
through long days on the water, the child began to find health.

Serious reverses of fortune deprived her of her inheritance
when she was in the beginning of the "teens," and showed
her that life was not to be lived in cloudland. This, together
with comparative health, changed the little girl from a dreamer
to a practical young woman.

When scarcely ten years old she (M. A. T.) felt seriously
impressed with the necessity of discovering which of the religious
sects possessed the truth each boasted.

She was half convinced by the Anglican claims of Aposto-
licity and Catholicity, but soon felt, with the instinct of unbiased
youth, that there was a lack of vitality and sincerity in that
denomination. In this matter she was left entirely free ; for
her mother, who was her intimate playfellow, as well as guide,
had nothing to offer her child, being herself revolted by the

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564 Authentic Sketches of [July,

Calvinism in which she had been trained. Quite alone, and un-
assisted, the little girl read the Catechism of the Council of
Trent, and became a Catholic. She was baptized in Boston
College by Father Fulton, the Jesuit, who received her mother
three years later.

From her babyhood Marion Ames Taggart wrote verses;
they were of the melancholy, imaginative sort one would expect
from a frail, precocious child. There has never been a division
of her love; books held always the first place, though every-
thing in life is interesting to her now, and the phase of dream-
ing and of the making of pensive verses is over.

J. Arthur Floyd is the grandson of the late Rev. Joseph
Floyd, a Wesleyan Methodist minister whose name was enrolled

in the " Legal Hundred." Bom
in 1857, at Soham, a small town
distant about six miles from the
venerable cathedral city of Ely, in
Cambridgeshire, he spent the first
nineteen years of his life there,
following the profession of his
father as a chemist and drugg^'st.
There were only two or three
Catholics at that time resident in
Soham. Mr. Floyd became ac-
quainted with one of these, and
a result of the friendship then
formed was that he began to sus-
pect that the Protestant view of
the Catholic Church was based on
J. Arthur Floyd, calumny, and would not bear in-

Bury-St.-Edmund's, England. spection. The Catholic friend

soon died, and, in 1875, Mr. Floyd left Soham. Ultimately he
settled at Alcester, in Warwickshire, where, won over by its as-
serted identity with the Catholic Church of pre- Re formation
days, he became a member of the Established Church of England.
Four years afterwards he emigrated to Canada, and for some time
officiated as organist at St. Luke's (Anglican) Church in Montreal.
He made a point of seeing as much as possible of the Catholic
churches in that city ; in particular he frequented the church of
the Jesuit fathers in Bleury Street. Father Ryan, S.J., was at that
time preaching a series of sermons dealing with the " Book of Com-
mon Prayer." His reasoning and facts shattered Mr. Floyd's

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1 897-] Living Catholic Authors. 565

belief in the " continuity " theory, and at once he called on the
good father for further instruction. Just at that time he was
recalled to England, and« within three months, he was received
into the church by Father Stutter, O.S.B., at Stratford-on-Avon.

Mr. Floyd now lives at Bury-St.-Edmund's, and is organist
at St. Edmund's Church in that town. He holds the ** Minor "
qualification of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and
makes ecclesiastical history his great hobby. He is a contribu-
tor to the pages of The Catholic World and the Messenger
of the Sacred Hearty of New York, and is just now preparing
a short Life of St. Edmund of East Anglia for the Biographical
Series of publications of the Catholic Truth Society of London.

Mr. Floyd married early in life, and his wife has followed
him into the Catholic Church. His thoughts often wander back
across the Atlantic, and he would welcome an opportunity of
returning to America.

Mrs. Frances Conigland Farinholt was born at Halifax,
North Carolina, just before the great Civil War. Her father,
Edward Conigland, immigrated
from County Donegal, Ireland, in
his youth, and, settling in North
Carolina in early manhood, be-
came identified with every inter-
est of its people, and rose to emi-
nence as a lawyer of profound
ability and great eloquence, and
of the most spotless integrity.

Mr. Conigland married as his
second wife Miss Mary Wyatt
Ezell, of Northampton County,
North Carolina, a lady of remark-
able intellectual power and wo-
manly grace. Frances and two
other daughters of this marriage
are his only surviving children. ^^^ ^^^^^3 conioland farinholt.

Glen-ivy, the Conigland home,
was a picturesque demesne. Broad acres yielded harvests of
cotton, com, and fruits, while beyond were miles and miles of
beautiful woodland, rich in deep dells, rugged hills, and mur-
muring streams with miniature waterfalls. Here, from the
spring-time, when arbutus, yellow jessamine, and creek ivy —
from which last the place got its name — brightened the forests,

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*566 Living Ca tholic A u thoks, ■ [Joly,

rto mid-winter, when the red berries of the holly glowed, amid
the dark grandeur of the pine^, there was an ever-varying suc-
cession of beauty. . ; /

The influences of a home where harmony, intellect, and re-
finement mide a triumvirate within, and Nature ^ spread such
charms without, were powerful in forming the character of the
sensitive child, and were shown later in the high : intellectual
and moral development and enthusiastic love of nature which
•characterize thfe woman.

By her mother's death, which occurred when Frances was
but seven years old, she became the little mother of her small
sisters, who were commended to her care by her and their
dying parent.

In the duty thus early assumed by h«r, as in every other
of her life as a girl, she was aided by the teachings of a lady,
a member of the only other Catholic family in Halifax, who
took charge of the education of the Conigland children and
those of her own family, and to whose instruction and example
her pupils ascribe the faithfulness and devotion to their holy
religion which is characteristic of every .one of that little
Catholic band.

When she was nineteen death once more entered the halls
of Glen-ivy and took away the loving and beloved father,
leaving Frances the sole protector of her young sisters.

Two years later she was married to Mr. Leroy A. Farinholt,
a Virginia gentleman, and in 1888 they removed to Asheville.

Here, for the first time, Mrs. Farinholt found herself free to
labor daily for those outside her home. Having no children of
her own, she has devoted herself to the education of the
children of others. To this cause she has directed every power
of mind and body, all the strength of her sympathies, and she
is an active member of the many societies and clubs in her town
which directly or indirectly bear on this work.

Catholics are so few in Asheville that there is little dis-
tinctively Catholic work, but in whatever way Mrs. Farinholt is
associated with those outside the church, an association for
which by the liberality and charity of her character she is emi-
nently fitted, she is known as a dqvoted Catholic.

She has found little tiitie for writing, .but she has contributed
several excellent stories, to The Catholic World, and articles
on education and ethics to other magazines.

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1 897-] What the Thinkers Say. 567

WHAT THE THINKERS SAY.

{From the Catholic limes, Liverpool,)

Cardinal Morak pointed out that there are three great evils which mea-
ace society to-day and follow one upon the other — first, ignorance of spiritual
truth and the teachings of Divine authority ; secondly, the modern paganism of
life ; and thirdly, anarchy. To understand the priceless advantages derived from
Christian truth we have only to compare Christian civilization with the highest
developments of ancient paganism. Who that has studied the records of the
Roman Republic, which show society so terribly corrupt at the very core, the
family, does not recognize the blessings we owe to Christian enlightenment. By
it man has been raised from debasement, woman from dishonor to dignity ; and
peace and virtue and happiness have been diffused throughout family life. But
the pagan spirit is still alive. Nay, we fear it is making inroads in many Chris-
tian lands, for its fruits can be seen in the crimes so often brought to light in vari-
ous classes of society. And the dangers to which it gives rise become a hundred-
fold more formidable in view of the social problems with which the age is face to
face. Democracy is rapidly advancing, and if it is to be a democracy holding fast
to Christianity and Christian ideals and unselfishly aiming at the elevation of hu-
manity all will be well ; but if it is to be a pagan democracy, without the fear of
God, the belief in a future state, or concern for the Christian virtues, then woe to
the world and alas ! for Christian order. Let us not imagine that we have no
duty in respect to the future. He who educates the young — above all, he who
trains the destitute children of our streets, who saves them from becoming pests
of society, sources of lawlessness and ruin, who develops their capacities and fits
them for entering the struggle of life with sound Christian principles — is mould-
ing the coming race, and what can exempt us from the obligation of lending him
a helping hand ?

Our Christianity must be something real if it be sincere. It must mean that
we strive to free the sorrow-stricken from cares, to relieve the poor from the bur- .
dens that bear them down, to share our bread with the hungry, to clothe the
naked. This was the lesson Christ preached by word and deed during his life
on earth. Only on the condition of being merciful shall we obtain mercy. More-
over, those who enjoy the goods of this world must never forget they are only
the depositaries of God's gifts. If a man is self-indulgent, may he not well ask
himself whether he is not squandering on his own luxuries money that does not
belong to him ? If a woman rejoices in wealth, may she not put to herself the
question whether, as Tertullian remarks, she does not carry in a single ring the
patrimonies of many ? The thought that at the seat of judgment Christ may
charge us with having misused that which was the rightful property of his suffer-
ing poor is indeed one to inspire fear. But, on the other hand, when all that is
earthly is for ever fading from the sight there can be no solace greater than that of
having succored the indigent little ones, of whom Christ has said that what we
do for them we do unto him.

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568 W^AT THE Thinkers Say. [July,

JESSE ALBERT LOCKE ON THE PASSION OF PITY.
(From The Si. Vincent de Paul Quarterly,)

But there is still another class of workers for social reform and charitaMe
ends, one of far greater importance, and one whose influence is likely to be more
lasting. I mean those intelligent and often very well-educated persons, of good
social position and influence, who enter into this work as " altruists " — such is the
popular term — ^and not at all or not primarily as Christian believers. We all know
many such. We know how we esteem them personally ; we know their willing-
ness to sacrifice time and money and personal comfort for a good cause. It is,
therefore, with no doubt of their good-will, and with no discrediting of their good
deeds as such, that we are obliged to say that in the end, and on the whole, they
'will fail. For, though they think they see and easily avoid the obvious mistakes
of the superficial giver of charity as well as of the devotee of visionary schemes,
they are, nevertheless, tending really to the same results, the deterioration of
character and the stirring of popular discontent. Their intentions are good, their
charitable deeds relieve real distress ; but the principles on which they are work-
ing are distinctly at variance with the truest, that is, with Christian charity.

To show this we must go back a little to things beneath the surface. We
have seen certain results ; we have seen that never, in modem times, has the
popular interest in all forms of relief of poverty and suffering been so intense as
at the present moment. What is the source of it all ? With Catholics, alms-giv-
ing and deeds of charity are but the flowers and fruit of a faith which is rooted
deeply in the supernatural. But with these altruists it is not so. On the contrary,
their present zeal springs from the very decay of religious faith. It is partly a sub-
stitute for religious enthusiasm, partly a reaction against one-sided views of reli-
gion in which they were brought up, and partly an expression df their uncertainty
as to any future life and their consequent determination to make the most of this.
'The passion of pity which consumes them has its source in that horror of pain
which is characteristic of our day. With the loss of a supernatural 'faith has
gone all sense of the reality of sin, and therefore of the meaning of suffering.
'Sickness and sorrow, suffering and pain are dark and inexplicable things to those
who have suffered shipwreck of their Christian faith. This is largely a material-
istic age, and the love of luxury grows with each generation. There are those who
give relief to the poor partly for their own pleasure — as they might throw food
to hungry animals simply for the delight of seeing them gorge themselves— and
partly out of sympathy, because they feel that not to have material comforts is
the greatest of all evils, and so they are willing to share with the poor wretches
"who have so little.

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18970 The Columbian Reading Union. 569

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

A JUST estimate of the splendid service which the late Brother Azarias was
capable of rendering to the movement represented in two of its phases by
Catholic Reading Circles and the Champlain Summer-School may now be formed
from the story of his life as related by the Rev. John Talbot Smith, LL.D. Force
and clearness are distinguishing qualities of the book, together with proofs of $i
wide range of information regarding the actual conditions that confront the lite-
rary workers of the Catholic Church in the United States. Whoever is interested
in the career of an American scholar, an educator, a man of letters, a keen critic
of the best literature of the world, will welcome the book in which Dr. Talbot
Smith has displayed his well-known gifts as a writer to the best advantage.

The growing interest in the literary and educational work of Brother Azarias
makes the appearance of this account of his career very timely. The subject of
the memoir was a remarkable man in many ways. He was a leading authority on
education in the Middle Ages. No American critic has surpassed his too few
contributions to the literature of criticism. He was an American by adoption, who
lived and died working for the higher education of the people. He devoted him-
self with all his powers to the work of reviving the forgotten spiritual element in
letters. His place in American life and literature is unique. Hence the student
and the reader will welcome this story of his career.

Reading Circles may order from Messrs. William H. Young & Co., 31 Barclay
Street, New York City, the complete set of works by Brother Azarias, including
the story of his interesting life. The complete list is here given :

The Life Story of Brother Azarias, by Rev. John Talbot Smith, LL.D. 300
pages, elegantly printed, bound in extra fine cloth, with eight half-tone illustra-
tions; price, post-paid, $1.50 net.

Essays, Educational, 290 pages, nicely printed and bound, gilt top ; price,
post-paid, $1.50.

Essays, Philosophical, 260 pages, beautifully printed and bound, gilt top ;
price, post-paid, $1.50.

Essays, Miscellaneous, 275 pages, elegantly printed and bound, gilt top;
price, post-paid, $1.50.

Phases of Thought and Criticism. 280 pages, gilt top, beautifully bound and
printed ; price, post-paid, $1.50.

Philosophy of Literature, 290 pages, bound in fine cloth ; price, post-paid,
$1.25.

Development of Old English Thought. 225 pages, elegantly printed and
bound, gilt top ; price, post-paid, $1.25.

Books and Reading. With Memoir of the author by John A. Mooney, LL.D.,
and a Panegyric by the Rev. Joseph H. McMahon, A.M. 225 pages, bound in
sage-green and neatly printed ; price, post-paid, 50 cents.

A special offer is made to those ordering the entire set of Brother Azarias'
books, either for library or home use : the seven volumes will be sent to one ad-
dress for $7.25. To those ordering these seven volumes, together with The Life
of Brother Azarias, by Dr. Talbot Smith, the price is $8.50 for the eight volumes.

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570 The Columbian Reading Union. [July,

It is worthy of notice that this is the first publidring house that has put on the
market the complete set of Brother Azarias' works at such a low price.
* * *

We are much pleased to get from Miss B. L. Noonan, the secretary of the
Azarias Reading Circle at Bridgeport, Conn., an account of the origin and devel-
opment of tlie work undertaken by seven young ladies, after attesding tbe first
session of the Champlain Sumn\er-School. After returning to their homes they
were so filled with enthusiasm, and so anxious to spread the good work, that they
invited several of their friends to meet at the home of Miss O'Toole, September 8,
1893. Here they organized, in orthodox fashion, the Azarias Reading Circle, hav-
ing for its object the intellectual growth of its members, and adopting as its motto
• Lux fiat." The plan of work is as follows : The Circle meets semi-monthly at
the home of one of the members. A lesson is assigned for each meeting. One
member is selected to conduct a lesson at each meeting. Each member is ex-
pected to spend the necessary time in the preparation of the work. Previous to
the meeting the conductor sends to each member a set of questions or topics based
upon the work assigned. At the meeting she is expected to conduct the evening's
discussions in . a capable manner. At the close of the lesson light refreshments
are served, and a' social session indulged in, after which the meeting is adjourned
for two weeks.

For the first year the Circle adopted for its work Studies in American History,
Rhetoric, and American Literature. The members chose selected works from
Irving, Prescott, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Emerson. Three receptions were held,
to which the friends of the members were invited. At each of these receptions a
lecture was given. The lecturers were : Mr. Thomas Cummings, of Boston ;
Eugene Bouton, Ph.D., Superintendent of Schools ; and Jesse Albert Locke, of
New York City.

The second year the A. R. C. read Brownson's Essays. The plan was then
adopted of reading an epic of each of the great nations. Accordingly, Homer's
Iliad was read during the remainder of the year.

During this season the society engaged Henry A. Adams to lecture. The
subjects w^re, " Under Dog s Day " and " Napoleon." Tickets for these lectures
were sold by the members and the receipts expended in charity.

The third year was devoted to the study of Virgil's -^/i«V^, Dante's Divim
Comedy, Goethe's Faust, and five of Shakspere's plays. A course of three (sub-
scription) lectures was given by Henry A. Adams. Subjects : " Cranks," " New-
man," " Shakspere."

This fourth year the society has been trying to make a systematic study of
French History and French Literature.

Mrs. Agnes Hill, the librarian of the Public Library, has rendered invaluable
service. At the beginning of the year the plan of work was given to her. She
sets aside all the works bearing upon the subject in a certain part of the Reading
Room. Here the members may have free access to them. She has also helped
in many ways by her suggestions and kind efforts to help others in their search

after knowledge.

♦ . ». »

The Syllabus of the. Champlain Summer-School is now ready, and may be ob-
tained by writing to 123 East 50th Street, New York City. It contains the infor-
mation in detail regarding the subjects to be presented. The following list indi-
cates the dates already assigned for the lectures to be given dufing the session of
1897 :

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1 8970 The Columbian Reading Union. 571

First week, bes^innin^ Monday, July 12, lectures by the Rev. Hugh T. Henry ;
Dr. C. M. O'Leary ; Rev. Mortimer E. Twomey.

Second week, beginning ^ July ig, lectures by the Rev. Joseph H. McMahon,
A.M.; Hon, John Boyd Thacher, and the Rev. Charles Warren Currier.

Third week, be^innin^ July 26, lectures by the Rev. P. A. Halpin, S.J.; Mr.
Michael J. Dwyer; Rev. James H. Mitchell.

Fourth week, be^innin^ August 2, lectures by the Rev. Frances W. Howard ;
Rev. Thomas P. McLoughlin, S.T.L.; Mrs. Mary A. Mitchell, and Hon. John
T. McDonough.

Fifth week, beginning Au^st g, lectures by the Rev. Edward A. Pace, D.D.;
Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D.; Brother Potamian, D.Sc.

Sixth week, beginning August 16, lectures by the Rev. Edmund T. Shana-
han, D.D.; Miss Anna Caulfield, and Henry Austin Adams, A.M.

Seventh week, beginning August 2j, lectures by the Rev. James A. Doonan,
S.J.; Thomas O'Hagan, Ph.D.; John Francis Waters, Ph.D.

Arrangements have been made for conference work on many iipportant sub-
jects ; and for instruction in the French and Spanish languages, by Marc F. Val-
lette, LL.D. Lessons in German and Italian will be given by Barbara Clara
Renz, Ph.D. The discussion of practical methods of advancing the teaching of
Christian Doctrine in Sunday-schools will begin on Monday, August 2, under the
direction of the Rev. Denis J. McMahon, D.D. The public aspect of Catholic
Charities will be discussed by John M. Mulry and others, with a view to securing
a practical plan of rendering the statistics of charitable work more available for
general use. Reading Circle representatives will have many opportunities for
consultation with the leaders of the movement from various parts of the United
States and Canada.

A great popular demonstration in furtherance of the Champlain Summer-
School and its objects was held recently in the hall of the Knickerbocker Athletic
Club Theatre. The President, Rev. M. J. Lavelle, surrounded by a goodly
assemblage of leading pastors and clergy from different parishes of the city, had
the satisfaction of seeing the Most Rev. Archbishop himself, with Bishop Farley
and Monsignor Mooney, take a leading part in the meeting.

The Most Rev. Archbishop Corrigan opened the proceedings with an elo-
quent tribute to the Summer-School and to the zeal of the trustees who were so
well conducting it. He said that for those who desired to obtain a higher educa-
tion, but who, on account of business affairs, were unable to attend a university
proper, the Summer-School offered special advantages. It is also a great intel-
lectual residence, a gathering of learned men and women from all quarters of the
country. He also spoke of the beauty of the natural surroundings which greet
the students, making study most delightful in this charming region.

Rev. D. J. McMahon, D.D., introduced the speakers. Judge Fitzgerald,
Thomas S. O'Brien, Ph.D., General Frisbie of Mexico, and Judge Daly discussed
the value of the Summer-School as a national institution, as well as an intellectual
centre for the best Catholic thought among the clergy and the laity. Hon.
Thomas J. Gar^ran, of Boston, stated that he had been at every session of the
Summer-School, and derived great benefit and pleasure. The social side of it
was of the most attractive kind. But the intellectual side was exceedingly impor-
tant. We had been accused of being a foreign element, an immigrant element
that were merely to be tolerated. We shall make ourselves felt here as we be-
come intelligent. But intelligence alone won't dp ; combined with it there must

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572 The Columbian Reading Union. LJ^'y*

be morality, and morality taught under Catholic auspices and through Catholic
education. The Catholic Summer-School is a great factor for the good of the
country as well as for the good of the Catholic body.

But the lecturers do not confine themselves to religious matters. A certain
non-Catholic said that he had learned more of English literature at the Summer-
School than in a four years' course at college. Those who go to the Summer-
School will learn something. They will make acquaintances of cultivated and
good people. One need not attend all the lectures, but any one lecture in the
week's course will more than pay. The Lake Champlain region is full of glorious
reminiscences. The noble Champlain himself said that the saving of a single
soul was of more importance to him than the conquest of New France. We are
inspired and improved by everything around those glorious scenes. We must
not remain silent and inactive. We must be active, and be in touch with the times
in which we live. We must show our fellow-citizens that there is something in
this old Catholic Church of ours that, after all, can preserve the best interests of
the Republic.

» » »

Extensive notices have appeared lately of a library of the world's best litera-
ture, ancient and modern, edited by Charles Dudley Warner, assisted by Hamilton
Wright Mabie, Lucia Gilbert Runkle, and George Henry Warner. It is to be
completed in forty-five volumes, and is published by the International Society of
New York City. One of our critical friends, who has given much attention to his-
torical study, has sent for publication his strong objections to the article on
^M/ir^ written by Thomas Davidson for the first volume. The latter is regarded
as one disposed to favor fair play and the honest writing of history, yet after
lauding Ab^lard as a reformer (?) and characterizing the monks of St. Gildas as
" violent, unruly, and dissolute," he ventured to write this perversion of facts :

" But to return to Ab61ard. Permanent quiet in obscurity was plainly im-
possible for him; and so in 1136 we find him back at St. G6nevi^ve lecturing to
crowds of enthusiastic students. He probably thought that during the long years
of his exile the envy and hatred of his enemies had died out, but he soon dis-
covered that he was greatly mistaken. He was too marked a character, and the
tendency of his thought too dangerous for that. Besides, he emptied the schools
of his rivals, and adopted no conciliatory tone toward them ; the natural result
followed. In the year 1 140 his enemies, headed by St. Bernard, who had long
regarded him with suspicion, raised a cry of heresy against him, as subjecting
everything to reason. Bernard, who was nothing if not a fanatic, and who
managed to give vent to all his passions by placing them in the service of God, at
once denounced him to the pope, to cardinals, and to bishops, in passionate let-
ters, full of rhetoric, demanding his condemnation as a perverter of the bases of
the faith.

" At that time a great ecclesiastical council was about to assemble at Sens,
and Ab^lard, feeling certain that his writings contained nothing which he could
not show to be strictlv orthodox, demanded that he should be allowed to explain
and dialectically defend his position, in open dispute, before it. But this was
above all things what his enemies dreaded (the italics are ours). They felt that
nothing was safe before his brilliant dialectic. Bernard even refused to enter
the lists with him ; and preferred to draw up a list of his heresies in the form of
sentences sundered from their context in his works — some of them, indeed, from
works which he never wrote — and to call upon the council to condemn them.

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I897-] The Columbian Reading Union. 573

Ab^lard, clearly understanding the scheme, feeling its unfairness, and knowing
the effect of Bernard's lachrymose pulpit rhetoric upon sympathetic ecclesiastics
who believed in his power to work miracles, appeared before the council only to
appeal from its authority to Rome. The council, though somewhat disconcerted
by this, proceeded to condemn the disputed theses and sent a notice of its action
to the pope. Fearing that Ab^lard, who had friends in Rome, might proceed
thither and obtain a reversal of the verdict, Bernard set every agency at work
to obtain a confirmation of it before his victim could reach the Eternal City.
And he succeeded."

But Mr. Davidson is not consistent, and he places his hero in a very equivo-
cal position. According to him, " Abilard, feeling certain that his writings con^
tained nothing which he could not show to be strictly orthodox, demanded that he
be allowed to explain and dialectically defend his position in open dispute before
it" In the next breath he goes on to tell us that Abdlard, when given a chance
to appear before this council, " feeling the unfairness " of it, appeared before it
** only to appeal from its authority to Rome." So the great dialectician refused
to plead before the court of his own selection.

Now, the facts in the case happen to be at variance with the statements
made by Mr. Davidson in the handsome, /«x^ edition of A Library of the World's
Best Literature, Abdlard was summoned before the Council of Sens, where St.
Bernard challenged him either to prove that " his writings contained nothing that
was not strictly orthodox " or to recall them. St. Bernard did not propose to try
the effect of his " lachrymose pulpit rhetoric " upon him, nor upon the " sympathetic
ecclesiastics who believed in his power to perform miracles." On the contrary, he
professed himself a " stripling too unversed in logic to meet the giant practised
in every kind of debate." But, when forced into the field by the exigencies of
the occasion, to the amazement of all present, when the combatants came face to
face and all was ready for the intellectual fray, Ab^lard lowered his lance and re-
fused to proceed with his defence. " After several passages, considered to be
heretical, had been read from his books he made no reply, but at once appealed
to Rome, and left the assembly. Probably he saw enough to assure him that it
was a very different audience from those he had been accustomed to sway by his
subtilty and eloquence, and had recourse to this expedient to gain time and foil
his adversaries. Bernard followed up the assault by a letter of indictment to the
pope against the heretic. The pope responded by a sentence of condemnation,
and Abdlard was silenced." (See Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. iii.)

In conclusion, we have only to say, that if the rest of the articles composing
the Library of the World's Best Literature are to be judged by the first of the
series, the publishers acted wisely in limiting the edition to two hundred and fifty
copies.

* * *

Mr. J. Brisben Walker made an address to the Drawing-Room Club at the
Waldorf some time ago on The Church and Poverty. He said the teachings of
Christ were very different from the practices of the church, which appears to be
paying no attention to the progress society is making toward the divisions of
" monstrous wealth and monstrous poverty." What can the church do, he asked,
in the face of the corruption of political life and the practical sale of all privileges
to the great corporations ?

He argued that the only hope for humanity lies in the recognition that out of
poverty springs all crime, and that the churches are not doing their full duty.

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574 The Columbian Reading Union. [July,

" The difference," Mr. Walker said, " between the Church of Christ and the
church of to-day is the same as the difference between the fire department and
the salvage corps : the one extinguishes fires and saves lives, while the other
only picks up the wrecks."

A wider knowledge of the actual work of the church at the present time
would assist Mr. Walker in formulating a more correct theory of the great
problem he has undertaken to solve. On account of the human defects of indi-
viduals the church may be in some places misunderstood or misrepresented. The
most advanced and reliable methods of social progress for all nations are ably set
forth in the official teaching of Pope Leo XIII.

* * ♦

Sociology in its practical aspects was the general title of a course of twelve
lectures given in New York City by Mr. John Graham Brooks, which were at-
tended by members of the League for Political Education and students of the
Teachers' College. The introductory talk on The Art and Method of Reading
the Best Books on the Social Question was divided under three heads: the
poetry of the subject, poetry trying to realize itself, and poetry that has actually
been accomplished. The literature of the social question began with Utopias,
and that was the best place for the reader to begin, as one must get hold of the
poetry of the question to protect one's self against the harshness of facts. Mr.
Brooks recommended More's Utopia as a starting point, to be read with Gibbon's
Industrial History of England as a aommentar>% and from this one might read
backward to Plato's Republic or forward to Bellamy's Looking Backward, and
Ho wells 's Traveller from Altruria. Personally he preferred Morris's News from
Nowhere, because if we were going to have a dream he did not see why we
should not have the best dream there is ; and the kind of anarchy that prevails in
the land of Nowhere, where they have no law because they do not need it, seems
the ideal condition of society.

The next step — that of the dream trying to realize itself — was explained as
the effort of the poetic instinct to do or recommend something whereby some-
thing of beauty might be got into our ugly life. Of such literature the lecturer
said that Ruskin was the best example, and that it included almost the whole of
modern sociological writings. In such reading he recommended an antithetical
process of placing against each other writers of diametrically opposite tendencies.
Thus, Herbert Spencer has an individualistic temperament and believes in letting
every man do exactly as he pleases, while the great German sociologist. Professor
Scheffler, holds precisely the opposite view. For instance, in the question of im-
migration Spencer was inclined to let people go where they would, while Scheffler
organized the social intelligence in such a way as to find out where labor is
needed and then send it there. Therefore, Spencer and Scheffler should be read
together, and from between these two points of view the reader must choose his
own. Similarly Mallock in his Classes and Masses was opposed to Spahr in The
Distribution of Wealth.

From this reading Mr. Brooks promised as much intellectual pleasure as from
a course of selected novels. He warned his audience, however, not to make ac-
quaintance with Henry George through his Progress and Poifcrty, but to begin
instead with Social Problems. The conclusions reached by Mallock are not to be
trusted by any Christian.

The literature of the dream realized is to be found in the collections of statis-
tics regarding the social problem which all governments are now making. Such

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1 897-] • The Columbian Reading Union. 57 j

literature came into existence only five years ago, and Mr. Brooks considers that
it marks an epoch in the history of the problem, for these statistics are collected
by the many and not by the few, and therefore the masses believe them. He
thinks they will inevitably do away with agitators; as a man cannot indulge in
wild assertions when the means of disproving them are within the reach of all
laboring men. The statistics for this country are to be found in the bulletins of
the Department of Labor at Washington.

In conclusion, Mr. Brooks said that to understand the problem it was neces-
sary not only to read, but to- come into actual touch with it, since the end of
all reading is to find our own proper relations to the great and coming art of
making common life first tolerable and humane, and then hopeful and beautiful.
* * *

The late Professor George E. Hardy, A.M., whose sudden death occurred at
Roselle, N. J., April 15, after an operation for appendicitis, was a devoted friend of
The Columbian Reading Union. His work for the New York State Teachers' Asso-
ciation in preparing graded lists of reading for children has been noticed at length
in these pages.

Professor Hardy was born in New York City in 1859. In 1878 he was grad-
uated from the College of the City of New York, and shortly afterward received
the degree of M.A. from St. Francis Xavier College. In 1886 he was made prin-
cipal of the new Grammar School No. 82, then one of the largest in the city, and
he thoroughly organized.it. He was then but twenty-six years old, and was the
youngest man ever selected as principal in a New York public school. In 1894 he
was elected to succeed Professor Scott, whose death had left vacant the chair of
English Language and Literature in the College of the City of New York, which
place he filled until the time of his death.

Professor Hardy's services as a writer and lecturer on educational topics were
in constant demand. One of his books. Five Hundred Books for the Young, has
gone through several editions. He left unfinished at the time of his death, among
other works, a History of England and a History of English Literature, adapted
for use in schools and colleges.

He was one of the founders of the Champlain Summer-School, and at one
time President of the New York State Teachers' Association. The faculty and
instructors of the College of the City of New York published an expression of their
deep regret in the loss of their colleague and friend, from which these words are
taken : " Recently advanced to a new sphere of work, Professor Hardy had the pro-
mise of a long career of usefulness in the profession which he had chosen. His sin-
gularly elastic and cheerful temperarnent commended him to his companions and
pupils, who were at the same time equally impressed by the force and vigor of his
character. Many years of experience had qualified him to deal wisely with boys and
with men. His success as a principal gave assurance of corresponding success as
a professor. His enthusiasm for literature, and his firm belief in its elevating and
ennobling power, were an animating influence in the department of English. In
the prime of life, in vigorous health, and impressed with a serious sense of the
dignity and importance of the work in which he was engaged, he had a right to
expect that the coming years should bring him renewed opportunities for useful-
ness, ever-increasing respect and affection from his students, and honor from the
community in which he lived." M. C. M.

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576 New Books. [July» 1897.

NEW BOOKS.

B. Herder, St. Louis:

Lave Your Enemies, By Rev. Joseph Spillman, SJ. Translated from the
German by Helena Long. Laughter and Tears. By Marion J. Bninowe.
A Little Book of Wisdom, Collected by Lelia Hardin Bugg. The Dream
of Bonaparte, By Rev. William Poland, S.J.
Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago:

Thoughts on Religion, By the late George John Romanes. Preface by
Charles Gore, M.A., Canon of Westminster.
Benziger Brothers, New York:

Vocations Explained, By a Vincentian Father. An Abridgment of
Questions on Vocations, approved by Cardinal Gibbons and Cardinal Satolll.
Disunion and Reunion, By W. J. Madden, Auckland. Summer Talks
about Laurdes, By Cecilia Mary Caddell. The Life of Christ, By the
Rev. J. Duggan, Catholic Priest of Maidstone. A Lang Probation, By
Henry Gibbs.
The Macmillan Co., New York :

Lost Illusions, By H. de Balzac. Translated by Ellen Marriage. With
preface by George Saintsbury. A Rose of Yesterday, By F, Marion
Crawford.
The Century Co., New York :

Talks to Young Men, Talks to Young Women, Both by Charles H.
Parkhurst.
Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York :

Darkness and Dawn ; or. Scenes of the Days of Nero, An Historic Tale,
By Frederic W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S.
American Book Company, New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago :

Plants and their Children. By Mrs. William Starr Dana. Eclectic School
Readings: — The Story of the Romans, By H. A. Gucrber. Old Greek
Stories, By James Baldwin. Short Stories of Our Shy Neighbors, By
Mrs. M. A. B. Kelly. Stories for Children, By Mrs. Charles A. Lane.
Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans, By Edward Eggleston.
Fifty Famous Stories Retold, By James Baldwin. Stories of American
Life and Adventure, By Edward Eggleston. Robinson Crusoe, By
Daniel Defoe ; edited by Kate Stephens. Fairy Stories and Fables,
Retold by James Baldwin. The Story of the Greeks, By H. A. Guerber.
Bible Readings for Schools, Edited by Nathan Schaeffer, Ph.D., D.D. A
Brief Latin Grammar. By W. D. Mooney, A.M. The Story of the Chosen
People. By H. A. Guerber. Die Journalisten : A Comedy in Four Acts,
By Gustav Freytag. Edited for school use by J. Norton Johnson, Ph.D.
Lamson, Wolffe & Co., Boston and New York :

James Clarence Mangan. His selected Poems, with a Study by the Editor
Louise Imogen Guiney.
Government Printing-Office, Washington :

Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, By J. W. Powell,
Director.
Copeland & Day, Boston :

Lyrics. By John B. Tabb. New Poems, By Francis Thompson. The
Falcon of Langiac. By Isabel Whiteley. Patrins, To which is cuidedan
Inquirendo into the Wit and other good Parts of His late Majesty King
Charles the Second. Written by Louise Imogen Guiney.
Christian Press Association Publishing Co., 54 Barclay Street, N. Y.

How a Protestant became a Catholic.
D. Heath & Co.

Stories of Long Ago in a New Dress. By Grace H. Kupfer.

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Very Rev. Augustine F, Hewit, D.D.,

Superior-General of the PluHlisls.

Died July j, /<?97, ag^ed jy years.
-R. f . p.

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Superior of tbe t^ailt^^li^atbct^

IHE main facts of Father Hewit's
life have been given to the
world by the newspapers, and
:he year 1865 A. D. have been
;d by himself in his Memoir of
3aker. Still, it is to be expected
Formally announcing his death to
lers of this magazine, and to his
lends and admirers, these facts
3e set forth in greater detail in
r of better appreciating his life's
d character.

^ears, long and peaceful, spent
most part in the quiet shade of
3ter, are not uneventful. They
: with far-reaching changes in the
/<^ixgiv/M3 thought of the world, as well
as with an immense expansion of the Catholic Church in
the United States, in which he had a distinguished and a meri-
torious part; they have rounded out into full perfection and
patriarchal age a singularly pure, upright, and scholarly life.
Nathaniel Augustus Hewit, which given name on becom-
ing a Catholic he changed to Augustine Francis, was born
on November 27, 1820, in Fairfield, Conn. He was the elder
son of the Rev. Nathaniel Hewit, D.D., and Rebecca Hill-
house his wife, one of four children born to them. Father
Hewit was of American stock dating back several generations,
though more remotely of mixed English and Irish blood.
He was of ministerial lineage on both sides ; oh that of his
father, from a parson of the Church of England dispossessed
by Archbishop Laud for Puritan tendencies, who came to
Connecticut shortly after its first settlement; and on the
mother's, from an Irish Presbyterian minister, who had long
previously settled in the same colony. These forebears con-

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ii V£^y Rev. Augustine F. He wit, D.D.

nected him with John Mason, the famous Puritan captain;
with John and Priscilla Alden, and others of the first
settlers.

Dr. Hewit, his father, was one of the most prominent
divines of the Congregational denomination in the United
States during the earlier part of this century. "A man," says
his biographer, " of imperial form and visage, in whom was
blended a royal majesty and a prophetic solemnity which
never failed to impress every one who saw him, and his ap-
pearance and proportions were but the index of the man —
the outbeaming of his masterful soul." Graduating from
Yale (1808), Dr. Hewit began and completed his theological
studies at Andover about 1814; he was installed pastor of
the Congregational church at Plattsburgh, N. Y., 181 5 ; trans-
ferred to Fairfield, Conn., 18 18, where he married, and inhere
our Father Hewit was born. Dr. Hewit finally removed to
Bridgeport, Conn., in which place he exercised an honored
ministry for nearly fifty years ; made Pastor Emeritus 1862 ;
died 1869 A. D.

About 1828 Dr. Hewit interrupted his pastoral work for
a few years to become the agent and promoter of the Ameri-
can Temperance Society, and thus a pioneer in the much-
needed reform of what even then was a wide-spread evil.
In this capacity he visited England, lectured in Exeter Hall,
London, and in many of the principal cities of Great Britain,
*^ producing upon all a deep impression of his great power,
his splendid and fiery eloquence — the outcome of his deep
sincerity, his opulent imagination, his logical force and power
of generalization." From what I can gather from authentic
sources, it would seem that considerable as were the oratorical
powers of the son, he never was at all the equal of his
father ; for in the older man there was a surging-up of power,
an intensity of character and magnetism, an output of fancy
and depth that entitled him to a first place ^mdff^ his con-
temporaries.

Commanding as were Dr. Hewit 's abilities for public life,
I have reason to think they were such as to evoke fear and
admiration rather than affection from his children. And the
constraint, the gloom inherent in old-fashioned Calvinism
added much to repress the kindlier feelings of intimacy and
love. Nor was Father Hewit's subsequent career, as Catholic
and priest, such as to commend itself to his father's ap-
proval. Filial respect and pride were ever manifest, and the

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Very Rev. Augustine F. Hewjt, D.D. iii

son in later life visited his father when opportunity afforded,
and he assisted at his father's death-bed in 1869. Even at
the last Dr. Hewit maintained his stern self-command. At some
manifestation of grief from the ladies of the family as his
end drew near, he spake up : "I don't want this trapesing
about, and whispering and crying. If there is anything to be
done, do it ; or said, say it ; and don't whisper."

And turning to his son he said : *' I wish you to pray for
me." Father Hewit called for a prayer-book, and read the
acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition. " Thank you," he
said : " they're good prayers." This circumstance of the use
of a Catholic book gave rise to an unfounded report that Dr.
Hewit had become a Catholic. Father Hewit was rather
wont to dwell, briefly but feelingly, on the memory of his
mother, whom he lost at an early age, and for whom he ever
cherished a tender affection. This lady was the daughter of
the Honorable James Hillhouse, a member of Congress in
1791, and later for sixteen years United States Senator from
Connecticut ; — who, by the way, was acting President of the
United States for a day, the outgoing President having re-
tired a day too early ; and until his successor was sworn in
Mr. Hillhouse, as President of the Senate, exercised for this
brief space presidential power.

From conversations extending over many years, at times
of community recreation, or during convalescence, we came
to know many details of his childish years. His early preco-
city was such that he used to declare he could recall distinctly
things that had happened when he was two years old ; at
four he asked his father if God could make a thing to be
and not be at the same time, and he affirmed that at five or
six he had a clearer apprehension of God than in the matur-
ity of his powers. " I knew he was omnipotent and self-ex-
istent." His lively, mischievous spirit led him to frequent
wanderings near a fascinating but dangerous goose-pond, and
on one occasion to climbing the church-steeple, from which
perilous place he was rescued by faithful Polly, his nurse,
who declared herself as broken of heart by his wilfulness,
and sore of arm by his insistent demands to be carried.

I think that Father Hewit's childish years were not so
happy and joyous as his affectionate disposition craved. He
-was wont to speak of the gloom, the prohibition from play
on Sundays, and his impatience to have that wearisome day
pass. He lost his own mother when nearly eleven years of

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IV VEi^y Rev. Augustine F. He wit, D.D.

age, and his father married for his second wife a Miss Eliot,
a lady of high family, very just and estimable.

At the age of six Father Hewit was sent to the town-
school of Fairfield, and began the study of Latin ; at eight
he entered the well-known Phillips Academy at Andover,
Mass., and at fifteen he was entered at Amherst College,
from which he was graduated in 1839, having had as class-
mates Dr. Storrs of Brooklyn (who just celebrated his fiftieth
anniversary), Henry Ward Beecher, the late Bishop Hunt-
ingdon.

From parents such as these Father Hewit inherited his
physical and mental qualities. Well-favored and well-propor-
tioned, and, in his old age particularly, strikingly handsome
and venerable, he was about six feet in height and of a
large frame. In his expression power and intellectuality were
blended with kindness and distinction. Though accessible,
and even at times affectionate, he was repressed, never famil-
iar, both from native dignity and religious propriety; nor
could any one ever presume on freedom or unguarded brusque-
ness towards him. Above personalities, no.t understanding
gossip, he combined exquisite charity with a quick, strong
anger for persons and principles really blameworthy ; stupid-
ity and inaccuracy were a trial to him not always borne
with equanimity.

As to his mental qualities, they were of a very high or-
der, yet so balanced and fitted one to another that his
command of them gave every indication of ease, versatility,
and depth. In many men, remarkable for talent or distin-
guished by intellectual success, there is too often a marked
deficiency in one or other of the great and, as we consider
them, distinct powers of the mind. Thus, a mathematician
will have a high and special order of imagination, an accuracy
of judgment, yet perhaps lack memory, or power of expres-
sion, or interest in other branches of study ; or a poet may
excel in creative fancy, or in a sense of harmonious and pic-
turesque diction, yet be a pitiable creature in practical and
speculative matters, or in both. But in Father Hewit there
was a balance, an adjustment. To prodigious power of assimi-
lation and memory he joined accuracy and aptness of use ;
the golden chain of principle, of relationship ran through his
store of facts ; to an aptitude for speculation he added facil-
ity and clearness of exposition. Well equipped at all points

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i4*

Vb/^y Rev. Augustine F. He wit, D,D. v

of controverted philosophy and theology, he was strong in
theory, judicial in definitions and their application ; versed in
historical questions, he was familiar with objections and ready
as well as convincing in answer. Add to this a quick com-
prehension, an appreciation of process and results in other
fields of thought distinct from his own, an acquaintance with
several languages, German, French, and Italian, a resolute
application to reading and study, and I have given an indica-
tion of the scholar. Father Hewit had an inherited, if I may
say so, and an acquired devotion to theology, and in it he
spent the best and longest years- of his life.

He began with and in Calvinism — the principles of which
came to him by early training, and were afterwards mastered
by more systematic study in the Congregational Seminary at
East Windsor, with the view of fitting himself for the minis-
try in that denomination. He found, however, that in the
light of historic truth the whole system, always repugnant
to him, went to pieces; investigation showed that Presby-
terianism was a radical departure from the Apostolic Primi-
tive Church with its graded hierarchy, its authority, and
its sacramental idea. He obtained a preaching license; but
his first attempt was a wretched failure. His heart was not
in it ; he had left part of his manuscript at home, and the per-
formance, done under the critical eye of his father, once over,
he determined never to repeat it. By this time, .1840 A. D.,
the Tractarian movement had awakened great interest and
was exerting influence in the United States ; men were alive
to the efforts of Newman and his associates in their endea-
vors to prove the identity and to bring about the return of
Anglicanism to historic and patristic Catholicity. Coming
under the influence of their teaching, young Hewit left the
church of his birth and passed to the Episcopalian communion.
To this allegiance he remained firm and true for six years —
as long, that is, as his conscience permitted. He removed
to Baltimore, became an inmate of Bishop Whittingham's
family, pursued his studies, took deacon's orders, and in
that capacity was put in charge of a small church suburban
to Baltimore, at Govanstown. He came to recognize, how-
ever, that intellectual sympathy, moral accord, the accept-
ance even of Catholic truths, do not make one a Catholic ;
for this there must be submission to and union with that one
ever-living, authoritative church in which Christ, by his
promise, rules and teaches through his vicar, the successor of

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VI V£/iY Rev. Augustine F. He wit, D.D.

St. Peter. The process and successive steps of his conver-
sion are best given by himself in the October number of
The Catholic World for the year 1887, to which we
invite the attention of those interested. Suffice it here to
say, that the whole article bears witness to the most admira-
ble sincerity, to a readiness to follow the joint leading of
reason and grace, to the convincing power of truth upon an
earnest mind, and to a disregard of human judgment, to
which he, having once changed his belief, was now the more
subject as being restless and inconstant. He had no ac-
quaintance with Catholics, nor with . Catholicity in the con-
crete; no share in ultra and obstinate Protestantism, none
of that bitterness which, unfortunately, too often is a charac-
teristic of later Ritualists. His desire to follow conscience
received an added force from the critical state of his health
at the time. Threatened with acute pulmonary trouble and
subject to hemorrhages, he had been forced to go South, to a
plantation in North Carolina, to delay, if he could not
escape, a fatal termination of the disease. Here, facing
the prospect of death, he determined on the step which
brought the fullest satisfaction to mind and conscience. He
was received into the church early in 1846, and a year later,
March 25, 1847, was ordained priest. One further episode
of his years as an Episcopalian, and we have done with them.
High-churchmen had repeatedly shown an inclination to
fraternize with, and to obtain recognition from, the Greek
schismatics ; feelings, as events have shown, not warmly
reciprocated. These desires, however, took shape in a mis*
sion attempted by Bishop Southgate, at one time a mission-
ary in Constantinople. He proposed to go thither with a
small body of clergy, and establish an Episcopalian church
and college. This matter of union was formally presented
at a convention held in Philadelphia about 1844^ and young
Mr. He wit, then a deacon, was asked and consented to go
to Constantinople. His name, however, was rejected by the
committee on account of his Catholic proclivities, and the
project as contemplated was changed and fell through.

Before going on to speak of Father Hewit's priestly life
and work, it will not be uninteresting to consider, in a brief
way, the state of Catholicity in the United States fifty years
ago.

In 1840 the Catholic population was computed at a mil-

•H

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Ve/iv Rev. Augustine F. He wit, D,D. vii

lion and a half — about one-eleventh of the entire number of
citizens. They were almost exclusively of Irish birth or
descent, and for the most part poor, struggling amid sur-
roundings strange and trying, but not unkindly. They were
too few to provoke opposition, too loyal and self-sacrificing
not to have merited open tributes of respect from all fair-
minded Protestants since the time of Washington. But the
very year of Father Hewit's ordination, 1847, marked a
change in some important respects. It will ever be remem-
bered in Ireland as the year of the famine, a blight having
fallen upon the potato, the main staple of food; and in
consequence a tide of immigration set in to the United States
which grew in volume for three decades, and, I may say,
revolutionized the state of American Catholicity —

In 1840, Catholics numbered 1,500,000 — i-iith of entire

population.
In 1850, Catholics numbered 3,500,000, or i-7th of entire

population.
In i860. Catholics numbered 4,500,000, still i-7th.
In 1840, I Archbishop and 16 Bishops.
In 1850, 6 Archbishops and 27 Bishops.
In i860, 7 Archbishops and 42 Bishops.
This tide did not flow southward with any considerable
force. Still, Charleston, being the great sea-port of the
Southern Atlantic States, as well as the episcopal see of
Bishop England, who made determined efforts to promote
immigration — Charleston, I say, received a considerable num-
ber of these Catholic strangers. And it is pertinent to ob-
serve here that the illustrious Dr. England, first Bishop of
Charleston, merits the title of pioneer in a work we have seen
lately and successfully revived — the work of non-Catholic
missions. His biographer, Dr. Richard H. Clarke, says that
he labored for twenty years, in season and out of season,
with his matchless, fervid, and ready eloquence, in Protestant
churches and public halls, in school and state buildings,
addressing non-Catholics at their own urgent request, and
everywhere he conciliated respect for his co-religionists, won
admiration for himself, and dispelled ignorance and prejudice
against the church — prejudice more dense in those days than
now.

When in February, 1846, young Mr. Hewit applied for
admission to the church, the great Bishop England had

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V£/^Y Rev. Augustine F. Hewit, D,D.

passed to his reward and Dr. Reynolds ruled the diocese.
He kindly welcomed the young neophyte and put him in the
care of Dr. Lynch, afterwards the third bishop of Charleston
and Father Hewit's life-long friend. Nor could any one have
been better fitted than Dr. Lynch to give that complete
and final assurance to a convert's determination. Gracious,
humble, a finished theologian, an eloquent orator, a cogent
controversialist, a distinguished scientist, he was such as to
wake admiration for the church to which Hewit was impelled
by the weightier force of conviction and the attraction of
grace. Besides Dr. Lynch there was another remarkable
scholar, a priest of the Charleston diocese, an inmate too
of the bishop's house, whose later life is a part of the his-
tory of the Overbrook Seminary, and whose name is a glory
of the American Catholic Church of our day — Dr., after-
wards the Right Rev. Monsignor Corcoran.

Whilst pursuing his studies for ordination Mr. Hewit was
engaged in teaching, conjointly with the above-named priest,
in a collegiate academy, an establishment of merit, which
owed its existence and success to the zeal of Bishop Eng-
land. On March 25, 1847, ^^ was ordained priest.

Shortly after this it was determined to edit the life and
works of Bishop England, and though not nominally the
editor and compiler, a great part of the real work was done
by Father Hewit. In furtherance of this design he went to
Philadelphia, became an inmate of Bishop Kenrick's house —
the more distinguished of the two illustrious brothers, and
afterwards Archbishop of Baltimore. Here he became ac-
quainted with the Redemptorist Fathers, who had a convent
and parish in that city, and was greatly attracted by the
strict, edifying lives of the fathers, and by the missionary
work which is their high vocation. He applied for admis-
sion, passed successfully the probation required, was pro-
fessed and then sent to Baltimore, then the centre of the
Redemptorist mission work.

The labors, joys, the associates, and the success of this
part of his career have been so fully set forth in his Memoir
of Father Baker that we may hasten on with brief remarks.
Despite his size and build. Father Hewit never was a physi-
cally powerful man, never enjoyed reliable and robust health ;
yet with his associates he did giant work. The mission band,
composed of Father Bernard, Fathers Walworth, Hecker,
Hewit, and, later. Fathers Baker and Deshon, has never had

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Very Rev. Augustine F. Hewit^ D.D. ix

an equal in the mission record of this country. Less dra-
matic and incisive than Father Walworth, who was the
great preacher, Father Hewit in his efforts was more sus-
tained. Possessed of a powerful voice, gifted with sensibility,
his cogent and finished discourses, his splendid appearance,
his comminatory and vituperative force, made him a great
and a successful missionary. I think, however, that mission
preaching as such, though so well discharged, was uncon-
genial ; that it did not afford the best outlet, the most natural
manifestation of his powers and character. It was rather in
the exposition of Gospel themes which involved dogma, in
sustained reasonings, in the enunciation of Christian and
Catholic principles, in their application to the circumstances
of our own time, that the real man woke up and gave forth
his message. In developing the meaning and relations of
some revealed truth, its true contents, its rational and Scrip-
tural warrant, its historic development or modification and
its present application, its conclusions, clear, measured, bind-
ing — in such themes, and in panegyrics, in obituaries and ser-
mons de circonstance, he was at his best. His serene faith,
his tolerant charity, his logical comprehensiveness ; his mental
poise, giving place now and again to vehement and impas-
sioned expression ; his scorn of what was false, vile, unjust ;
his admiration of what was high, honorable, amiable, of good
report ; the uninterrupted but emphatic flowing forth of ideas
in well-chosen words — these constituted the good qualities of
his preaching. I do not maintain that his action was fault-
less ; a neglect or ignorance of elocutionary canons, an over-
vehemence of feeling, at times marred the pleasure of his
auditors. There was a lack of variety of tone, a yielding to
too great development in some parts of his subject ; but he
was always convincing, forceful, instructive.

In order to give a connected view of Father Hewit's
career as a preacher I have considered it in its entirety,
until, owing to other occupations and his removal to Wash-
ington, it was brought to an end. A word further before I
resume the course of events, and it concerns what, for a
better name, I may call his private, as contrasted with his
public preaching-=-in the way of conferences, or discourses on
spiritual subjects addressed to a few persons. This custom
prevails in religious houses, and among the Paulists the
necessity of giving them frequently devolved upon him.
Versed in the science of the saints and in the principles of

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X Very Rev. Augustine F. He wit, D.D.

the spiritual life, himself simple, exact, upright, he was the
living exponent of what he uttered, and his conferences were
a treat in the matter of exposition, a comfort and stay to
the souls of his hearers at the time, and in days of difficulty
and trial.

And now to take up again the chronological order of
events. It will be remember that the brief of Pius IX.,
separating Father Hecker and his companions from the
Redemptorist Congregation, was issued the 6th of March,
1858. The new Institute of St. Paul the Apostle was begun
at once, and by the fall of 1859 the fathers, possessed of a
parish and a convent which served the double purpose of a
church and a home, had entered upon their work. In addi-
tion to missionary labors, they were further charged with
parochial duties, and had, moreover, to meet and provide for
the growth and stability of a new experimental religious
organization. For the first years Father Hewit took his full
share in both mission and parish duty ; but as aspirants and
candidates for admission came, he, as a matter of course,
was named for the responsible place of teacher, and continued
for nearly thirty years the work of training and forming the
successive generations. As some one well informed has
recently said in a Catholic newspaper, Father Hewit was
always the scholar and theologian. Father Hecker the man
of original inspirations, Father Deshon the man of practical
affairs, among the Paulists. To Father Hewit the com-
munity owes its Rule, and that expresses at once its varied
but cognate purposes and secures its stability, its quasi-
canonical form, its distinctly religious but novel existence.
To the general reader a brief summary of its features will be
interesting, while to those whose privilege it is to live under
its sanction its right understanding is at once its attraction,
the stimulus of their efforts, the instrument of their sanctifi-
cation, the manifestation of God's will and God's approval.
The Paulist Rule reflects, as might be expected, the natural
and spiritual characteristics of its chief framer. His aristo-
cratic temperament, his appreciation of the religious virtue
of obedience, are seen in the widely extended scope of its
governing authority. While his hopeful trust in regenerate
manhood and priestly consecration show forth in that liberty
of truth granted the individual, his appreciative unutilitarian
view of the purpose of common life is marked by the

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V£/iy Rev. Augustine F. Hew it y D.D. xi

emphasis given its first end — sanctification, personal and
collective; the broadness of his mind in its second and
practical end — apostolic labors — whether in great centres of
population by quasi-missions, exercises, preaching, music,
ritual; whether and necessarily by what the papal brief
creating the Institute called Expeditiones Sacrae — for increas-
ing of Catholic life among the faithful ; or more specially still,
by labor for the conversion of those who know the truth, by
written or spoken word — all these are equally legitimate and
sanctioned ends, all have the promise of God's blessing and
the Institute's approval. Father Hewit*s mind was too broad
for one single end, however laudable ; his practical sense too
supreme to count upon a support which would be a merit
in mendicant orders ; his acquaintance with the workings of
Providence in our times too wide, for they have witnessed the
multiplication of congregations for various ends simultaneous-
ly, and have seen the dispensations granted old orders.

We have now reached the period of Father Hewit's great-
est, most congenial and meritorious work, viz., his years as a
professor of sacred science and as an expositor of Catholic
truth. It is true, indeed, that a chair in some great university
would have better become his ability than the daily routine of
class-work for a few students in a small community. But
had he been thus occupied, we may well believe that he
never could have found time for the many scholarly contri-
butions to the cause of religious truth which have come
uninterruptedly from his pen. As it was, the reiteration day
by day in class of matters theological and philosophic,
soaked his mind with the principles and developments of
these great sciences, and enabled him to treat with sureness
and fulness upon the discussions which have so largely
occupied public attention. His teathing duties, cotwtant
rather than onerous, gave him leisure for study, and for
reading and writing ; and he exemplified Lord Bacon's well-
known dictum. His zeal, his vocation as a Paulist, turned
these opportunities to practical use. How many good and
learned men would have, and have, contented themselves
with the pleasure of mere acquisition, with the charms and
rewards of learning ; but Father Hewit's realization of the
intellectual and religious needs of the day, his devotion to
the church, did not suffer him to remain a passive and
grieved witness of error, prejudice, and pretence.

The medium for the exercise and manifestation of his

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xii Very Rev. Augustine F. He wit, D,D.

zeal was close at hand in The Catholic World Magazine,
specially founded in 1865 by Father Hecker as part of what
is a recognized end of the Paulist vocation, viz., the expo-
sition, dissemination, and defence of Catholic truth — the
apostolate of the pen and press. In no spirit, then, of literary
ambition, with no attempt either at original speculation or
popular praise, but seriously, out of zeal for the .truth,
often under stress of physical pain, by the necessity of
obedience and of position, by the requirements of truth,
Father Hewit gave his mature and declining years to
an uncompromising advocacy of Catholic principles. I
shall not say that the form of presentation, the necessarily
short and incomplete method of treatment, is the one he
would have chosen, had a choice been given him. But in
warfare and under attack one cannot always choose his
weapons or his line of defence. If the field or the occasion
do not admit of heavy artillery, one must be content with
musketry and skirmishing. Though practical in purpose and
given forth under the urgency of some particular need.
Father Hewit has no room for any but substantial argument ;
his goal is truth, and accurate writing is his best way to it.
His writings are extensive in range and considerable in bulk.
Though written for monthly publication, they are cognate and
subordinated to a full treatment of the matters discussed ;
and hence they would lend themselves, by an easy task of
compilation, to an interesting and connected view. Treating
as they do of subjects of philosophy, theology, church history,
and Scripture, it will be my endeavor to make manifest the
worth of these contributions, and for this I must ask the
reader's patience while I present, first. Father Hewit's advocacy
of scholastic philosophy.

Rejecting, £ts the Reformers did, the dogmatic theology of
the church, it was but natural they should reject Catholic
philosophy. The main opposition to it began in England
after Francis Bacon had laid the foundations of the inductive
method. I shall not assume to say that Bacon intended, nor
that, rightly understood, there exists in his work any fundamen-
tal opposition to scholastic philosophy. He called attention to
the necessity of observation, he insisted upon the importance
of careful, patient search for recurring phenomena before
arriving at a general statement, the promulgation of a
principle, the enunciation of a law. But surely in beginning a
course of investigation, and much more upon its completion, is

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Ve/^y Rev, Augustine F. He wit, D.D. xiii

there need of those universal underlying principles of cause
and effect, of cognition, of those high processes of mind for
the reception of truth and its scientific statement. Bacon
was followed, but wrongly, by Hobbes and Locke in the
development of sensism, to oppose which Berkeley landed in
the other extreme of the denial of the existence of matter.

In France Des Cartes, rejecting the teachings of the past,
declared that hitherto no one had succeeded in laying down
the true principles of philosophy, and proceeded to make
doubt and scepticism the basis of what is by its nature un-
changeable and unconditional. As Des Cartes, in France, with
well-meant but mistaken purpose, had started from the Ego
to raise himself to knowledge and communion with God, so,
in Germany, Kant and his followers proceeded from considera-
tions of the same Ego to deny all objective reality, even
that of the Ego itself, save as the sphere of subjective im-
pressions and opinions; whilst the later and present school
of Spencer, Virchow, relegate to the unknowable all that is
supersensible, all that comes not under the ascertamed laws
of physical nature.

Moreover, the religious and political confusion of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the acrimonious con-
troversies, the blighting breath, the sneering wit of Voltaire
and the Encyclopaedists had succeeded in heaping ridicule and
oblivion on the schoolmen. In Catholic countries, indeed, the
tradition and use of scholastic learning had not ceased, but
had lost esteem and been somewhat pushed out of view.
Moreover, the tide of battle for and against revealed truth
had changed its direction, and with it the necessary equip-
ment for those who would defend truth to good purpose. The
far-reaching discoveries of modern investigation, the success-
ful application of its theories to their proper subject-matter,
had led men to dogmatize outside their proper domain and
to create schools of philosophy designed to explain every-
thing. So that now the Christian apologist has to contend
for the most fundamental verities both of reason and faith,
the spirituality of his soul, the validity of his mental opera-
tions, the objectivity of the supersensible, the existence of a
personal God, the binding sanction of morality* To combat
best these errors the Supreme Teacher of the Catholic
Church believed that Christian apologists should return to
the unequalled armory of scholastic philosophy and find
.there weapons most fit and sturdy.

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Very Rev. Augustine F. He wit, D.D.

This return, urged by Pius IX. and made mandatory by
his successor, fell in most opportunely with Father Hewifs
wish and duty. Owing to the ill-health and absence of Father
Heckcr, the ■ duties of Editdr:in-chief of The Catholic
World devolved upon Father Hewit during the years
1874-75-76. A glance at the magazine during that period
will show what considerable service was done in the cause
of scholastic philosophy by him personally and by other
learned men, notably by Monsignor De Concilio and by the
late Father Bayma, S.J. Somewhat to his dismay, perhaps,
the ordinary reader was invited to give his attention to con-
siderations upon Time, Space, the Modes of Being, Essence,
Substance, etc., and if the magazine was heavily freighted,
it will be allowed that the cargo was valuable. His advo-
cacy of this cause met its reward in the re-established and
universal supremacy of St. Thomas in the sjchools, and in
the wonderful awakening and recognition given to the vast,
elaborated, and unanswerable system of truth of which the
Angelic Doctor is the chief exponent.

In other fields of controversy Father Hewit's labors have
been of singular and timely value, both to Catholics and to
those seeking religious truth along historic lines and the
pathways of authority. I refer to his studies in defence of
the Scriptures and his expositions of early church history.
It were superfluous, ^ surely, to remark upon the varied and
continuous attacks, whether of superior wisdom on the part
of the higher criticism or the calm pretensions of Anglican
controversialists. Dr. Harnack, whose return to saner views
has lately given satisfaction, admitted the incontrovertible
force of Father Hewit's logic as set forth in his refutation
of the learned German's position ; and Father Hewit's dem-
onstration of the continuity, development, and identity of
the Gospel Church in the existing Roman Communion has
done much in effectually sweeping away the flimsy histori-
cal assertions of Anglican writers.

Time is wanting to set forth the variety, the appositeness
and excellence of his theological writings, and the cause of
truth would be greatly served by a uniform edition of them.
Free from the necessity of a parti prts, from the obligation
of having to adopt and follow any one of the great schools
of approved orthodoxy, he was also free to choose and ex-
plain those arguments which afforded his own mind the
greatest satisfaction — those which, in his judgment, best

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V£XY Rev. Augustine F. He wit, D.D. xv

served the requirements of our times. Wisely conservative,
and better, wisely progressive, he frankly accepted whatever
investigation could present of real worth ; he did not close
his eyes or his mind to acquisition from any quarter that
could serve the better understanding of God's truth, and as
fear and doubt never disturbed the serenity of his faith, so
prejudice and the idola specus never made him obstinate.

Above all, he was generously loyal to the living magiste-
rium of the church, reverent and affectionately loyal to the
Vicar of Christ, the uncompromising asserter of all the Holy
See's prerogatives.

In recognition of his labors and merits he was honored,
in 1885, with the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Rome;
however, before this time his Alma Mater, Amherst College,
conferred the same distinction upon him — a tribute rather
of personal than of sympathetic approval, and so gracefully
acknowledged ; for we can hardly imagine that the work of
demolishing Calvinism, carried on for nearly forty years,
would be rewarded by the upholders of that system.

Father Hewit was honored by the confidence and friend-
ship of very many of the prelates of the American Church
during the past fifty years, was named theologian several
times at Plenary Councils, and appointed diocesan consultor
of New York by the late cardinal-archbishop ; but he declined
this and the preceding honors on the score of his home
duties. He was an honorary councillor of the Catholic Uni-
versity, to which great undertaking he gave early and most
substantial proof of regard by transferring to Washington, at
its inception, the Paulist Studentate, to grow in its light and
rest in its shade ; he was a contributor to the Congress of
Religions at the World's Fair, Chicago, where he was repre-
sented and his paper read by Father Elliott ; besides, was the
author of several volumes.

It is now time to draw this sketch to a close. He was
unanimously elected second Superior of the Paulist Institute
in succession to Father Hecker, despite his own protest on
the score of years and increasing infirmity. His last years
flowed placidly on, useful in labor, edifying in example, and
consoled, let us hope, by the increasing number of his breth-
ren and children, and by the widening and successful prose-
cution of their aims.

Father Hewit experienced the severe but purifying ordeal

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XVI

VE/iy Rev. Augustine F. Hewit, D.D.

of suffering, and awaited not only with calmness but with de*
sire his final summons.

The celebration of his golden jubilee, the fiftieth anniver-
sary of his priestly ordination, on March 28 of the present
year, was an event that gave him great pleasure and called
forth expressions of good-will and veneration from many
quarters. He assisted, vested in cope, at the Solemn Pon-
tifical Mass, received his friends for several days, and gave
hopes that he might be spared yet many years to his own.
But his disease, a kidney trouble, aggravated further by
dropsy and eczema, began to manifest itself with increased
force, one prostrating attack following another until his vital
forces were spent, and on July 3 he calmly expired.

We have attempted nothing more than a presentation of
Father Hewit such as might be gathered from a considera-
tion of his external works. Of the man — his noble simplicity,
his kindness, his high sense of honor, his literary tastes, his
industry, his fine sense of humor, his apt and innumerable
anecdotes, which brightened and seasoned his weightier dis-
course ; of the priest and religious — his regularity and regard
for observance, his love of his convent home and his breth-
ren, his spirit of faith, which made him esteem, inculcate, and
exact the careful performance of every religious rite ; his ex-
ceeding devotion to our Blessed Lady, his singular purity of
soul and hatred of What even savored the least of moral
evil — of all these we have said nothing nor scarcely given an
indication, trusting that a more competent and sympathetic
hand may give a fuller delineation of him whom we have
but just now lost, and upon whose like we do not hope soon
to look again.

And so to sum up : genuine nobility distinguished the
man, devotion of high powers to the most worthy objects
was the stimulus of his life's work, and a beautiful and
rare holiness of life gave a crown and a perfection to his
priestly character.

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THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

Vol. LXV. AUGUST, 1897. No. 389.

OUR BOYS.

BY REV. MICHAEL P. HEFFERNAN.

HAT are we doing for our boys ? A
writer in the American Ecclesiastical
Rnnew some time since asked this
question of his brother-priests, and
called their attention to the neces-
sity of giving more care to the boys
of the parish. The particular class
of boys referred to are those who
have made their First Communion
and have done with school discipline
— boys between the ages of twelve
and eighteen years, who, guileless
and green in judgment, must now
face the world with its manifold dangers to their souls.

As the article was broached with the view of eliciting dis-
cussion on this subject, I have since patiently watched and
waited to see if some priest whose experience among boys had
given him the knowledge and authority to speak on the subject,
would propose any organization which had been fairly tried
and proved to be practical, and by which all these boys of the
parish could be united and be kept faithful to their religious
duties during these critical years of their lives ; but as no such
organization has thus far been proposed, I venture to suggest
a society which is, I think, well suited to keep the boys stead-
fast in their allegiance to their holy faith and willingly attached
to their spiritual leader.

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578 Our Boys. [Aug.,

A VERY NECESSITOUS CLASS.

The organization of our boys does not receive the attention
which its importance demands. In every parish of any con-
siderable size in this country various societies and sodalities
supply the social and religious wants of the adult members
of the congregation; the parochial school, or at least a
well-organized Sunday-school, takes charge of the little ones ;
but no provision seems to have been made in the vast
majority of our parishes for the boys who have left school.
Thus there is a break in our line of defence of which
the enemy of souls has not failed to take notice and ad-
vantage.

The interval in a boy's life between the age of thirteen, when
most of our boys quit school, and that of eighteen is most im-
portant in the formation of his character. At this heroic time
of life he begins to think and act for himself ; he is besieged
by a troop of strange and strong temptations hitherto unknown
to him ; he must form habits, good or bad — for to live, to act,
is to acquire habit, and the habits now formed give a distinct
color to his character ; he is thrown among companions in the
workshop and on the street who are hostile to his faith or
dangerous to his morals, and unless he is strict in his religious
duties he soon grows indifferent and reckless and loses that
Catholic tone which is as important as it is indefinable. The
course downward is short and steep — " facilis descensus Averni."
The like does not happen to the girl, who with few exceptions
remains faithful to her religion ; she has not to meet the temp-
tations which confront the boys, and the safeguards of home
are sufficient to restrain in her any wayward inclinations which
may appear. Father McDermott, of St. Mary's Church, Philadel-
phia, in his address before the Young Men's National Union at
Albany, a few years since, very beautifully compares them to
plants just taken from the hot-house and placed in the ground.
He says: "Although these plants up to this time required con-
stant attention, they were, comparatively speaking, safe. The
gardener had sifted the soil in which they grew, he could at
pleasure regulate the temperature and the moisture, he could
shut out storm and sun. It is only when the plants find a
home in the field that the gardener's anxiety and hard woric
begin, because the plants are, to an extent, subject to condi-
tions beyond his control. He finds it extremely difficult to
save them from the grub that may strike at their very life by

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1 897-] Our Boys, 579

gnawing off their tender root, and from the storm that may
break them, and from the fierce rays of the sun that may wither
them. The critical time is, then, that in which the plants are
endeavoring to strike their roots into the new soil so deep and
wide that the broiling sun only serves to make them draw the
more moisture from the earth, and the storm only makes them
take the firmer hold."

THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD OF LIFE.

We have done much, very much, through our parochial and
Sunday-schools — the nurseries where the young plants are
cared for — to give our children a solid instruction in their faith
and form in them habits of piety; but the good work must be
kept up after the child has left school if we wish to have last-
ing results, otherwise it will be " love's labor lost." The school
does not and will not suffice to keep the boy in the right path
after he has left school, for the character of the boy is more
developed and determined by the thousand nameless influences
of the sights and sounds of environments and companionships
during this, his transitional period, than by the past influences
of his school-days ; and to oppose only the training once given
in school to these daily and hourly influences is to oppose the
force of a torrent by a few helpless twigs. "We lose some
when they leave school," a priest once said to me, " and our
only chance is when they get ill and when they come to be
married." Indeed, with all our teaching and all our schooling,
we see too many grow up irreligious, regardless of decency and
forgetful of God. And is it not sad and discouraging to find
that, after so many years of toil and trouble in teaching and
instructing them, after the expense and anxiety of building
and maintaining magnificent schools, so many boys fall
away ? Is it not folly to lay a broad and deep foundation,
and then have no care as to the edifice that is afterwards
thereon erected ? Must we follow the example of the father
of the prodigal and give to each the share of his inheritance,
and then let him go whithersoever he pleases to squander it in
living riotously ? Are we not rather commanded " to go into
the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that
our house may be filled " ? We let go our hold of the boys
at a time when we should hold them most tightly, and seldom,
if ever, do we regain a like hold on them in after years. Why
do we let them get loose at all ? They need us more than we
need them, and that is why we are solicitous about them ; their

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care brings more work to us, and for this we were ordained.
" Dost thou love me ? Feed my lambs."

It is true that parents ought to keep the boy within the
path marked out for him by the church, and see that he puts
in practice the teaching which he received from us during his
school-days. Indeed, there are some — nay, very many parents
who do so, who by example and precept bring up sons who
become an honor to the church, a blessing to society, and the
strength and the hope of our parishes are in them ; but, on the
other hand, parents are not always alive to this duty, and
some when the boy begins to work and contribute his share to
support the home, grant him much indulgence and freedom
of thought and action. Soon he becomes too big to be forced,
and here it is that influences outside the home circle exercise
their power. Some parents are very careless in this respect,
and bring up their boys a nuisance on the face of the earth.
We must look at things as they are, and not as we would wish
them to be.

IN THE YOUNG LIES THE HOPE OF THE FUTURE.

" It is my profound conviction,** says Monseigneur Dupanloup,
" that the world would be saved if we devoted ourselves to
youth.** And certainly, if we expect much fruit from our labor,
we must not be satisfied with the training we give the boys in
school, but must make use of more efficient means to attach
them to the church and keep them intensely interested in the
well-being of the parish. Some of us do not seem to realize
that boys and young men have souls as well as the most pious
of the female sex. If we preserve and strengthen in the boys
the high hopes and pious practices which they have acquired at
school until they become mature men, we shall have a noble
and loyal body of Catholic laymen, earnest co-operators in the
progress of the parish. What we want at present among our
laymen is Catholic union and concert of action in defence and
promotion of Catholic interests — a true, earnest Catholic spirit
which the unity of our faith and worship ought to inspire and
sustain. This is our great need. Our Catholic men do not
readily unite and concentrate their forces ; they have never been
accustomed to act in concert as one body. Hence the difficulty
experienced in sustaining our Young Men's Literary and Social
Clubs, which in some cases are nothing more than the most
arrant humbugs that ever existed. We must train our boys up
to organization. Many priests are anxious to organize our

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young men and keep them about the church ; but do we start
to do so at the proper time ? Do we start early enough ? Con-
sider how many boys make their First Communion each year,
and how few can be mobilized a few years afterwards to
form a young men's society! If all these boys could be kept
united for six or seven years from the time of their First
Communion, what a strong society we should have! And what
is of greater consequence, such a society would become a
constant feeder to the other societies, spiritual or partly spiritual,
attached to the church. Such a society among the boys is, to
my thinking, the remedy for all our failures in maintaining our
young men's organizations. How hard and faithfully many
priests are spending themselves to gather the young men to the
church, and in great measure spending in v£Hn, because they
labor amiss ! As long as the boys* training is negative, fruits
will continue comparatively small. Pope Leo XIII., in an
encyclical issued about 1889, says; "Let the good unite in a
vast coalition ; let them become invincible through concord and
union " ; and there is no better and surer way of keeping our
laymen united and bound together into an invincible union than
by beginning with the boys and training them in that line.
Moreover boys incline by nature to organization, more so than
men. Do we not always see boys in a crowd ? They naturally
mingle and unite. But they demand one requisite, namely, that
their association be interesting to them. Thus, boys form clubs
of their own. Why not take advantage of this tendency and
unite them to the church, rather than allow them to unite about
the street-corners, where their good morals are destroyed ? In
the same encyclical our Holy Father says: "To your fidelity
and watchfulness we commend, in a special manner, the young
as being the hope of human society. Devote to them the
greatest part of your care, and do not think that any precaution
can be great enough in keeping them from the fraudulent
snares with which the leaders of secret organizations are wont to
deceive and entrap the young men of to-day.**

No doubt there are parishes in which a society exists for
the boys, and has already done good work. The boys* tem-
perance society is well established in some dioceses, and very
commendable. There are 14,624 Temperance Cadets enrolled
in the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America, but this is
only a small proportion of the number that should be enrolled.
These cadet organizations are doing good work ; but a society
even without the restriction of the promise of total absti-

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nence may do a greater good. What we want is an organiza«
tion which shall take hold of every boy in the parish as
soon as he has made his First Communion and has left
school, and keep him until he is old enough to join the
Holy Name Society, or some other organization for young
men attached to the church ; a society purely spiritual in its
first and fundamental principles, yet containing in itself such
inducements as are likely to attract the boy and keep him
deeply interested in it ; a society which shall bring him willing-
ly to his duty once a month, and offer the pastor or spiritual
director an opportunity to give him, periodically, instruction
specially suitable for him. The boys want not only light to
see their way — they want strength to push onward ; and hence
the necessity of -monthly Communion and stronger relationship
with their natural leaders — the priests. Without the Sacraments
all our preaching and all our so-called literary societies,
amusements and attractions for the young men, are a beautiful
bosh and waste of precious time.

ST. ANTHONY'S MILITIA.

Thiis far, and somewhat at length, I have dwelt upon the
necessity of looking after the boys. When we approach the
discussion of a plan of campaign we are in wider waters. To
those who think well of it, the writer would suggest an organi-
zation which seems to afford safe anchorage, and which may
hold the boys together ; one that supplies all the requirements
of a sodality, and even more, as it is capable of expansion accord-
ing to the circumstances of place. It is called St. Anthony's
Militia, and has for its object to bring the boys to Holy
Communion once a month. It purports to keep before the
eyes of our boys the living example of St. Anthony, with the
lily in his hand, as a model of purity, and on his arm the
Child Jesus, the personification of simplicity. St. Anthony is
always associated with the Divine Infant. And so shall the sons
of St. Anthony, with purity and simplicity — the virtues our boys
need most — inscribed upon their victorous banner, leave the
world better than they found it. Our band are called Militia
because, with the aid and under the protection of St. Anthony,
the members are summoned to fight a dangerous sin — the demon
of impurity. The military aspect of the society is given it to
attract the boys. We are a militant people, and our boys are
particularly so. Any playing at soldiers is almost sure to
attract them and keep them interested. We must use natural

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means to keep the boy around us ; the supernatural by itself
makes no impression on him, as a rule. He is a difficult sub-
ject to handle successfully; as Plato says, ''Of all wild animals
a boy is the most difficult to manage " ; but I think the dif-
ficulty is often exaggerated, and that boys may be easily
moulded into any form with a little understanding and skill.
Besides, the military aspect brings home to the boy's mind
more readily his duties to God, his neighbor, and himself.
Much as there is in military life which we cannot but deplore,
there is no illustration more frequently employed in Scripture
to set forth the duties and the character of a Christian boy;
and it cannot be denied that most of the personal qualities
that make a good soldier are just those which go to constitute
an exemplary Christian.

THE MILITARY SPIRIT FOSTERS SOLID VIRTUE.

A man may be soldierly without possessing even a semblance
of piety; but, all other things being equal, the more soldierly
he is the higher will be the type of his religion. If godly
men in the army are rare, they are generally exceptionally
good. They have the courage of their convictions and are de-
cidedly aggressive in their piety. When St. Paul exhorted his
young friend Timothy to be " a good soldier," he gave advice
which all young men would do well to lay to heart ; and never,
perhaps, was it more needful than in an age like this, when the
prevalence of luxury and the appetite for pleasure are so apt
to take all the grit and manliness out of the rising youth of
our land. No priest laboring in our large cities will deny that
the age of puberty to-day is fast losing the artless charm of in-
nocence, since frightful corruption seems to sit by its cradle in
order to watch its awakening. The boy of to-day appears
ripened before his time by vice — precocious and damaged fruit
which the enemy of souls gathers during the morning of life.
Just as many a raw recruit has joined his country's service,
tempted by the seemingly gay and easy life of a soldier, but
has found, when called to active duty in the field, that the
discipline was very different from what he expected, so it is
with thousands of our young boys in their setting out in life —
what promised to be almost a holiday proving a stiff conflict
and demanding a " hardness " upon which they had not cal-
culated. St. Anthony's Militia will act as a training-school in
which they may be instructed for the first battles, which are the
most trying and crucial ones. Many a young man suffers a

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584 Our Boys. [Aug.,

moral collapse because he did not know of the dangers he
had to face, the enemies he had to conquer, and the special
qualities he needed to possess ; whereas, had he been duly
warned and counselled, he might have come out victorious.
Therefore the Militants meet on the afternoon of their Com-
munion Sunday and recite the little chaplet of the Immaculate
Virgin, consisting of three Our Fathers and twelve Hail Marys,
to obtain the grace of holy purity for themselves and all other
members. They sing a hymn and recite a prayer in honor of
St. Anthony, after which the priest in charge addresses them
on a subject suitable to their age and surroundings. It is rarely
amongst us that special instructions are given to our young
men and boys. Here is an opportunity for the director to pre-
pare the boys for their daily conflict; and here will be given
what the few minutes on a Sunday morning or the slip-shod
catechism lesson failed to give — more breadth and depth to the
spiritual training of the boy.

The rules and regulations should be as few as possible.
In regard to dress, it would be well to adopt a uniform. No
doubt a uniform is a wonderful attraction. I think each boy
should have at least a sort of military jacket, to be worn on
Communion Day and at a special meeting or on parade.
Base-ball clubs could also be encouraged; musical entertain-
ments could be given from time to time ; in fact, all the health-
ful sports and natural virtues of the boys should be in nowise
restrained, unless they begun to run riot and to bring the so-
ciety into disrepute.

THE MAGNETISM OF THE PRIEST IN CHARGE.

But as a preventive of all this an important consideration
is that the priest in* charge of the boys should be congenial to
them. The success of a society among young men is very
often due to the magnetism of the spiritual director. This is
especially true of the Militia for boys. Its success supposes a
strong bond of sympathy between the director and the mem-
bers of the Militia. The director ought to be a man congenial
to boys' societies; one knowing their follies and their virtues.
He must know not only every officer, but must have some ac-
quaintance with every member of the society, else his value
will not be appreciated. I presume to say that almost every-
thing depends upon the continuation of the harmonious rela-
tions between priest ahd boys. American boys require a cer-
tain amount of independence in any society to which they be-

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long, and the director ought readily to overlook many minor
faults which do not require severe treatment.

I do not claim that this Militia is a panacea for all the
spiritual ills of boyhood. It will not beatify boys or make saints
of them as soon as they join it ; but it will keep them united
and interested in the church, make them proof against the
many temptations which our boys have to meet and fight
every day, and finally induce them to attend regularly to
their religious duties, the fulfilment of which alone is a suffi-
cient reward for all our labors, for then indeed shall abide
in them a living faith not to be destroyed by the heresy and
indifference which they must daily meet, and a strong character
not to be overcome by the temptations they must endure.
What a void the Militia will supply in the life of our boys !
Moreover, St. Anthony is the popular saint of this age, and
his prominent virtues are those which the youth of this coun-
try need most — simplicity and love of restraint. The youth of
our day imagine that they know everything; they are filled with
conceit, and their whole ambition is to parade themselves and
to be talked of by everybody.

I have suggested this society to my brother-priests who
are desirous of doing something for the boys ; whether it meet
their approval or not, I ask them to form some society among
the boys. Keep a tight hold of the boys!

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Arles Amphitheatre— second only to the Coliseum .at Rome in size.

THE ANCIENT CITY OF ARLES: ITS CHURCHES
AND ANTIQUITIES.

BY EMMA ENDRES.

VEN SO attractive a country as France soon palls
upon the visitor, if he confines himself to fash-
ionable centres. Of grand buildings, palatial
hotels, and other manner of modern elegance
he has a surfeit at home, and where there is
only the novelty of change interest quickly wanes. To see
sights worth the while, and to store the mind with impressions
both pleasing and beneficial, he should seek out-of-the-way
nooks and corners of this historic land — the ancient cities that
still bear the feeble foot-prints of civilization when it was a
toddling infant. And if he finds that Progress, in its long,
weary march, has in some few material respects made little if any
headway, the lesson will be none the less valuable because of a
tinge of disappointment and the loss of a little cherished conceit.
To no more interesting city could he direct his steps than
to the ancient town of Aries, situated in south-eastern France,
on the banks of the Rhone, some thirty miles inland from the
Mediterranean. Here we have a city that flourished in the
time of Caesar, that was a great port and commercial centre
second only to Marseilles. Its ruined temples, theatre and

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1 897-] The Ancient City of Arles. 587

arena, mutely tell of the invasion of the all-conquering Romans
and of the paganism with which they inoculated the fair city —
the Rome of Gaul, as it was called — while the grand old churches,
still sublime in their decay, speak of the glorious triumph of
Christianity, and stand a pleasing consolation to the artistic eye
which would otherwise bewail the overthrow of heathen magnifi-
cence. Aries lost nothing of architectural beauty when the
true God became the object of worship to its people.

Although its present population of thirty thousand is less
than a third of what it once boasted, Aries is by no means a
city in decline. It has had to give way before the development
of more advantageously situated towns, but it is nevertheless
full of life and industry, and bravely holds its own as one of
the leading centres of Provence.

Apart from its Renaissance town-hall, dating from Louis
XIV., the architectural attractions of Aries are confined to the
ancient remains and old churches. The Roman Theatre, now a
scattered wreck of hoary stones, attests by the vast area it covers
the magnificent proportions of its original structure. Two lofty
Corinthian columns rise up solitary and grand out of the confusion
of ruins ; and some of the main portals and stone seats remain in-
tact. Beyond this, history and imagination supply its attractions.

Many of the costly marbles and beautiful sculpturings, how-
ever, are to be seen in the museum and in the churches. The
theatre was begun in the time of Augustus, but did not reach com-
pletion until the third century. Some time in the fifth century
it was pillaged and partly destroyed during one of the wars, and
time has completed the devastation. It was here, in 1651, that
the famous Venus of Aries — now in the Louvre — was discovered.

The Amphitheatre still retains its majestic proportions and
is the most impressive sight in Aries, with its high walls, mas-
sive arches, and numerous ancient columns. It has the regular
ellipse shape, measuring 460 by 350 feet. Its forty-three rows
of seats are capable of holding twenty-five thousand spectators,
making it the largest amphitheatre in France, and second only
to the Coliseum at Rome. Seen from the outside, this colossal
arena is most imposing. The walls consist of two stories of
arcades, each of sixty arches, rudely sculptured in the Doric and
Corinthian styles. The material used is stone in massive blocks,
that in themselves give an impression of strength and immen-
sity. Surmounting the edifice are three ponderous square towers,
erected by the Visigoths when the amphitheatre was turned in-
to a fort against the Saracens, in the eighth century.

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588 The Ancient City of Arles : [Aug.,

The interior, with its encircling marble-faced parapet, its
successive tiers of stone seats and vast sub-structures, presents
in form a perfect arena as in the olden days. Up to within
recent times, the vaults and dens were the habitation of thou-
sands of poor people, who took up their abode here in order to

Great Portal of the Church of St. Trophime.

save rent. The ring also was choked with mean, wooden huts
and other temporary shelters. These unsightly excrescences
were finally removed in 1830, and portions of the building which
had been buried for ages under the accumulation of dirt were
once more restored to their original condition.

The tops of the towers afford an unrivalled view of one of
the fairest of Provencal scenes. The eye rests on a landscape
of rich orchards and emerald meadows, the majestic Rhone
flowing peacefully through it, with the distant Alpine ridges as
a background. In the foreground is picturesque old Aries, and
immediately beneath is the hoary ruin — its extensive tiers peo-
pled, in fancy, with a cruel mob who howl frantically as the
subterranean doors are flung open and savage beasts spring out
and proceed to make food of living men. How realistically we
can imagine it all, looking down upon the very spot where
such scenes have been often enacted !

In an open square, named the Place de la R^publique, rises

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an obelisk of gray Egyptian granite — a single shaft fifty feet
high. Till the Luxor obelisk was raised in the Place de la Con-
corde at Paris, this was the only Egyptian obelisk to be found
in France. It originally stood upon the spina in the ancient
circus, and is supposed to have been the gift of Constantine.
For centuries it lay prostrate in the mud of the Rhone, but
was raised in 1676 and placed in its present position. In this
same square is the old Gothic church of St. Anne, now a mu-
seum, and celebrated as containing a collection of early Chris-
tian tombs second in importance only to that of the Lateran.
One of the most striking is that of the priest Commodus, with a
sculptured representation of Christ and the Twelve Apostles.
Of the tomb of St. Hilarion, Bishop of Aries from 429 to 449,
only a portion of the top remains.

There is also an interesting collection of Roman relics,
statues and pagan sarcophagi, discovered in the vicinity. A
marble frieze taken from the ancient Theatre is an exquisite
work of art, as is also the head of Diana. A portion of an old
leaden water-pipe, stamped with the name of the Roman
maker, was found in the bed of the river and is now on ex-
hibition here. The neighboring cemetery of Aliscamps [Elisii
Campi) has contributed a great number of Roman monuments
beautifully embellished with bas-reliefs, both pagan and Chris-
tian. Of the former, that of Cornelia Jacaea is undoubtedly the
most perfect in design and execution. Among the latter are
represented Adam and Eve, the Deluge, Jonah and the Whale,
Moses striking the Rock, etc.

In a narrow street near the river are the remains of the
palace built by Constantine the Great, who took such a fancy
to Aries that he made it the metropolis of Gaul. He even
thought of making it the capital of the empire, and Aries with
flattering haste changed her name to Constantina. Later, the
old city had its own sovereigns, who were styled Kings of Aries
and received as visitors more than one emperor of Germany.
It was not till 1482 that Aries was finally united to the king-
dom of France. There are numerous other historical edifices
about the town, but it is to the beautiful old churches we im-
patiently hasten.

No words can adequately describe the unique charms of St.
Trophime. It has an individuality of its own, for many of its
architectural features are not met with in any other church in
the world. Its history might be said to embrace that of
Christianity itself, for it stands on the spot where St. Paul's

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590 The Ancient City of Arles : [Aug.,

zealous disciple, St. Trophime, first planted the cross in this
region. St. Trophime not only preached the gospel in Aries,
but he founded a bishopric here ; which, in the fourth century,
was made an archbishopric. The church, now commonly called
the cathedral, was dedicated to St. Stephen in 606, the act of
consecration being performed by the great St. Virgile. It was
reconsecrated to St. Trophime in 11 52, when the body of this
saint was moved hither from its original resting-place in St.
Honorat's.

The main features of the exterior are the fine old Roman-
esque tower and the great portal, the adornments on the lat-
ter being among the -finest specimens of twelfth century
sculpturing in Europe. It consists of a deeply recessed semi-
circular arch, with noble mouldings resting upon a broad,
sculptured lintel. The tympanum over the door-way shows a
chiselled figure of Christ as Judge of the World, with symbols of
his power and greatness. The lintel is continued from beneath
the arch to the right and left of the fagade, forming a sculptured
frieze. Under the tympanum the figures represent the Twelve
Apostles, and on the sides the Judgment Day — on the right
are the good, serene and happy ; on the left are the bad, bound
by a rope and being dragged by devils. Truly an impressive
lesson for the common people in the days when carvings and
pictures were their only books ! Supporting the frieze are
slender pillars with exquisite capitals and bases of carved lions
in various attitudes ; and in the niches thus formed are statues
of the Apostles. This grand fagade combines several types of
architecture, but the Byzantine and Romanesque predominate.

The interior is chiefly characterized by Late Gothic, especial-
ly the choir and apse built by Cardinal Louis d'Allemand in
1430. There are some very beautiful sarcophagi to be seen
about the church ; particularly interesting are those that have
been converted into altars. In the transept chapels may be
noticed the tombs of Adh^mar de Grignan, Archbishop of Aries
in the thirteenth century ; Archbishop Gaspard du Laurens,
and Chevalier de Guise, who was killed in 1614 at Baux.

But the glory of St, Trophime, outside of its grand portal,
is in its chaste and graceful cloisters. No words can do justice
to these exquisite galleries — the most beautiful in France.
They are unglazed arcades built round a square, grassy court-
yard, so that all the effect of a bright blue sky is had. Two
sides are the perfection of Romanesque, dating from the
twelfth century, with superb arches resting alternately on double

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columns and square piers capitaled with delicate chiselling.
The other two, equally beautiful, are of later construction and
are in the pointed Gothic style. It would take a volume to
describe in detail the profuse and magnificent display of
figure-sculpture that embellishes these cloisters. The subjects are

A Glimpse of '* the Glory of St. Trophime."

mainly scriptural, but they vary in execution from crudeness to
the highest artistic degree. The groups that adorn the respec-
tive angles, and of which the accompanying illustration gives
some faint conception, are incomparably fine.

Of other old churches in Aries mention may be made of St.
Marie Majeure, occupying the site of a pagan temple and re-
stored in the twelfth century. It was here, in 314, that the
Donatists were condemned ; and among other relics which the
church possesses are the strange pontificalia of St. C^saire.
The ancient abbey founded by C^saria, sister of the saintly
bishop, has disappeared, but two old eleventh century chapels
still remain. Near by is an old house with an eflSgy of the
Virgin in front, said to stand on the place where St. Trophime
received St. Paul. Another interesting sacred edifice is St.
Croix, now sadly dilapidated and crumbling to decay. The
Tombeau de St. C^saire, noted for its broad Gothic nave and
imposing tower, has also the proud distinction of being the
oldest church in Aries. A short distance out in the suburbs
are the romantic ruins of the once palatial and famous Abbey

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592 The Ancient City of Arles: [Aug.,

of Mont Majour, founded in the tenth century. It stands on a
rocky island in the arid plain, surrounded by innumerable
chapels, dwellings, towers, and fortifications. Excavated in the
rock are hundreds of tombs, the burial-places of the early
Christians.

Just beyond the town, eastward, is the celebrated Aliscamps,
the Elysian Fields of the pagans. It is almost as intact to-day
as eighteen hundred years ago. Lined on either side with tall,
swaying poplars, its long avenue of tombs is infinitely more
attractive than the Appian Way at Rome. A portion of the
ground was used as a cemetery by the Christians; in fact, it
became the coveted burial-place, by reason of a belief that
Christ appeared and blessed the spot. The little chapel of La
Genouillade enclosed a stone altar erected by St. Trophime on
the spot where the Saviour left the imprint of his knees. The
grounds are crowded with gravestones and monuments, for this
was a veritable necropolis of vast dimensions in the thirteenth
century, the remains of believers being sent hither for inter-
ment from far distant cities. Dante mentions it in the In-
ferno :

" Si come ad Arli ove VRodmio stagna
Famo t sepolcri tutto V loco varo^

The more beautiful of the sarcophagi have been removed
to the various museums throughout France — those of the early
Christians being mostly in the church-museum of Aries — but
there are still many ancient stones and curious sculptures to .be
seen on their original site. During the twelfth century the ceme-
tery contained nineteen chapels, of which number there are
now not more than half a dozen, including the ruins. At one
end of the long avenue of tombs is the chapel of St. Accurse
with the old Arc de St. C^saire attached, to it. This was one
of the ancient gates of the cemetery. Other structures of in-
terest on this street of the dead are the funeral oratory of the
celebrated Porcelet family, the ruins of the tenth century
church of Notre Dame des Guerres, and a monument to the
consuls of Aries who fell victims to the plague in 1720. At
the further end of the avenue, situated in an open green spot
and surrounded by hundreds of tombs and monuments, stands
the ruined but still impressive church of St. Honorat. It is
surmounted by a beautiful two-story octagonal tower with huge
unglazed windows. Part of the edifice dates from the sixth
century ; the open nave was commenced in the eleventh ; but

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1897O ^^^ Churches and Antiquities. 593

Arl^sienne Beauty in Full Dress.

the rest of the interior has been constructed at various periods
since the fourteenth century. The crypt is very ancient, and
exhibits one of the most remarkable specimens of classical
Romanesque architecture to be seen anywhere. There is a
wealth of antiquities in the way of sculptures, stone coffins, and
sarcophagi; and the nave contains some fine old Gothic tombs.
A story of sad romance connected with one of the stone
coffins was told the writer on a recent visit. The concierge of
St. Honorat is an old soldier, a Chasseur d'Afrique, usually
reticent but that morning in a talkative mood. Pointing to the
coffin, he explained that it was one of the most ancient in the
possession of the church. It had been unearthed in the ceme-

VOL. LXV.— 38

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594 The Ancient City of Arles: [Aug.,

tery, and on being opened a perfectly legible parchment was
found with the remains. The writing told of the manner in
which the young Roman met death on his marriage night. It
appears there was a festive gathering of friends and relations
to celebrate the happy event, and one of the games of the
evening was on the principle of hide-and-seek. The bridegroom
successfully made himself invisible, but amusement developed
into alarm as the night wore on and he failed to reappear.
Search was unavailing, and it was not until some days later
that his corpse was found in a chest. The lid had locked, and
being unable to extricate himself the unfortunate young man
had died of suffocation.

It was at this church, in 1770, that Philip Thicknesse saw
the tombs of Saints Virgile, Hilaire, and Genet — Archbishops
of Aries — and of the virgin martyr, Dorothy Concord.

Not least among the attractions for which Aries is cele-
brated is its beautiful women, and in this respect it stands
unique among its sister cities. The type of beauty met with in
the women of Aries is distinctly original and native, and is not
to be found elsewhere in France. The reason of this is per-
haps quickest explained in stating that it is not French. The
Arl^siennes are of mixed descent — Greek, Roman, and Sara-
cenic — and the blending of this noble blood under the sunny
sky and genial surroundings of Provence has produced a per-
fection of female loveliness unrivalled anywhere in the world.

The Arl^siennes are gracefully tall and have the true Greek
symmetry of figure, now so rare in the human female. Their
dark, wavy hair is both thick and long, and is worn in the pic-
turesque style of their ancestors, parted in the centre and drawn
in loose folds behind the ears to a graceful coil at the back.
Dame Fashion, in her mad flights about the world, deigns not
to pause over Aries, knowing it to be an unpromising field for
victims. Thus the women are left unmolested to their own in-
stincts of what best becomes them. Their faces are usually
oval in shape, and of a rich olive complexion peculiar to them-
selves. Their eyes are invariably dark, either black or brown,
and are large and soft of expression, but not without a certain
hidden fire to them.

The costume of the Arl^sienne is uniquely picturesque and
is eminently adapted to set off the peculiar beauty of the
wearer. The ordinary dress is usually of some dark material,
and the fighu plain cambric with an embroidered edge. The
small cap is of the same material, and is worn at the back of

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Church Costume of an Arli^sienne.

the head, resting lightly on the coil of hair, with the ends
twisted upward, resembling wings. Half the secret of the at-
tractiveness of the Arl^sienne attire is contained in this ingen-
ious headgear, which is practically an evolution of the old
Arab turban. Only the very old women wear the coif, which
is invariably black.

In full dress the cap is of white mull, with a wide black
silk or velvet ribbon covering all but the crown. Sometimes
the ribbon is embossed, sometimes plain and edged with lace,
but in the generality of cases it is beautifully embroidered with
sprays and leaves in floss silk. The fi^hu is also very handsome
in the full-dress costume. .An under fi^hu of white, soft mull is
covered, all but in the front, by one magnificently embroidered
in colored silks.

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596 The Ancient City of Arles. [Aug.,

The Arl^siennes are fond of jewelry, but not in the ordin-
ary sense. It is a matter of ancestral pride with them, and
the ornaments they wear are generally family heirlooms. The
earrings strike one as very peculiar and antiquated ; they are
large and heavy, with long gold pendants. They also wear
massive gold chains at their waist, and golden, jewel-studded
arrows and pins are employed to fasten the fifhu and the
head-dress.

A more stately and becoming costume could not be de-
vised than that worn by the women of Aries on all solemn
occasions, such as the Sabbath. It is on the same plan as the
others^ but the skirt is fuller and more sweeping, and is usu-
ally of heavy, rich silk or velvet. Possessing a queenly dignity,
they look very beautiful when thus attired.

In disposition the Arl^siennes are happy and joyous, and
share the true French vivacity. There may be shadows to
their lives, but nothing is seen except sunshine. Next to their
religious devotions they love the open air and the numerous
forms of merriment of which it allows in that kindly clime.
They are never so happy as when carried away in the whirl of
the farandole. Young and old alike are devoted to that inspir-
iting dance, which ends almost in frenzied excitement, and it is
to these innocent and invigorating out-door recreations that
the women of Aries owe their superb health and their remarka-
bly prolonged youthfulness. On the great fite days they are
seen at their best ; all thoughts except those of pleasure are
put aside, and they devote their entire energies to the extrac-
tion of as much mirth as the moment can give. As is
commonly the case, the handsomest types are among the peas-
ant class, and it is at the fites that these are seen in all their
natural glory and the brightest of their picturesque attire.

The Arl^siennes in play and in repose are quite different
persons. The dance over and the streets forsaken for the home,
they are again the paragons of quiet dignity and womanly re-
serve that wins for their character so universal an admiration.

No matter in whatever other instances amalgamation of race
may have failed of improvement, it is unquestionably a noble
success in the case of the Arl^sienne. The classic beauty of
the Greek, the regal deportment of the Roman, and the pas-
sionate temperament of the Arabian are so combined in this
unique people that, though each asserts itself as a distinct trait,
they together form a personality both imperious and winsome.

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1 897-] LiFE-WORK OF A GREAT CATHOLIC APOLOGIST. 597

THE LIFE-WORK OF A GREAT CATHOLIC APOLO-
GIST, AND ITS BEARING ON A VITAL
QUESTION.

BY REV. M. O^RIORDAN, PH.D., D.D., D.C.L.

HATEVER is to be thought of the present
position of Christianity with reference to the
world at large, it is certain that that limb of it
which fell from the trunk three hundred years
ago is dying a natural death. The process of
decay set in as a natural consequence, once it was separated
from the living root. Protestantism contained and cultivated
the germs of disease from the beginning, and it was only a
matter of time for its innumerable brood of sectaries to think
themselves out into the naturalism which befitted the parent
principle whence they sprung. Hence, the Catholic Church
remains to-day, as it was before Protestantism arose, the sole
representative of Christianity. It is so considered by the best
and most consistent opponents of miraculous religion. Huxley
says in one of his Lay Sermons :

"Our great antagonist — I speak as a man of science — is
the Roman Catholic Church, the one great spiritual organization
which is able to resist — and must as a matter of life and death
— the progress of science and civilization."

"It is idle," Mallock writes, "to waste our arguments and
our sarcasm on Protestantism only. If we think that Christian-
ity is false and is doing an evil work' in the world, let us meet
and combat it in its strongest and most consistent form. The
church will not shrink from these attacks.. She will rather
court them. Only see me, she says, what I really am, and
then strike me as forcibly as you will or can."*

The future of faith will be the future of the Catholic
Church. On it alone, therefore, devolves the task of nourishing
the seed of the supernatural which its Divine Founder came to
sow in the souls of men ; and the enemy it has to reckon with
is no longer Protestantism, but naturalism. The former was the
inimicus homo who sowed tares and cockle which threatened to
choke its growth ; but the latter is trying to pluck it up by
the roots. It is like fighting over again the battle which it

♦ ** Dogma, Reason, and Morality," in The Nineteenth Century^ December, 1878, page 1035.

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598 Life-Work of a great Catholic Apologist. [Aug.,

had won when Constantine Christianized the throne of the Caesars,
Paganism is trying to revive and return to the fight ; and it is
better prepared than it was before, for it has retained from
Christianity certain truths and virtues which capture the natural
man, and has cast aside those which would certainly ennoble
him, but at the cost of an inconvenience which it is not the
temper of our generation to bear. •

THE EXPURGATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL.

One has only to read Lccky's two able and brilliant books,
the History of Rationalism and the History of European Morals^
to see how skilfully they set about their work. A thread of nat-
uralism runs through the warp and woof of the argument of
those two works. The supernatural has no place in them. The
idea of it as a real influence in the world is set aside through-
out ; the purpose of the author is to explain Christianity with-
out it. To give him his merit, he has done his work with
singular ability and admirable calmness. But I dare say that
what occurred to me has occurred to others. Whilst I was
reading them I again and again thought within myself — "Only
suppose the supernatural, put it into the argument as an ele-
ment to be considered, and the whole fabric which Lecky
is weaving with such consummate skill loosens at once and is
reduced to threads again."

The thought which pervades Lecky *s two works is wrought
out in the lives and actions of multitudes. They are both
in the world and of it. Individual, family, and national life
goes on regardless of the supernatural, as if man himself were
the sole measure of his duties and death the end of all things.

THE NEW PAGANISM.

Hence, what had to be done by the early Christian apologists
against the pagan philosophers and paganizing Christians has to
be done by the Christian apologist of to-day. It is waste time
to argue with Protestantism as such. It has resolved itself into
neo-paganism, for its principles, which gave individuals the right
to define the meaning of Revelation, have now extended their
rights to liberty to criticise and deny Revelation itself. Revela-
tion, in the Christian sense, is not to be admitted ; the super-
natural is not a reality ; religion may be allowed, but it is not
miraculous, must not be imposed by an authority outside one's
self, must not assume a definite form which one's chang-
ing humor cannot alter. They refer us to Plato for the
principles of Christian theology, they find Christian metaphysics
in Aristotle, Christian ethics in Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus

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i897-] Life-Work of a great Catholic Apologist. 599

Aurelius. It is quite true that some pagans, especially the
Stoics, taught moral doctrines which the Catholic Church
highly prizes. But we have no right to conclude that because
paganism was before the church and possessed some truths
which the church taught when it came, the church borrowed
these truths from paganism and is, therefore, but a natural
evolution of it. Christianity comprised both the primitive
Revelation given to men and the doctrines by which Christ
supplemented it. But men, however they wandered from that
primitive Revelation, may naturally be thought to have retained
some of it even in an obscure way.

THE COMMON GROUND OF ALL PHILOSOPHIES.

There would be common ground, therefore, for Christianity
and Stoicism in those truths which, revealed in the beginning,
were never entirely lost. Then, again, the human mind is
formed for truth, and naturally it thought out some valuable
truths for itself ; the human heart is formed for virtue, and of
course some natural virtues remained with it. These, again,
would be common to Christians and Stoics. Hence, the
coincidence of truths and virtues common to both is only
what we might naturally expect. But the greatest intellects
among the Stoics were deceived by many errors from which
Christians, and even the common sense of rationalists, would
recoil. Consequently, if we want to compare Stoicism and
Christianity in .their speculative and moral doctrines, we must
consider not those in which they agree, but rather those over
which they differ. In making the comparison we must also
take each in its integrity. We must consider Christianity as
supernatural, for Christians claim it to be so. Rationalists refuse
to consider its supernatural character, but their refusal put3
them out of court. I do not mean that they should themselves
believe in the supernatural, but that they should take and ex-
amine Christianity as Christians expound it, not as its oppo-
nents choose to imagine it. Their method of attack is uncriti-
cal, both historically and philosophically. Christianity is a histori-
cal fact. Christians interpret it in their own way, and their
interpretation of it takes in the supernatural element. It is un-
critical, therefore, for rationalists to test it by a merely natural
standard. To do it justice they should test it by the only
standard on which it professes to rest. Christianity as a system
is founded on the conception of a Personal God, the creation of
the universe, the fall and redemption of man. All its doctrines
turn on these cardinal points, and must be measured by them.

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6oO LiFE-WORK OF A GREAT CATHOLIC APOLOGIST. [Aug.,

It was built upon them, and those who undertake to argue
Christianity out of existence by assuming those to be unreal
simply condemn it without a fair trial.

Amongst the fruits which the Catholic University of Ire-
land produced was the first complete and systematic exposition
of the change which Christianity wrought on the heathen world.

MR. ALLIES AS HISTORIAN AND PHILOSOPHER.

Mr. T. W. Allies was one of those distinguished men whom
Cardinal Newman, its first rector, gathered round him. He
was appointed professor of the philosophy of history, and he
delivered his first lecture in December, 1854. In that lecture
he discussed the meaning of the philosophy of history. Al-
though his connection with the university did not last long, he
did not relinquish the work which he began there. During all
these intervening years he has been developing the subject
which he then inaugurated, till he completed it last year by his
beautiful and fascinating work on The Monastic Life. Through
eight volumes he traces the gradual growth of Christianity,
from the sowing of the mustard-seed to the blossoming of the
mighty tree which grew out of it. First came the planting of
the supernatural in the souls of men, and the naturalism of
the Stoics was superseded by Christian philosophy. That was
the " New creation of the Individual Man," as Mr. Allies ap-
propriately calls it. The family is as its members are, and so
the spirit of paganism was cast out of the family. From the
family is formed the nation ; so the supernatural germ came
in time to be sown in the community, and the national life was
Christian. But, as it happens with the natural career of every
man, family, and nation, during the process of growth, so was
it with the church. Its growth was sought to be checked or
disturbed from the cradle. First persecution tried to destroy
it by force. Then pagan philosophy tried to wither it by
logic. Next came the dissolution of the Roman Empire,
while in process of being Christianized, and over its ruins
were strewn rude materials from the North which the church
had to Christianize in turn. And whilst it was reducing
those chaotic elements into social order the fanatic fol-
lowers of Mohammed arose, and did not cease their furi-
ous fight till they held sway from the Atlantic to Samar-
cand. Their rule meant "setting up, instead of Christ, a man
of turbulent passions and unmeasured ambition ; instead of the
Christian home, the denial of all Christian morality; instead of
a Virgin Mother placed at the head of her sex, and unfolding

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i897«] Life-Work of a great Catholic Apologist. 6oi

from age to age the worth and dignity of woman, the dis-
honored captives of a brigand warfare.*'* To use Mr. Allies*
terse and truthful description, Mohammedanism was "a lie
imposed by the scimitar.'*

ALONG THE LINE OF HERESIES.

Moreover, alongside thoise impediments to Christian civiliza-
tion ran a series of heresies, from the First Nicene Council,
which condemned the Arians in the beginning of the fourth
century, to the Second Nicene Council, which crushed the
Iconoclasts towards the close of the eighth. They were all
directed against the Divine Person of our Lord. The Arians
directly denied his divinity. The Nestorians, Monophysites,
Monothelites, and the Eutychians did not attack his divinity
directly, but their teachings involved a denial of it as a conse-
quence more or less close. In the schemes of human perver-
sity those were meant to poison or to destroy Christianity, but
in the design of Divine Providence they occasioned the
purifying of it from accidental stains which its human ele-
ments had gathered up ; the systematic unfolding of the princi-
ples that should govern individual, family, and social life
according to the model which Christ came to impress upon
mankind, and the more timely fruit*bearing of the tree which
was growing out of the mustard-seed. The process by which
the church came to permeate the world, filtering philosophy as
it passed and whatever of good and truth it found amidst
the evils and errors of the natural man, is thus unfolded
by Mr. Allies. First he shows the influence of Christian
faith on the individual ; next on the family and on society ;
then on philosophy. From this he goes on to show the
relation of church and state, examining with great care the
different points of contact and conflict between them. In
his fifth, sixth, and seventh volumes he sets forth the
action and influence of the Holy See both in fostering the
mustard-seed and in hedging round the tree which spread out
its fruit-bearing branches under its care. The first oi these he
calls " The Throne of the Fisherman built by the Carpenter's
Son, the Root, the Bond, and the Crown of Christendom " ;
the second deals with " The Holy See and the Wandering of
the Nations " ; the third shows " Peter's Rock in Mohammed's
Flood."

* *' Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood" (the seventh volume of Mr. KVivt^^^ Formation
of Christ endom\ page 471.

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6o2 Life-Work of a great Catholic Apologist. [Aug.,

MONASTIC LIFE AND LABOR.

The eighth and final volume, on " Monastic Life," is an
exposition of Christian holiness in its most perfect form.
This highest type of Christian holiness, as set forth by Mr.
Allies, does not make Christian monks appear to us like the
monks of Buddha or the Quietists of a few centuries ago. He
exhibits the monastic life, as Montalembert shows it, in action
as well as in contemplation. The monasteries are the homes
of science and the hives of industry. Through nearly four
hundred picturesque and vivid pages he shows us one monk
at his prayers, another preaching the Gospel, another catechis-
ing the faithful, another storing up in manuscripts the tradi-
tions of ancient learning, another clearing away forests and
teaching the barbarian how to till the soil, another denouncing
public scandal in high places, another treating with temporal
rulers, etc. The contents of the eight volumes he unifies under
the title of the Formation of Christendom. Over this wide field
of literary labor no other writer of the English language has
gone, and few have the philosophic insight into history and the
literary power to traverse it if they tried. Whoever reads the
work carefully through, will have seen the commission which
Christ gave to his Apostles ; the work of his church in the
world — in the thought and action of the individual, the family,
and the nation ; its gradual development to the ideal of its
Founder's design in spite of pagan philosophy, imperial power,
heresy, and Islamism, till the Christian empire was formed and
Charlemagne was consecrated in St. Peter's.

The work reads with the easy flow of simple historical nar-
rative, and even where causes and effects are coupled the
philosophical reflections are made by one who is evidently a
master of his work, and who therefore satisfies the reader in-
stead of perplexing him, as so many amateurs in the philosophy
of history do. The first volume may not please the general
reader so well as the others ; nevertheless, it is, I think, in
many respects the most important, having regard to the spirit
which governs the world at the present time. The rationalists
instance unbelievers whose elegant manners and winning ways
are truly charming, whose philanthropy and sense of justice
would put many Christians to shame, and they invite us to
test things by results. They say these are natural virtues,
springing by nature out of the human heart, and they ask,
What need have we, then, of Christianity, which gives us no
more? Is not the supernatural but an imaginary thing?

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1 897-] LiFE'WOKK OF A GREAT CATHOLIC APOLOGIST. 603

At any rate, does it give evidence of its presence by pro-
ducing men juster, meeker, more benevolent than men who
ignore it and live without it? Or, is not Christianity but a
phase in the onward progress of human thought and civiliza-
tion, a passing improvement on the philosophy and ethics
of Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, which is
in its turn passing to the higher ethical ideals which positiv-
ist philosophy is striving after? Are we not Christians as well
as you ? Nay, more truly so ; for, we honor Christ as the
highest type of manhood, which he was; but you mistake him
for God, which he was not.

THE COMMERCIAL VALUE OF MORALITY.

Such considerations as these seem to involve the practical
principles by which at the present day many who are under
the influence of good and noble motives satisfy their sense of
moral responsibility without taking account of the supernatural.
It is a question of great delicacy and difficulty; but if it were
explained with clearness and force, it would clear the way to
the conversion of many without the need of introducing per-
plexing problems which do not come in contact with the final
resolution of conscience. Evolution, Positivism, Agnosticism —
these are but theories by which naturalism seeks to justify
itself, and to solve the problem of life without the super-
natural ; but the fountain whence they spring is hidden behind
the considerations I have just set forth. This is an age of com-
mercial enterprise. Men are absorbed in worldly duties, and
there is the disposition to test the value of all things in heaven
and on earth on business principles. This accounts for the fact
that the virtue of justice is so highly valued; because it is the
nerve and soul of commercial life, and benevolence is propor-
tionately prized according to its more or less intimate relations
with the principles of commercial life. Whatever satisfies men's
social and commercial relations satisfies their conscience and
they ignore anything above or beyond it, whilst the severely
practical and unsacrificing spirit which governs them will not
let them bend to a yoke of which they do not feel the need.
For that reason they are not disposed to consider duly the
claims of Christianity. There are virtues as necessary as justice
and benevolence, and more ennobling than either ; but the
Christian apologist has to face the men of whom I speak with
the disadvantage of having to regard the claims of these vir-
tues, and cannot, therefore, allow such virtues as justice and

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604 LlFE-WORK OF A GREAT CATHOLIC APOLOGIST. [Aug.,

benevolence the monopoly which unbelievers claim for them.
When only a few virtues are taken into account they, of course,
appear to be the standard of human perfection ; but for Chris-
tians who acknowledge the claim and need of niany virtues
besides, they must come down from the privileged pedestal on
which naturalism places them and take their relative position
amongst other virtues, natural and supernatural. Thus, whilst
their absolute value remains the same, their relative value les-
sens. A man who has only one duty to do, thinks only of that
and measures all things by it ; one who has many duties, must
give each a share in his thoughts.

MODERN NATURALISM NO NEW HERESY.

The question which naturalism raises now is precisely the
question between the Stoics and the first Christian apologists.
It comes before every one who studies the transition from pagan
to Christian ethics. To that question Mr. Allies devotes the
first volume of his great work, and he discusses it with a re-
markable critical power. He shows that whilst ancient writers
had in the Greek and Latin languages two instruments of ex-
pression " superior in originality, beauty, and expressiveness to
any which have fallen to the lot of modern nations," and
brought to their work singular literary and dramatic power,
they were unable to produce a philosophy of history such as
we find in the works of St. Augustine, Bossuet, Schlegel, or
Guizot. What makes the difference?

" What had happened in the interval ? " he asks. " Chris-
tianity had happened ; Christendom had been formed ; mankind
had passed through fire and water — a delusion and a passion ;
the secret of its unity and its destiny had been given to it.
The nation was no longer the highest of human facts, patriot-
ism no longer the first of virtues. A reconstructed humanity
towered far above the nation, and no one member of the hu-
man society could any longer engross the whole interest of
man. There was a voice in the world greater, more potent,
thrilling, and universal than the last cry of the old society,
Civis sum Romanus ; and this voice was Sum Christianus. From
the time of the Great Sacrifice it was impossible to sever the
history of man's temporal destiny from that of his eternal;
and when the virtue of that sacrifice had thoroughly leavened
the nations, history is found to have assumed a larger basis,
to have lost its partial and national cast, to have grown with
the growth of man, and to demand for its completeness a per-

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l897-] LiFE'WORK OF A GREAT CATHOLIC APOLOGIST. 605

feet alliance with philosophy.'* * The reflections of the great-
est pagan writers were circumscribed by the interests of their
respective nations. There was wanting to them the apprehen-
sion of great first principles, of a universal human purpose, of
an all-ruling Providence unifying mankind in a common des-
tiny;. Even men of modern times, like Gibbon, who discarded
Christianity were under the influence of Christian principles,
though they were unconscious of and ignored the fact.
Principles which would have never been known but for
Christian tradition remain even after Christianity itself has been
rejected. Those elements of Christian teaching which are re-
tained are looked upon by an unbeliever as the outcome of
natural reason, but, judging from the shortcomings of the great-
est pagan thinkers, we believe that unaided reason would never
have found them out. It is the case of one ignoring the giver
whilst enjoying the gift.

If any one wants a truly vivid picture of the Roman Em-
pire, I would recommend him to read Mr. Allies' lecture on
" The Consummation of the Old World," which comes after
his introductory one on the " Philosophy of History." Having
shown what man had become under paganism, he passes on
to consider the "New creation of Individual Man." Having
shown what each man, pagan and Christian, is, he compares
them both. It is in this lecture he specially shows the differ-
ence between the pagan and the Christian even in those natural
virtues which they held in common. Thus he contrasts Stoic
pride and Christian humility, Stoic asceticism and Christian pen-
ance. Stoic apathy and Christian sympathy. Stoic philanthropy
and Christian charity. In the next lecture he discusses the
social influence of the Christian man, and in contrast gives an
account of Roman slavery, full of life and power. The next
lecture he devotes to Christian marriage and the foundation of
Christian family life. Having drawn a contrast between the
pagan and the Christian in their individual characters and in
their influence on the family, their fellow-man, and on society
at large, showing the superiority of the typical Christian to
the typical pagan in each relation of life, he closes the volume
with a lecture on the " Creation of the Virginal Life." In this
there is no comparison made, for paganism had nothing to be
compared with Christian virginity. It is like a crown placed
on the head of the Christian when victory is won.

* Tke Formation 0/ Christendom^ yo\, L: introductory lecture, "The Philosophy of
History," p. ix. Popular edition.

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6o6 In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [Aug.,

IN THE PARISH O^ THE SACRED HEART.

BY MARGARET KENNA.

VI.

OUT OF THE DARKNESS.

ATHER SALVATOR leaned back in his chair
before the fire, with the fingers of his right hand
thrust between the leaves of a book. Night had
fallen upon his page and he could not tax his
failing eyes further. The fire in the grate was
dying and all was still. How sweet stillness may be, and some-
times how sad ! The stillness was sad in Father Salvator's
smoky little study.

Across the street the new Church of the Sacred Heart lifted
its superb white towers, and the birds were already making a
trysting-place of the great gold cross. The doors of the old
frame chapel around the corner were closed at last, for ever —
the old chapel in which, as he told the people, so many good
prayers had been said, so many sweet Communions received !
The work of his life was done. He would never again have
the chill task of lighting the fires and ringing the bell. A sex-
ton was part of the new splendor. He would never again
stand on that old sanctuary carpet, with its dim, perpetual
roses ; and on the spot before the altar where the patch had
been set three times in thirty years. He had a new church.
Perhaps he had a new people.

" The new has charms which the old has not.
And the Stranger's face makes the Friend's forgot."

" Can this be true ? " he said fiercely, aloud.

His thoughts travelled over the painful past. Life is not meant
to be a bed of roses to a parish priest, but it need not be always
a crown of thorns. It had been a crown of thorns to Father
Salvator, and he could tell the story of each thorn. He did
not know that when he was feeding the birds from his plate on
Sunday morning, and thinking wistfully of the hardness of the
parish hearts, some little child was watching him and learning of
his loneliness how to live and die. He did not know that

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when his voice quivered and broke with his great weariness, as
he intoned the Gloria of the Mass, a boy in the darkness under
the gallery was choosing, once and for ever, betXveen virtue
and crime ; and when he sang the Litany of Our Lady's feasts
he did not see the pallid faces of the women touched with holy
smiles — for they knew how warm his heart was to hers ; but he
did not know they knew — he did not know !

It was dark now. The red embers had burned out and he
was too tired to rouse them. He seemed to himself an old
man, bereft. He had put every pitiful penny of his savings
into the new church — changed his life's blood to mortar and
stone. He had given himself, body and soul, to his people :
his body in its faded cassock and fringed linen ; his soul in its
tender purity. And they did not care ; they only thought him
a cross old man !

He was tired and blind, and he knew at last that he was
old. The news had not been broken to him gently. It was so
dark, and there was no one near to startle the coals into a
blaze, to light the lamp with loving hands, and put his books
on the wrong shelves and misplace his cherished correspon-
dence. He would have loved these little awkward services, if
only for something to quarrel about. One cannot quarrel with
cold, black silence !

He did not think it was a cold world — this little world
around him, busy with its christenings, its weddings, its deaths ;
but he thought the world thought him a cross old man, and
of the two thoughts this was the most unkind. If he were
dead, they would bury him — yes, and bring lilies. Alas ! for
lilies which come so late.

The wind grieved in the darkness. Without, the sudden
flare of the street-lamp illumined the couch in whose hard em-
braces he had worn out hundreds of head-aches. He could
hear his sad human heart beat, because he was listening!

How sweet if, to-night, some one had asked him to dinner;
if he might catch the laughing children for just a moment in
his arms ; if, coming home by the light of his faithful lan-
tern, he might find the fire bright, and perhaps a red rose,
with its velvet face, brushing and blurring his half-finished
page ! But no — joys crowd as well as sorrows. The dinner
and the laughing children and the dripping rose would come
together on some happy day.

The book fell from Father Salvator's hand. It was a sad
story between those gilt leaves. The heroine was a sweet young

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6o8 In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [Aug.,

girl, who wore white dresses, like Agnes la Garde — he always
liked to see Agnes in a white dress — but there was a storm, a
storm at sea. The people were begging the priest's blessing,
and the fugitive sunshine which at first flashed across the deck
was gone !

The wheels of a carriage rolled over Father Salvator's
dream. Some one knocked lightly. A sick-call ! He started
up and, groping his way to the door, pushed it open. A child
stood there — a little boy.

"Are you the priest?" he said in sweet, fearless tones.

" Yes, I am the priest. Can I do anything for you ? "

"Yes, padre."

" Your voice is strange to me " — Father Salvator knew the
voice of every child in the town, whether of his flock or not —
"but it is sweet. I would like to see the face that goes with
that little voice. Come in and let us light the lamp. Don't
be afraid. The darkness will not hurt you."

He lit the lamp. The light blinded them both a moment.
Then the little boy saw the old man, with his black curls tossed
as if in a storm, his black eyes wet from the tears in a dream,
and his hands outstretched. And the old man saw the little
boy, with a sadness in his eyes years older than his fragile face,
with cheeks as red as frosted rosebuds and lips that seemed
pitifully trying to answer the smiles of all the angels in heaven.
A few sparkling snow-flakes lay on his shoulders, as if, to add
to his woes, nature had hurried out a solitary snow-storm for
him.

"Who are you, my little child?"

"I am Joseph Brunello."

"And I am Joseph Salvator."

" My mother has just been dead a week. I was on my way
to the orphan asylum, but the train was wrecked and I lost
my money. I had five dollars I got for our cow. I asked a
colored man where the priest lived and he gave rae a ride."

"That was right, little Joseph. I'm glad you've come."
Father Salvator ran his fingers lightly through the boy's silken
curls. " I will be a mother to you to-night. For this one night
I will have a little boy. Are you hungry, Joseph ? "

"Yes, padre."

"Very good. I'll tell Mrs. Quinlan to give us our tea to-
gether."

He went and came all in one moment. He stirred the

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1897-1 I^ ^^^ Parish of the Sacred Heart. 609

ashes down and threw coal on the fire. It kindled quickly, and
the room was so changed in the glow that it seemed another
person had come into it. Father Salvator caught the boy be-
tween his knees.

" What do you see in the fire, my child ? "

" A face."

"My face?"

Joseph turned round and looked into the priest's eyes.

" No, padre — a woman's face."

"Your mother's?"

" Yes."

Father Salvator's arms tightened around the boy and he
thought of his mother, whom only he and the violets of spring-
time remembered.

"You must think always of that face, Joseph. If every-
thing else is taken from you, keep the memory of your mother.
It will be sun and moon and stars to you, in the darkness — in
the darkness. Had your mother black eyes, like you ? "

" Yes, padre-— black and blue ! At home in Italy they used
to say she looked at the world through the corner of the
Madonna's blue veil."

" And black hair, like you, with a little curl at the end ? "

" Yes padre — only very beautiful."

They seemed to be tears falling from Joseph's eyes, rather
than words from his lips. He looked out into the night.

" Padre, the stars are shining."

"Yes, little one, the stars!"

" When they come out, mamma used to say it was the angels
lighting matches ! "

Father Salvator laughed softly.

" Tea is ready, father," said Mrs. Quinlan at the door. A
steaming fragrance came from the tea-pot. The cold meat
was trimmed with lettuce-leaves. There was jam too, and brown
bread.

" No, padre, no jam," said little Joseph.

"Why?"

" Mamma made all the jam I ever ate. I can't eat it since
she died."

" Joseph " — Father Salvator had tucked the little boy in his
own bed and was kneeling by him — "you have come as an
angel to me this night. I am a lonely old man, and my sor-
rows fall thickly on me sometimes and chill me to the soul.

VOL. LXV.— 39

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6io In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [Aug.,

This was the saddest night of my life, and the good God sent
you to me, my child."

Joseph's eyes rested on Father Salvator, as if he quite com-
prehended the words. They were like the eyes of the Divine
Child, wide-awake and wistful, and as the lashes rose and fell
Father Salvator could even see their black shadows on the
pale cheeks from which the rose-buds had vanished.

" Is it only for to-night that you will stay with me, little
Joseph ? I wish you might stay always. This is the sweetest
valley in the world. The snow and the wind are very gentle
with it in winter. There is hardly a month in all the year
when violets do not bloom. In spring white flowers are
sprinkled over the fields. You would almost think it was a
piece of thread-lace — the long rows of little lilies, with the
cobwebs between them, and the dew on the cobwebs and the
sun on the dew ! "

"Yes, padre."

" I have only half a loaf ; but I would share it gladly with
you, and I would wrap you in a sheep-skin if I could not find
clothes for you, and I would buy back the cow you sold for
five dollars. I would give the man a better price for it ; and
then, if we were cold, we could go to the stable and warm by
the breath of that gentle beast. We would not be the first to
take shelter in the stable?"

" No, padre — there were Mary and Joseph and the little
Jesus ! "

*• Yes, and there are many lovely children here to be your
playmates. Margaret Kilduff and Marceline Clark and — and
when I am so deaf that I can no longer hear the birds sing " —
a smile swept over Joseph's face and seemed to stir his curls —
" you can tell me in some strange, sweet way, perhaps with the
touch of your little hands, what it is they are calling to each
other aoross the sunshine."

" Yes, padre."

Little Joseph smiled. Father Salvator knelt motionless in
the moonlight. What had the coming of this child in the
darkness not done for him? What was his loneliness com-
pared with little Joseph's ? Did not the dear Master, whom he
served, always sweeten his sorrows?

How faithful the parish was, the sweet parish of the Sacred
Heart, with its blithe faces and its holy hearts !

Every day Mary Kilduff brought him a basket of fresh
eggs. At sundown Rory came in to talk Irish ballads and

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1 897-] I^ ^^^ Parish of the Sacred Herrt. 6ii

German songs. Had not the women remembered his feast,
even though it fell in chili March, with flowers? Was not
Agnes la Garde faithful to the Httle gift of violet water, which
he so loved, ever since once she had caught the breath of it
through the confession-bars ? And his rosary of old men, were
they not ever praying, praying?

When he crept into bed, the child, dreaming of his mother,
wrapped his arms around the old priest's neck. Father
Salvator drew him to his heart, and there was only room be-
tween them for the wings of their good angels.

THE OLD BROWN ROSARY.

The sacristy was lighted by one little window. In the days
before Mary Kilduff came to the parish the sacristy window
was no stranger to dust and cobwebs. But now that it was
remembered by Mary as faithfully as her prayers, old Mrs.
Malone, who mended the altar-laces, could descry the figure of
man or woman who went down the garden-path to the great
house next door.

A strange garden-path it was ; as dim as a church aisle un-
der the mighty beeches, and never touched by bloom save in
the soft southern spring, when violets came in purple and
white hosts from none knew where, and went none knew
whither.

By the window Mrs. Malone worked, day by day, with a
silent patience which could only have been pressed with thorns
into her wild heart. Father Salvator could not remember her
youth, but there were traditions in the parish of a young Mrs.
Malone who was more like a lion than a lady. Griefs had come
to her, one by one, stripping her of her dark beauty and smit-
ing her proud soul into silence. It was then she had asked for
the altar-laces as a task, and she had never abandoned it. For
twenty years she had worked by the sacristy window in soli-
tude, breathing the fragrance of forgotten incense, and finding
friends in the silent scarlet cassocks hanging in the press, in
the dull silver candlesticks that were only rubbed at Christmas
and Easter and All Saints, and in the little padded crimson
collection-box into which she was always dropping a secret alms,
perhaps of invocation, perhaps of reparation.

It was now long years since Mrs. Malone had been to the
sacraments. Father Salvator had tried in various ways to

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6i2 In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [Aug.,

bring her to penitence ; but she would not be brought, and
Father Salvator was not the man to strip her of her lonely
prestige as mender of the altar-lace, arguing in his heart that
it was better to have her thus close to the church than further
away, and asking the good God to receive her faithful stitches
as an expiatory work. But one day, when he found her lean-
ing against the sacristy window looking out at the violets, all in
a moment his patience ceased to be a virtue.

He spoke to her harshly.

"Biddy Malo.ne, you will live on from day to day without
the grace of God, and when you come to die, you will expect
the church to give you the Viaticum and to bless your old
bones in the graveyard. I tell you now, I will have no part in
such a mockery ! '*

"I'm sorry, father," said Biddy.

She stood by the window until night fell. Then she went
into the church. She paused, trembling, under the crimson
sanctuary lamp. It flickered and throbbed in the loneliness, and
to Biddy it seemed the Divine Heart had escaped its human
prison in the Tabernacle and was burning with vengeance in
the altar-fire, lighting the dark places of her soul !

She dared to bend her trembling knee. Over the wooden
cross that surmounted the holy-water font a brown rosary had
hung for years. From long swinging in the water, the crucifix on
it was traced in rust on the marble. The night had no moon or
stars, but a pale light from somewhere illumined the rosary for
Biddy. Her old fingers swept it from its place and she
clutched it to her breast. In a moment more she was in the
street.

A light burned in Kathleen McCoy's window. Biddy
travelled towards it. The spring-wind was cold. It froze the
rosary in her frightened fingers. Kathleen, who had been dying
so slowly these sad years, might die suddenly at last. Biddy
could not pull the bell for fear ; but Kathleen, hearing the
shuffling of feet, called, in her beautiful voice,

"In the name of God, enter!"

And Biddy pushed the door open.

"Is it you, Mrs. Malone?"

" It is," answered Biddy Malone.

Kathleen was sewing the last stitch in a little gown for
Mary Kilduff's new baby. In the light and dark of her tremu-
lous candle her soul seemed to have pierced the pallid flesh
and to smile on her white lips.

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I897-] I^ ^^^ Parish of the Sacred Heart. 613

" Is it to the lash of the wind to-night that I owe this
kind visit, Mrs. Malone ? "

" No ; it is to the cry of an old woman's conscience." Kath-
leen gave her a startled look. The mark of the altar-lace
seemed to be wrought upon her withered face in a thousand
sinister threads.

" Do not fear," Kathleen said, stretching out her poor hands
in pity.

" How can I tell you, Kathleen McCoy, what burdens my
mind — you who have always seemed to me as black as the bad
angels, who seem to me to-night as pure as the snow ? "

Kathleen laid down the little white gown, with its tender
edge of hard-earned lace. She rose. ** Mrs. Malone " — the music
ran off her words as the- dew runs off flowers — **I am near
to death, and my heart, which has known its own bitterness,
knows now its own peace. You have hated me, and perhaps I
have not loved you. But, the sweet Madonna is my witness, I
bear you no unkind feeling. If you were hungry, I would put
bread in your mouth. If you were sick, I would nurse you.
If you were dead, I would lay you out and put the sweetest
violets of spring in your lonely old hands. But you need not
tell me now what troubles your soul, I doubt not it is some
scruple; and has not Father Salvator told us a scruple is more
cruel than the cry of the banshee ? Tell it to Father Salvator,
and if he sends you to me, tell him I forgive you without
knowing ; and he will give you back your lost peace, for the
blood of Christ is in his hands to pour on our unholy hearts ! "

" It is not Father Salvator can give me back my lost peace.
It is you, Kathleen."

"Then speak."

" Ye mind this old rosary ? "

Biddy drew the cold thing from her heart, and its shadow
fell on Kathleen's white apron.

"Yes."

"It is yours, Kathleen. It was sent you as a message from
the dead — from my boy. He loved you with his last breath,
my poor lad, and he bade me give you the brown rosary and
beg you to pray for his soul. It was a bitter day to him
when you married Pat McCoy, an* he vowed he'd be revenged
on the thing you loved the best ; and when your little Pat disap-
peared, it was then Mike remembered his word. He knew
where Pat was — to Kilkenny he went — but never a word would
Mike say, an' he saw the heart-break in your face. ' Mother,'

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6i4 In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [Aug.,

he said on his death-bed, 'tell Kathleen the whole black truth.
Perhaps little Pat is still alive. She can write, and, mother,
give her the old brown rosary and ask her to pray for me.'

" But I hated you, Kathleen McCoy. I was jealous of the
dead love, as I had been of the living. I hung the old brown
rosary on the holy-water font and asked Father Salvator to
give me the mending of the altar-laces, that I might be there
to watch it.

" Every Sunday and feast-day for fifteen years I have seen
you touch it, when you dipped your fingers in the holy-water;
and every Sunday and feast-day I have seen your face grow
paler, paler. Every day of every year I have stabbed the
heart in your breast, and watched you die. O God, be merci-
ful to me, a sinner ! "

Kathleen fell on her knees. She dragged herself to Mrs.
Malone, and, clasping her trembling white hands together, lifted
her eyes to the old woman in unearthly glory and gratitude.

**To Kilkenny, did you say? God bless you, Biddy Malone,
for telling me at last ! My little Pat, my lost boy ! Your
mother is coming to you. She was dying, but now she will
live. She will go after you over the sea. Pat, little Pat — your
mother's eyes are blind now, but she can see you, darling!
You have not forgotten the face of your mother?"

The voice diminished to a whisper, a tremor, a sigh, and
then silence. The lashes fluttered for the last time over Kath-
leen's eyes, shutting out the dark world. Her death made the
night holy.

The birds she had fed with her sweet hands waked in the
darkness and sang their little songs, as if they knew that
Kathleen's sorrows were already angels pleading for Biddy's
sins !

VI.

TWO IRISH ANTIQUES.

A flight of doves floating in the clouds far above the green
mountain once mistook the little white hut in the trees for a
nest, and came down to seek shelter with their own kind ; but
only Mr. Cumisky was there.

They did not go away comfortless. He scattered the last
crumbs from his pitiful table to them, and when he had no
longer crumbs, he still had smiles; those strange, sad smiles
which were the old grave-digger's only comment upon the bit-
terness of his lot.

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I897-J I^ THE Parish of the Sacred Heart. 615

He was old and alone. He had a young daughter in New
York. She was warrldlyy he lamented to Mrs. Caraway. Mrs.
Caraway had sorrows too. Her young daughter was dead. Molly
Caraway's grave was the sweetest in the cemetery. Her mother
kept long vigils there. Molly had been a sister to the flowers,
a laughing, singing little sister, and it was as if they remem-
bered her now. Mr. Cumisky remembered her too. In the
sunshine or the rain, when Mrs. Caraway came up the mountain
path murmuring her prayers, he was always near Molly's grave
whispering to the roses, or listening to the birds. The birds
were the only ones he would listen to ! In the absence of
Father Salvator from the lonely mountain-side, the roses — the
dewy white and the sacramental scarlet — heard his confessions.
What tender confessors — the roses which Heaven has predes-
tined to silence, or given only sweetness for speech !

" Mr. Cumisky " — it was the voice of Agnes la Garde in the
stillness of an evening in spring-time, and she had paused by
Mary Kilduff*s baby's grave, with her white hat in her hand
and her brown hair ruffling in the breeze — " I should think you
would get married. You are very lonely, aren't you?"

" Yes, Miss Agnes, it's the truth you speak ; I do be lonely,
but " — Mr. Cumisky puffed contemplatively at his pipe —
"gettin* married 's one thing, and doin* well's another."

Agnes was sorry for the withered old man ; but if what
Father Salvator said were true, she thought Mrs. Cumisky, dead
and in heaven, must smile now the sweet smile of forgiveness
and, if it were possible, celestial amusement. But Agnes did
not believe that Mr. Cumisky had ever beaten his wife.

" Mr. Cumisky," said Rory McCarthy, who had been gather-
ing violets for Agnes to lay on the baby's grave, " what bird
is that ? It has a high note that I do not know. It is a per-
fect Alleluia for joy."

" It's a t'rush."

Agnes and Rory laughed.

" Do you mean a thrush ? "

''I do."

"Say th — r — r — ush," cried Agnes.

" Tr— r— ush ! "

*' Throw your tongue against the roof of your mouth and
strike your teeth hard."

" Tr— r— r— ush ! "

"It's no use. Miss Agnes," said Rory, wiping the tears of
laughter from his cheeks. " If you never make any worse use

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6i6 In the Parish of the Sacred Heart. [Aug.,

than that of your tongue, Mr. Cumisky, you'll be all right.
The thrush's enunciation is perfect anyway ; and for my part I
don't think it is a thrush. I think it is a red-bird, a wood-
sparrow, a wren — anything but a thrush ! "

" Well, now, I tell you, Mr. Rory— "

But Mr. Rory would not be told. He was talking to Ag-
nes about the violets. In smiling chagrin the old man walked
over to the roses.

" Father Salvator says that Mr. Cumisky wants Mrs. Cara-
way to marry him," said Agnes to Rory.

Rory smiled, the sweet smile which was so old on his white
young face.

" Mr. Cumisky will do well."

" Mrs. Caraway will do well," retorted Agnes.

She slipped the violets into a glass vase on the little grave,
and they said a prayer ; not for the baby — its wings were fold-
ed about them as they knelt — but for the baby's mother, for
the parish dead, for the world ; one of those yearning prayers
of which the angels must make an ineffable application. Per-
haps this one would be cherished for Mr. Cumisky 's nuptial
blessing, if the day ever came.

Mrs. Caraway was a pretty picture as she went through the
streets to Mass. Her great crepe bonnet told its own tale.
The soft white hair curled about her brow with an actual
lovingness. A spotless 'kerchief was folded around her
shadowy throat and there were always tears on her cheeks-
one or two tears, that borrowed a twinkling brightness from
her blue eyes.

Mr. Cumisky often dined with her. Her dinners kept his
soul and body together. Catholic graves did not come fast
enough. His coat was in threads, his shoes were broken, and
he had used the tatters of his last muslin shirt to tie the to-
mato vines. Perhaps it was foreordained he should be poor;
for when he had a penny in his pocket he was beside himself
with joy, and joy in Mr. Cumisky was but pride in poor mas-
querade. He and Mrs. Caraway held deep religious interviews.
While he drank her hot coffee with the cream from her gold-
en little cow, while he spread the snowy bread from her weary
arms with the butter which she churned, he shattered her idols
into smithereens. His arguments had no especial point, but the
words sacerdotal, ritual, ecclesiastical occurred frequently, and
to Mrs. Caraway his freedom with the church was thrilling.

His eyes twinkled behind his straggling lashes, but he was an

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1897O I^ ^^^ Parjsh of the Sacred Heart, 617

actor born. His expression was as easily diverted as a curl of
smoke on a windy day. He was seventy-five and she was
seventy-two. Her husband's grave was no deeper than the love
in her heart, but Mr. Cumisky had survived his matrimonial
bereavement.

Old women said it would be a neat thing, the uniting of the
fortunes Cumisky and Caraway. Either it would bring Mrs.
Caraway nearer to her dead or take Mr. Cumisky further away
from his, for there was the rose-covered cottage in town and
here was the tumbling hut near the graves ! They would knit
their Irish memories together. Mrs. Caraway had knitting-
needles for two, two coins for the collection-box, two — but the
sweet old woman could not see these things for the tears in
her eyes.

He opened the gate for her one evening as she was going
down to town. She passed out, and then he leaned over the
fence, with his old straw hat in his gnarled fingers.

" Mis* Caraway," he said very softly.

" Mr. Cumisky ? "

"I've been very good to the rosy-bushes on Mary's grave."

"Sure have you."

** Mis* Caraway "—Michael puffed at his pipe till the smoke
rolled away from him and fell about Mrs. Caraway in shimmer-
ing clouds — " do ye think as ye could ever marry me ? "

Mrs. Caraway turned pale and then pink.

" We are too near heaven, Mr. Cumisky," she said, lifting
her face to the clouds.

" I thought we might go this last bit of the way together."

She glanced at him with her sweet blue eyes. Youth came
back, fragrance, dreams !

"We might go."

"We might?"

" Yes."

Cumisky blessed himself ; then, leaning over the gate, he
kissed her on each pallid cheek, and the thrush sang its wild,
sweet song.

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Sea-Gf^assbs.

BY CAROLINE D. SWAN.

OWN soft, velvet slopings impearled with
the dew,
Toying with Wealth and her fashionings
new,
Ever we mutter,
" Braver are ye,
O stiff, briny grasses that drink of the sea '

Weary of softness, of gold and of gain.

We catch a response from their station of pain :

" Lowly and lonely.

Blessed are we
Who stand in our lot by the brink of the sea."

" Sharp on your rocks ever beateth the foam ;
Tender, the turf in the door-yards of home."

** Yea ; but no murmVing

Answereth thee !
Kingly our calm by the infinite sea."

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1 897'] Sea-Grasses. 619

" Inland, the blue-bird his song doth up-raise."
" Better, to us, the surf-thunder of Praise, —

Near the Eternal

Chosen to be.
Facing the tides of a limitless sea."

" Bowed and brow-beaten, how may ye sustain
Daily the shocks of the pitiless main ? '*

** Nay ! power hath pity ;

Love-solaced, we !
Odors rise sweet from the infinite sea."

" Silent uplifting ye surely must know,
Bliss our best earth-love can never bestow."

** Soul ! thou art lonely.

Even as we!
Come into the swell of the infinite sea !

" Softly its voices thy spirit shall greet.
Treasure of sea-bloom come up to thy feet ;

Strength shall betide thee,

Sharp though it be.
Thy Priesthood of Pain by the Infinite Sea."

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MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST.

AURICE LE SAGE D'HAUTEROCHE, Comte

d'Hulst, was born in Paris, October lo, 1841.

Scion of an ancient house, he was nearly related,

on his father's side, to Monseigneur du Bourg,

confessor of the faith during the Revolution, and

to Mother Marie of Jesus, foundress of the ** Congregation du

Sauveur,*' both of whom died in the odor of sanctity. On his

mother's, he descended in direct line from the brother of Blessed

Urban V., the last pope but one at Avignon.

His maternal grandmother, the Marquise du Roure, as lady-
in-waiting to Marie-Am^lie, Duchess d'OrWans, had followed her
from the Palais-Royal to the Tuileries. When, in 1830, the
Due d'Orl^ans was raised to the throne as Louis Philippe,
Raoul and Maurice d'Hulst became the favorite playfellows of

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1 897-] MoNSEiGNEUR d'Hulst. 621

the king's grandsons, the Comte de Paris and the Due de Char-
tres. Until 1848 the little boys met almost every day, either
at the Tuileries or Neuilly or Saint-Cloud. Two sisters com-
pleted the family circle. One entered religion and is to-day
the Mfere Sup^rieuse of the Paris house of the " Congregation
de TAdoration R^paratrice '*; the other died prematurely.

The Revolution caused Comte d'Hulst to retire with his
family to his chateau at Louville, not far from Chartres. There
the village cur6 began the children's education. Soon after a
tutor was chosen to prepare them for college. From 1856 to
i860 they followed, as day-pupils, the classes of Stanislas (Paris),
where Maurice distinguished himself, carrying off prizes every
year at the Concours gdn^raL* He excelled equally in mathe-
matics, rhetoric, and philosophy.

When Maurice was almost eighteen years of age it was con-
sidered time to decide his course in life. His mind was made
up. From the age of twelve he had wished to be a priest.

Towards seventeen his vocation was tried by an uncommon
temptation. He was then preparing for an examination, and
the study of mathematics exercised a sort of fascination over
his mind. When, alone in his room, he succeeded in solving a
difficult problem, so great was his delight that he would clap
his hands and jump with joy.

He thought of the ficole Polytechnique, and was haunted
by a vague desire to devote his life to a study which gave him
such pure pleasure ; but a secret voice denounced this as being
a temptation, and he felt he dared not turn away from the
sanctuary, to which God had called him from his youth.

The 5th of October, 1859, ^^ went to Issy, a college prepara-
tory to St. Sulpice. There he found both peace of mind and hap-
piness ; and, as he himself tells us, from the day he entered the
seminary never knew an instant's hesitation nor a moment's regret.

Maurice d'Hulst remained two years at Issy. Highly gifted
and eager to learn, he gave himself up wholly to his passion
for study. Then it was he became for a time a decided parti-
san of the doctrine of ontology.

He was a pupil of the learned and saintly Abb6 Le Hir,
and followed with enthusiasm those celebrated Hebrew lectures
in which the incomparable professor " made even grammar en-
lighten Holy Scripture and sing the praises of God."

At twenty-three his ecclesiastical studies were ended ; but as

* Examinations at which the best pupils of the principal educational establishments com-
pete for prizes.

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622 MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST. [Aug.,

priests are not usually ordained till they are twenty-five, he
proceeded to Rome, where, after two years, he became doctor
of theology and canon law.

Moreover, in the company of the illustrious De Rossi, he
was initiated in Christian archaeology, and conceived an affec-
tion, which years did not diminish, for the Rome of the early ages.

AT ST. AMBROSE'S.

The Abb6 Lang^nieux, now cardinal, was then cur6 of the
poor and populous parish of St. Ambrose. He was a zealous
priest and excellent organizer, and had begun many new works
which attracted earnest young priests to his parish.

He had at that time a young priest named Francois Cour-
tade, who had been intimate with the Abb6 d'Hulst at St. Sul-
pice. The former mentioned his friend to the cur^, who asked
and obtained permission to have him in his parish.

The Abb6 d'Hulst was delighted to begin his ministry among
a working population, and to be with his former comrade, who
was still his most intimate friend.

They worked together more unitedly than ever, and their
mutual attachment is a proof, if one were wanting, that resem-
blance is not necessary to friendship. For they were in no way
alike. One, by birth and instincts, was a democrat ; the other,
an aristocrat in every sense of the word. Both were highly in-
telligent, but in quite different ways. The Abb6 d'Hulst was
a man of varied attainments and great versatility, whereas the
Abb6 Courtade knew nothing outside his own sphere, but in it
yielded to no one in originality and boldness of initiative.
Had he lived, he would certainly have ranked among the fore-
most workers of his day. The aristocrat expressed his thoughts
with a natural distinction and a never-failing correctness.
The democrat spoke badly, but what was wanting in his edu-
cation was made up by the perfect equilibrium of his mental
faculties and his great moral influence. Unhappily, he died
when only thirty-four.

These two young priests founded a home for apprentice
boys in the Rue Folie-M^ricourt. "Christianity has raised
woman,'* said the Abb^ Courtade ; " it is one of its greatest
feats. But it is accomplished ; it is time that it should work to
raise man."

They chose about thirty children, belonging to the most
respectable working people of the neighborhood. Their ambi-
tion was to make them good Christians, who should later teach

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1 897-] MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST. 623

the truth and set a good example to the workmen among
whom they would be thrown. The boys were lodged, fed, and
clothed by the Abb6 d'HuIst, aided by the generosity of a

s
w

r
p

few friends and the children's own earnings. Suitable occupa-
tion was found for them, and their employers sent weekly
notes to the home, stating the time of their arrival at th^

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624 MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST. [Aug.,

workshops, when they left at night, and what their conduct had
been. A sum was deducted from their earnings to be returned
to them when they left the home. Evening classes completed
their education ; they were taught the catechism and carefully
trained in the practice of their religious duties. The two
priests lived entirely with the boys, sharing their recreations
and their table.

The two friends explained to the public the principle of
this work, in a pamphlet entitled De radian individuelle dans
Education ChrHiennCy in which they set forth a plan for im-
proving the people by means of technical education ; but the
work was interrupted by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian
war.

ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.

The Abb6 Courtade remained in Paris to take care of the
home, whilst his comrade joined MacMahon's army at Rheims
as voluntary chaplain. He was attached to the Twelfth Corps
under Lebrun, and followed the troops in their march through
Argonne. The 30th of August a battle was fought at Mouzon,
where the Abb^ d'Hulst, with his ambulance, was taken by
the Germans. Provided with a safe conduct from the Prince
of Saxony, on the 2d of September, he tried to join the troops,
whose disaster he ignored. On his way he crossed the hamlet
of Bazeilles, still burning, and was present at the famous court-
martial at which the cur^ of Balan was judged and condemned
to death, being falsely accused of having fired on German
troops. In the course of the day he heard of the capitulation
of Sedan.

The next day (September 2) he saw the marching past of
the defeated army. He visited the peninsula of Iges, the hor-
rors of which a popular writer has so graphically described
under the name of *• Camp de la misere.**

In this lamentable situation, after so great a battle, chap-
lains were wanted in all directions at once.

But every day after, thousands of prisoners were transported
to Germany ; all those in a fit state to travel were sent off. By
the nth of September all the wounded had left. As the chap-
lain's mission was now ended, he was anxious to know what
was happening at home. He went on foot to Belgium, and
entered Paris a few hours before the investiture. The siege
began the same day.

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1 897-] MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST. 625

DURING THE SIEGE.

In Paris the situation was so alarming that the greater
number of the children were sent back to their parents, only a
few orphans remaining behind.

Present at several sieges, he assisted the dying, and, absolv-
ing their sins, spoke of hope beyond the grave.

The effects of the siege now began to be felt ; they suffered
at the home of the Rue Folie-M6ricourt, as elsewhere. The
children had what was strictly necessary. "We wanted for
nothing," one of them, now a man, wrote. "As to our protec-
tors, we indeed saw that they deprived themselves for us."
However, by degrees their provisions were exhausted, and it
was impossible to get more. In the month of January they
were without bread, all suffering from hunger. But they suf-
fered cheerfully, consoled as they were by the presence of the
two good priests.

A WEEK OF DANGER.

The twenty-second of May the army of Versailles had en-
tered Paris by the Porte Saint-Cloud, at the extreme west
of the town.

On Tuesday, the 23d of May, the Abb6 d'Hulst was called
to a dying man. It was no longer possible for an ecclesiastic
to pass through the excited populace, mad with rage and
drink. The Abb6 d'Hulst put on secular dress, and went to
the sick man accompanied by the suisse^ an old soldier and
faithful servant.

On his way back he was recognized by a group of those
wretched women who formed the advanced battalion of the
Commune. " A priest ! and still young ; what a lucky chance ! "
exclaimed one, They immediately sought the militia of the
Commune to arrest him. Happily for the abb6, none could be
found.

An hour after his return the tocsin rang. The church and
presbytery had just been invaded by an armed band, followed
by a frantic crowd. An apprentice was luckily on the spot,
and immediately broke through the infuriated crowd, and,
running as fast as he could, arrived at the home in time to
warn the servant of the danger which threatened her masters.
At the back of the house a widow, named Chevalier, lived
alone with her daughter. They asked her to receive them, not
concealing the danger to which her charity would expose her.

VOL. LXV.— 40

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626 MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST. [Aug.,

The excellent woman did not hesitate an instant, but opened
her door to the persecuted.

At the same moment a corporal went to their house to
arrest them in the name of the Salut de la Nation. He was
baffled by the servant, who calmly replied, in her simple
country language, "that the two birds had flown."

The two priests spent from Tuesday, the 23d, to the follow-
ing Sunday morning in their hiding-place. There it was they
heard of the assassination of Monseigneur Darboy and the first
hostages, of the burning of the Hotel de Ville, of the transfer
of the Commune to the mairie (town-hall) of their ward. Their
church was turned into a powder magazine, and wires connected
it with an electric battery, which was to blow it up if the
Versailles troops approached. Five long days they lived in
continual dread of that explosion, which would have buried them
beneath a heap of ruins.

Nevertheless the French army advanced, forcing back the
battalions of the Commune. The two friends had to seek
shelter in the cellar. There they lived three days and three
nights in continual suspense. Projectiles whistled over their
heads ; the Commune, in despair, threatened to blow up every-
thing before surrendering. Every moment they expected to be
their last. They confessed to each other and calmly looked
forward to death. For if they were assassinated, it would at
least be in hatred of the religion whose ministers they were;
and what could be better for them than to offer their lives to
God, to sacrifice themselves for a sacred and beloved cause,
to die like soldiers enveloped in the folds of their flag?

Four days and nights the cannon thundered without inter-
ruption, when on Sunday morning suddenly all was silent ; the
barricade in front of the house was abandoned, and at the
entrance of the yard the two prisoners at last, perceived the
uniform of the troops.

They returned once more to life. To return to life was
for the Abb6 d'Hulst to return to his work. The apprentices
went back to the Rue Folie-M^ricourt, but not to remain there
long. By the death of his father, the Abb6 d'Hulst had
recently come into possession of his patrimony. He at once
bought a large piece of ground of three thousand metres in the
working district, on the heights of M^nilmontant, opposite the
cemetery of P^re-la-Chaise. To his home for apprentices he
wished to join industrial schools, where every boy would learn
a trade. The plan of the future building was drawn out, but

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1897.] MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST. 627

SO great was the distress immediately after the Commune that
it was impossible to. collect money enough to carry on so large
a work. In the meantime the two friends took up their
residence in a little house that already stood on the ground,

Cardinal Guibert.

and the Abb6 d'Hulst built a small chapel at his own expense,
which they dedicated to St. Hippolytus, the patron of the new
Archbishop of Paris. They preached continually ; the chapel
was always full to overflowing; it was a sort of permanent
mission.

Soon afterwards the Abb^ Courtade died, and his friend was
called to the archbishop's house.

The work, however, did not cease ; it was continued by the
Redemptorist Fathers, to whom the Abb^ d'Hulst sold the
property for a nominal price.

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628 MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST. [Aug.,

AT THE archbishop's HOUSE.

Since the AbW d'HuIst's return from Rome he had had no
time for study, which was for him a great privation. He now
wished to again take up mental work, and to devote his life
to the study of sacred science, while reserving a part of his
time for the poor. He even thought of a chair at the Sorbonne.

Just at this time Monseigneur Guibert, Archbishop of Paris,
called him to the archbishop's house, where he received the
title of vic€'promoteur, and helped the vicars-general ; but his
principal occupation was to act as literary secretary to the
archbishop. We remember those pastoral letters by which
Monseigneur Guibert directed Catholic thought in France during
the fifteen years of his episcopacy. When the cardinal had de-
cided to publish one, he gave the outline of his ideas to his
secretary and requested him to prepare a rough copy. But in
that copy he saw at a glance the least omission. If the Abb^
d'Hulst's rendering did not please him, he had to make a sec-
ond copy, and sometimes a third, until he produced exactly
what the archbishop required. Even when Monseigneur Gui-
bert expressed himself fully satisfied, all was not finished. He,
with his secretary, minutely revised the letter and struck out
every expression which bore the personal mark of the secre-
tary, and left only what was his own. With a spirit of self-
abnegation, the more admirable because his intellectual gifts
were exceptional, the Abb^ d'Hulst so completely effaced him-
self that he at length succeeded in adopting exactly the ideas
and the style of the cardinal, so that the first copy was gen-
erally the last.

A great friendship, which lasted till the cardinal's death,
arose out of the constant intercourse between the young secre-
tary and the old archbishop. But it was just this affection
which, in a great measure, prevented the Abb6 d'Hulst from
following the path he had chosen.

Monseigneur Guibert did not at first intend to take up all
his time, but he found his young secretary so indispensable
that he gave him successively many other offices. In 1871 he
was appointed honorary vicar-general ; in 1872, vicar-general
titulaire and archidiacre of St. Denis; in 1873, promoteur.*

It must be remembered that the Abb^ d'Hulst was only
thirty-four years of age when he was called to fill all these
important posts.

* The promoteur has the general surveillance and placing of the clergy.

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1 897-] MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST. 629

THE CATHOLIC INSTITUTE.

When, in 1875, the French archbishops decided to found a
Catholic university, to meet the requirements of the time, a
man of bold initiative, capable of overcoming all obstacles, was
absolutely necessary to its success. Cardinal Guibert at once
thought of the Abb^ d'Hulst.

At that time the bishop-founders often held meetings. The
Abb6 d'Hulst was the soul of those meetings; it was he who
drew up the report and saw that the plans were carried into
execution. All this involved incessant labor.

In recognition of his services, which were crowned with suc-
cess, the bishops from the first wished to appoint him rector;
but he filled such varied and important offices that the car-
dinal was both unwilling and unable to part with so valuable
a helper. However, in 1880 the Ferry laws changed all. The
charter was withdrawn from the university, which now became
the Catholic Institute. The bishops were alarmed, for the
cause of higher education was in danger. They again asked
the cardinal to give them the Abb6 d'Hulst ; he still hesitated,
but at last consented, and then the vicar-general became rector
of the Catholic Institute, for which post his devotion to sci
ence so admirably fitted him.

The rector threw himself heart and soul into the work. No
one has pleaded its cause with more eloquence than he. To
those who would separate religion from education he replies :
" It is grand and holy in every grade. In primary education
religious teaching is essential, for the souls of the people are at
stake. In secondary, it is still more so, for here it is the rul-
ing class receive a higher culture and training ; but I beg of
you, do not forget the superior grade, in which are treated
the principles that decide the fate of whole communities."

In this way he looked forward to the splendid results which
must follow the highest possible education imparted to the
upper classes of the Catholic body.

HIS PHILOSOPHY.

As we have seen while at Issy, the Abb6 d'Hulst was a par-
tisan of ontology; but he soon renounced all ideal dreams of
ontologism, to embrace the more positive doctrine of St.
Thomas of Aquinas.

This change dates from his sojourn in Rome. Before he
left Paris he was certainly acquainted with the Sutntna^ but

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630 MONSEICNEUR D'HULST. [Aug.,

owing to the influence of Cardinal de Reisach he made a
deeper study of it, which proved fatal to his early ideas. He
returned to Paris a scholastic, and remained so to the end.
When, later on, Leo XIII. recommended the Thomist doctrine,
and it became, as it were, the official teaching of Catholic
schools, he had not to change, like many others.

Just at that time he was giving conferences on philosophy
at the Catholic Institute. It was the first year of his rector-
ship. It is well known there are always people who are more
royalist than the king, more Papist than the Pope, and more
Thomist than St. Thomas. A fanatical scholastic denounced
him at Rome, and accused him of Cartesianism.

It is said the Sovereign Pontiff viewed the charge seri-
ously, and the Abb6 d'Hulst went to Rome with the notes of
his lectures. He easily justified himself to the learned Cardinal
Zigliara, and to Cardinal Pecci, the Pope's brother. Leo XIII.
graciously accepted his explanation, and, as if to remove all
trace of the misunderstanding, raised him soon after to the
dignity of domestic prelate.

ORATOR AND DEPUTY.

In 1890, the P^re Monsabr6 having finished his exposition of
the Creed, Cardinal Richard called Monscigneur d'Hulst to the
historic pulpit of Notre Dame.

He began the following year a course of studies on the
decalogue. As an orator he was remarkable for depth of
thought, for vigorous logic, and for purity of diction.

In the beginning the press was unfavorable, and the public
showed him little sympathy. It was only in the fourth year,
when he developed the morale de la families that he was fully |

appreciated. Nevertheless we must admit he was not a '

popular orator ; he did not possess the qualities which appeal
to the masses ; he had few of those brilliant outbursts that pro-
voke applause. He was always sober. Even in metaphor one
recognizes the logician, the lover of precision.

As deputy, he could do little to stem the tide of anti-
religious passions. He rarely spoke in the Chamber, and only
when church matters were in question ; but by his courteous
bearing he won the respect of even his political adversaries.

HIS DEATH.

For some time before his death Monseigneur d'Hulst had
been suffering from exhaustion, caused principally by overwork.

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1 897-] MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST. 63 1

Cardinal Richard.

The doctors ordered him to Biarritz, hoping that rest and
change would repair his shattered health. His condition did
not seem to improve, but he nevertheless decided to return to
Paris.

On his arrival at the institute, the Abb^ Paguelle de Follenay,
the vice-rector, was struck by the change in his appearance.

** You are suffering, monseigneur," he said.

*' Oh ! very much," replied Monseigneur d'Hulst ; " hardly able
to speak."

The doctor was immediately sent for, and pronounced the
symptoms dangerous. He came again at seven in the evening,
and then declared there was blood-poisoning and that the
patient's condition was hopeless.

Monseigneur d*Hulst*s confessor, the P^re Mirabeau, remained
some moments alone with him, and gave him absolution. The

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632 MONSEIGNEUR D'HULST. [Aug.,

cardinal, who had been informed of his condition, insisted on
coming himself to administer the last sacraments. The sufferer
was only partially conscious ; but he recognized Monseigneur
Richard, and understanding that he was about to receive
Extreme Unction, he made a visible effort to remain calm. It
was then nine o'clock. From that time the patient gradually
sank, and at a quarter to eleven all was over.

Monseigneur d'Hulst expired on November 6, in the fifty-
sixth year of his age.

So ended this life of incessant labor. Some time before his
death he had said to a friend : '' My occupations increase daily ;
it cannot be helped. I am crowding into ten years what should
be the work of a life-time. But God's will be done."

POVERTY OF SPIRIT AND OF LIFE.

Monseigneur d'Hulst was of imposing appearance : tall, thin,
and slightly bent, with lofty brow, keen, penetrating eyes, and
marked features. He was the soul of honor, open-hearted and
straightforward. It was impossible for him to dissemble. His
old friends, and those who knew him the best, assert that he
never in the whole course of his life told a lie, not even as a
child.

About the time of his ordination he wrote to his sister, the
religious : " Pray that I may not only be a priest, but also a
victim."

He was above all, by the purity and austerity of his life,
by his zeal for souls, and by his total abnegation, a priest
worthy of the name. He loved the poor and the humble; he
lived poor in spirit, and he died poor in reality, having given
away the whole of his fortune, which was considerable.

He was indifferent to luxury, and despised all comfort. One
day a gentleman, accompanied by his servant, was passing
through his apartments. They came to quite a small room,
whose window opens on to a tiny yard. In the room was an iron
bedstead, without curtains. A worn paper was in some places
falling off the walls. On the wall were suspended a large
rosary, holy-water stoup, and crucifix. On the other side of the
room was a plain deal wardrobe. And that was all !

"I suppose you sleep here," the visitor said to the servant.

"I, sir! Don't you know it's monseigneur's room?" was the
answer.

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1897.] RossETTfs Poetry. 633

ROSSETTI^S POETRY.

BY CHARLES A. L. MORSE.

iHEN Mr. Leslie Stephen tells us "there is a cer-
tain prima facie presumption against a writer
who appeals only to a few," he undoubtedly
voices a sentiment in support of which not a
little may be said. At least, we are in the
habit of being slightly sceptical as to the existence of many
" mute, inglorious Miltons " in the world, and, being so, are
prone to fancy that the man who has anything worth saying,
not only says it, but gains the public ear and wins public ap-
proval. But to what extent general approval means general
appreciation is a perplexing question. In an age which is in-
clined to judge everything from the commercial view-point,
one may well suspect that a good deal of the popular interest
in certain productions of the art instinct — for instance, in certain
famous pictures — springs not altogether from anything like a
sense of their intrinsic beauty. When a great many otherwise
sordid minds profess keen delight at the contemplation of
works so grandly simple and spiritual as Millet's " Angelus *' or
Breton's "Song of the Lark," it seems not ungenerous to con-
clude that the enormous money value of those canvases has
not a little to do with this somewhat amazing appreciation of
the beautiful. Unfortunately, however, it is not possible for
the dollar-mark to lend its golden halo to the poet's produc-
tions with quite the dazzling effect with which it may adorn
the painter's canvas ; and until some enterprising magazine edi-
tor, in a mad hunt for notoriety and an increased subscription
list, sees fit to offer Miss Guiney or Mr. Swinburne or some
other singer of songs a fabulous sum for a poem, we need
hardly expect that somewhat nebulous conglomerate known as
the " reading world " to display any very vivid interest in
poetry. The materialism of our day is, of course, a well-
known theme upon which it is a thankless task to dilate ; but
being what it is, it must needs be only a few to whom the
poets appeal. The world looks wise at mention of Dante's
name. Browning Clubs kowtow solemnly to their feticlj, but
after all we flock merrily to the support of the " new " jour-
nalism, and for inspiration study the quotations of the stock
markets. To those who, with Lowell, fancy that "poetry

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634 RossETTfs Poetry. [Aug.,

frequents and keeps habitable those upper chambers of the
j mind that open towards th« sun's rising," this dense indiffer-

ence displayed by men and women of good intelligence and
so-called " cultivation " to the work of some of the more de-
lightful poets is a thing to be deplored. Particularly is it to
be deplored that so melodious a singer, so penetrating and at-
taching a poet, as was Dante Gabriel Rossetti should have, if
one may judge by appearances, so small a band of apprecia-
tive admirers, and Catholics at least should be guiltless of the
all-too-common ignorance of the beauty and charm of his
work. For while some of his poetry is of a kind to which a
Catholic cannot give approval, the major part of it appeals to
the Catholic mind and sentiment with commanding force.

Born in London of Italian parents, Rossetti was, in spite of
education and the environment of youth and manhood at least,
utterly un-English. He seems to afford a peculiarly striking
example of the power of heredity over education. It is a
thing to wonder at that his poetry should have been written in
the English language. His spirit has been called mediaeval. It
is rather Catholic, and it cannot be too insistently con-
tended that to be Catholic in tone is not necessarily to be
mediaeval. Mr. Francis Thompson's poetry, for example, is not
only Catholic in spirit but essentially mediaeval as well, while
Coventry Patmore's later verse, although unqualifiedly Catholic,
contains little trace of mediaevalism. And the writer of so un-
compromisingly and painfully realistic a study as Rossetti's
" Jenny " can hardly be called mediaeval in spirit, in spite of
the weird mysticism of such poems as his " Eden Bower " or
" Sister Helen.*' Were his Catholic trend evidenced only by his
songs in honor of the Blessed Virgin, one would hardly be
justified in calling Rossetti's spirit Catholic, for the sensitive
souls of the poets can scarce ever resist paying tribute to our
dear Lady of Purity, as the long list of non-Catholic names in
Orby Shipley's Carmina Mariana well proves, if proof be
necessary. But the English-Italian's poetry, rich as it is in de-
votion to the Blessed Virgin, does not stop there. It is in such
a poem as " World's Worth " that Rossetti's essentially Catholic
\ tone is most convincingly manifested, or in that beautiful poem

j in which he tells of the monk Father Hilary, who "strove but

I could not pray " — upon whose soul had descended one of those

I crushing periods of spiritual dryness and despair which the

physicians of the soul tell us come at times to all men, even
the holiest. Father Hilary climbs "the steep-coiled stair" to
the balcony —

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i897-] RossETTfs Poetry. 635

" Where the chime keeps the night and day ;
It hurt his brain, he could not pray.
He had his face upon the stone :
Deep 'twixt the narrow shafts, his eye
Passed all the roofs to the stark sky,
Swept with no wing, with wind alone.
Close to his feet the sky did shake
With wind in pools that the rains make :
The ripple set his eyes to ache.
He said : " O worlds what world for me?''

But afterwards he stood in the church

"... within the mystery
Girding God's blessed Eucharist.**
The supreme moment of the Mass was come —
" And now the sacring-bell rang clear
And ceased ; and all was awe, — the breath
Of God in man that warranteth
The inmost, utmost things of faith."
And in that supreme moment the dew of God's grace mois-
tened once again Father Hilary's parched soul, and
" He said : ' O Gody my world in Thee' "

It is not unlike a thought from ^ Kempis elaborated Unto
verse. That it should have been written by the son of a
Neapolitan revolutionist and exile, who with his wife had lost
the faith, and by a man who never outwardly professed a be-
lief in Catholicity, would seem to mean that Rossetti inherited
from more faithful ancestors a kind of sentiment which neither
home-influence nor education in acknowledged religious beliefs
could have produced. And when he sings of Our Lady he
voices triumphantly, whether consciously or no, the fervid
Italian devotion. His Ave^ beginning with the beautiful lines
" Mother of the fair Delight,
Thou handmaid perfect in God's sight,
Now sitting forth beside the Three,"
and ending with the supplication

" Into our shadow bend thy face.
Bowing thee from the secret place,
O Mary, Virgin, full of grace ! *'

is his most famous tribute to the Blessed Virgin. Nothing from
his pen, however, is more exquisite than that sonnet that he
wrote for his picture of " The Girlhood of Mary, Virgin,"
which commences

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636 RossETT/s Poetry, [Aug.,

" This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect
God's Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she
Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee,**
and in which occurs that delicately fitting figure which likens
Mary's girlhood to

'** An angel-watered lily, that near God
Grows and is quiet.'*
The range of Rossetti's muse was wide. From the mysticism of
" Sister Helen," with its regularly recurring and haunting refrain,
" O Mother, Mary Mother,
Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven,"
to the strong, tragic sweep of such a narrative as "The Last
Confession," is a far cry. To those who fancied that Rossetti
was a dreamer of strange dreams, the poet of the unreal, " The
Last Confession " must have come as an intense surprise. The
wild appeal of an Italian peasant to his confessor, half despair-
ing, half triumphant, a story of love and jealousy and murder,
it sweeps on breathlessly to that last mad cry when the mur-
derer fancies he sees his victim with the stiletto in her side :

" Father,
I have told all : tell me at once what hope
Can reach me still. For now she draws it out
' Slowly, and only smiles as yet : look. Father,
She scarcely smiles ; but I shall hear her laugh
Soon, when she shows the crimson steel to God."
The poem has been compared to Browning's narrative poems
of Italian life. It has, indeed, all of Browning's strength, but
none of his dense English misconception of Italian character,
and, needless to say, none of his affected ambiguity in phrasing.
Rossetti's muse always sang clearly. His mastery of words is
little less than marvellous. A painter with the brush, he pro-
duced pictures with his pen such as only an artist could con-
ceive. Surely no canvas could impress one with a sense of ori-
ental night more strikingly than this picture from the "Ave":
" Mind'st thou not (when June's heavy breath
Warmed the long days in Nazareth)
That eve thou didst go forth to give
Thy flowers some drink, that they might live
One faint night more amid the sands?
Far off the trees were as pale wands
Against the fervid sky : the sea
Sighed further off eternally
As human sorrow sighs in sleep."

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I897-] RossETT/s Poetry. 637

And what a vivid picture is this, from " Sunset Wings " :

*' To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings,

Cleaving the western sky ;
Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings
Of birds ; as if the day's last hour in wings

Of strenuous flight must die.

" Sun-steeped in fire, the homeward pinions sway
Above the dovecote-tops;
And clouds of starlings, ere they rest with day.
Sink, clamorous like mill waters, at wild play.
By turns in every copse."

Or these two lines from " The Cloud Confines ":

" The sky leans dumb on the sea,
Aweary with all its wings'*

Perhaps his wizard-like mastery of words is evidenced even
more obviously by such imagery as this, from the touching
poem " My Sister's Sleep ":

" Twelve struck. That sound, by dwindling years
Heard in each hour, crept off : and then
The ruffled silence spread again^
Like water that a pebble stirs.'*

"The Blessed Damozel" is peculiarly rich in these luminous
flashes. The blessed one, to whom it seemed

"... She scarce had been a day

One of God's choristers, . . .

Albeit, to them she left, her day

Had counted as ten years,"

leans out from " the gold bar of heaven," and gazes far down
the yawning abyss of infinite space to where

*' . . . The tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge " ;
and

"... The curled moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf."

And as she leant there

"The souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.**

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638 RossETT/s Poetry. [Aug.,

Could words express with more exquisite imagery our nearest
approach to a conception of pure spirit than those two wonder-
ful lines ? And " The Blessed Damozel " fairly quivers with
genius-touches like these from beginning to end. Who that has
read the poem can ever forget these fine lines near its close :

" The light thrilled towards her, filled
With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smiled."

It is difficult to cease quoting such bits from Rossetti, so full
is he of such things ; and there is one thought in that saddest of
poems, the fragment called " The Bride's Prelude," a thought so
exquisitely conceived and so exquisitely expressed that it demands
quotation. It is that pathetic scene where Aloyse the sin-stained,
goaded by remorse, confesses her fall to her sister Amelotte — in-
nocent, laughing, youthful Amelotte. The whole scene is a marvel
of dramatic and pictorial art. The dusky, shadowy castle cham-
ber where the sisters sit, the blazing noonday sunlight outside the
lattice, and the tense silence of the hot outer world — so tense
that they hear,

" Far beneath, the plunge and float
Of a hound swimming in the moat,"

are pictured as only a painter-poet could picture them. And
the sinful woman's struggle between the contending emotions
of self-hate and shame and a hungry longing for confession are
drawn with masterly touches, till at length she cries out to her
listening, wondering, half-terrified sister those piercing words :

"... Many an while
I would have told thee this ;
But faintness took me, or a fit
Like fever. God would not permit
That I should change thine eyes with it.**

That Rossetti's ballads lack somewhat the strong simplicity
and lilting rhythm of the finest type of English balladry, is
doubtless true; but that this is so is quite what we should ex-
pect. As I have already said, his genius was distinctly not of
the English but of the Italian type. In his lyrics and sonnets
he spoke as his people speak ; in his ballads he used an
acquired form of expression. There must ever be a more or
less evident trace of effort in an acquired manner. J, A. Sy-
monds, a brilliant critic not always to be trusted, was inclined to

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I897-] RossETT/s Poetry. 639

deny Rossetti's ballads a claim to high place amid the rich
treasures of English ballad poetry. But, as Mr. Hall Caine
long ago pointe out, modern ballads are of necessity more
complex than thF'early songs, like " Chevy Chase," with which
type Symonds contrasted Rossetti's productions. And, indeed,
it must be a carping critic who will not feel the stir and sweep
and rhythmic cadence of "The White Ship" and "The King's
Tragedy."

Of Rossetti's sonnets it is difficult to speak with too great
praise. At once, perhaps, the most difficult, and when success-
fully accomplished the most exquisitely beautiful, form of poetic
expression, the sonnet, to use Rossetti's words, "is a moment's
monument " ; or, as Mr. W. M. Rossetti paraphrases his brother's
words, it is "the monumental record of some brief moment of
time, or crucial' act of thought."

To be all that it may be, it must be not alone composed
with the most scrupulous regard for form and metre, but it
must as well be elaborated with the most tender care, until it
gleams with the utmost possible wealth of delicate imagery and
fine embroidery of words. Rossetti's genius was pre-eminent-
ly of the type to fulfil all these requirements. His love for
exquisitely finished and symbolically rich art, his fine command
of striking imagery, and his superb mastery of words found full
play in this form of expression.

The introductory sonnet in his sequence called, a little fan-
tastically, " The House of Life," is a good specimen of this phase
of his art, and is, as well, a peculiarly interesting description
of the sonnet itself:

"A sonnet is a moment's monument, —
Memorial from the Soul's eternity
To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be.

Whether for lustral rite or dire portent.

Of its own arduous fulness reverent:
Carve it in ivory or in ebony.
As day or night may rule : and let Time see

Its flowering crest impearled and orient.

"A sonnet is a coin : its face reveals

The soul, — its converse, to what Power 'tis due, —
Whether for tribute to the august appeals

Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue.
It serve: or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath,
In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death."

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640 RossETTfs Poetry. [Aug.,

Rossetti has been called, with more of malice than of reason,
a member of the " fleshly " school. Tha^' ' rtain things he
wrote might better have been left unwritten . fj. J not be denied.
But to accuse him of sensualism is to -' the ungenerous
stand that a writer is to be condemned i* ; faults, without

giving him credit for excellences which outnai. ber those faults
overwhelmingly. And when the worst has b .en said, the un-
prejudiced reader must agree Cnat Rossetti spoke the simple
truth in a temperate and dignified letter which he wrote to the
London AthefUBum, saying it would be impossible to maintain
against him the charge that he had ever wished to assert that
the body is greater than the soul.

To us unhappy moderns, upon whose tired ears the cease-
less hum of the analytical brotherhood beats with irritating
persistence, it is not allowed that the poets should sing as the
birds carol or as the running waters murmur. Self-conscious
Puritanism stands at our shoulders demanding, grimly, What
does your loved one teach f To answer that it is, perhaps, not
imperative for the world's welfare that a poet teach at all, that
if he sings sweetly or sublimely, according as his gift may be,
he has done his part, is, of course, to write one's self down a
scoffer at modern "culture." So little of the didactic Anglo-
Saxon nature had Rossetti, that it is not easy to form an
opinion as to what he taught — in truth, he had no inclination
to " deliver a message " to a waiting world. But the last son-
net in " The House of Life " does contain an aspiration to
which a weary world might listen with grateful ears :

"When vain desire at last, and vain regret.
Go hand-in-hand to death, and all is vain.
What shall assuage the unforgotten pain

And teach the un forgetful to forget?

Shall Peace be still a sunk stream long unmet —
Or may the soul at once in a green plain
Stoop through the spray of some sweet life fountain

And cull the dew-drenched flowering amulet?

" Ah ! when the wan soul in that golden air.
Between the scriptured petals softly blown,
Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown —
Ah ! let none other alien spell soe'er.
But only the one Hope's one name, be there, —
Not less, not more, but even that word alone."

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1 897-] ''Farthest North,"' by Dr. Nan sen. 641

^^FARTHJ^^ NORTH," BY DR. NANSEN.

l.rrREV. GEORGE McDERMOT, C.S.P.
J

r^'^y] .:: This hcKk, Farthest North, is something

^ 'O^ • _. other than the record of a voyage of ex-
ploration. It is a sectional autobiography
1 of the writer from 1893 to 1896; and he
has performed his task with such eminent
. success that even the awful solitudes of the
^ polar regions are dwarfed by his superabun-
dant personality.
Over Fields of Ice. With an unconscious egotism like the

power of that overmastering imagination by which great poets
project their creations on the
minds of all, Dr. Nansen stands
in the realms of eternal ice, gigan-
tic as a Scandinavian god, op-
pressive as Frankenstein in his
superiority to the forces of nature.
There is this difference between
Mrs. Shelley's embodied diabolism
and Dr. Nansen's hero : we are
not surprised at what the former
can accomplish in daring and en-
durance. When he flies over un-
trodden fields of ice behind his
harnessed dogs, independent of
compass and insensible to cold,
unchecked in his career by the
blinding clouds of finely sifted
snow, and passing over rifts in ice-
floes as though he were a disem-
bodied spirit, his sledge a vapor,
and his dogs hell-dogs, we are not
astonished, because Mrs. Shelley
has steeped our judgment in some
magic opiate ; but Dr. Nansen is
a man of science, and we should

have expected more considerate Eskimo woman.

VOL. Lxv.— 41

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642 ''Farthest North,"' by Dr. Nan sen. [Aug.,

treatment at his hands. His drawing is the reverse of Salvator
Rosa's. The figures Rosa perched here and there on rocks, or in
ravines, or near torrents, were mere aoi^essories to the savage
scenery — or rather, small creatures of life amid the still and silent
Vnajesty of nature. Now, Dr. Nansen near an iceberg with a
thousand fissures and pouring out submarine rivers larger than
the Rhone, is Dr. Nansen. There is a beautiful impartiality in
his patronage. He takes the Pole under his protection with as
much kindness as he does the ship Fram ; and the men under
him are as much the object of his solicitude as the distant
mountains guarding the impenetrable North.

In order that we may appreciate the work he has accom-
plished, he gives us in an introduction the history of Arctic ex-
ploration from the earliest times. The materials for a great
part of this history are not forthcoming; but there is a reflex
action in highly gifted minds by means of which forgotten intel-
lectual experiences can be hypnotized into recollection. By a
similar process that great and good man, Mr. Herbert Spencer,
obtained his knowledge of how the universe came to be what
it is. The cell first told it to the segmentation in its native
forest, for ages past a coal-field, and the tale was sent on
through the cycles of descent, through infinite ascents, until it
awoke in Mr. Spencer's brain a full-orbed, concrete, cosmic in-
spiration. We understand now from that prophet, as he has
been well translated into English, how all came to pass " from
a nohowish, ui^talkaboutable all-alikeness, to a somehowish and
in-general-talkaboutable not-all-alikeness, by continuous some-
thing-elseifications and stick-togetherations." With knowledge
acquired by this process Dr. Nansen informs us that in the twi-
light of the world the Norwegians were the explorers of the
Arctic Sea — no one else had a hand in the business. Still,
it is curious that there are trans-Siberian tribes with a reli-
gion as marked off and isolated from the creeds of the near-
est peoples as the religion of Israel was from that of the ethnic
world about them ; that there are Laps and Eskimos who have
been employing for an unknown time the method of traversing
which Dr. Nansen declares is the best for those regions.

Where we sympathize most with him is in that viking spirit
which strengthens his heart and prompts his mind to acts of dar-
ing. He is as genuine a sea-rover as Eric the Red, or Leif ; and
it may be that the masterfulness of the Norsemen has descended
to him so richly that he is wild enough to defy the nineteenth
century critics, and pitiless enough to trample on the graves of

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i897-] '* Farthest North,'' by Dr. Nansen. 643

Dr. Nansen and Party.

those dead centuries when monks made records for mankind
and adventurers explored and travelled to supply the records.
And accompanying this viking of to-day into the farthest north,
we are stirred by his love of adventure, and led away into a sort
of fable-land by the weird touch of imagination through which
he peoples glacier and sea and mountain of ribbed ice with
Odin and his Valkyries and the whole host of northern gods

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644 ''Farthest North;' by Dr. Nan sen. [Aug.,

that roar amid the tempests and the waves. We enter on these
with awe though under his protection, for the subjective opera-
tion will not allow this Colossus of exploration to turn nature
into painted scenes. Before we made his acquaintance, men,
not Norwegians, had borne us to the north. We knew of the

walrus before his tusks
"^ glittered in our au-

thor's illustrations, and
this earlier knowledge
guards us against being
conquered by the vast-
ness of his fomri and

UPERNAviic. ^^^ all-covering shadow

it casts over the white
waste of the land, the alternate reaches of blue and green and
gray of the sea.

Hence we have a feeling of awe as we enter those regions
that have slept from the dawn of time, and somehow we think
of that period, about which he has written so much with a con-
fidence surpassing that of transcribers of state papers, when
the earth was ice-bound for the greater part, and the silence of
eternity was not yet broken by the struggle of man with the
forces, animate and inanimate, amid which he found himself, poor
forked creature of " arboreal habits." The work is instructive,
as all such works are, in the facts of courage proved and dfffi-
culty overcome. The suggestion of embryonic development of
arctic voyaging which is the background of the study of Dr.
Nansen's expedition recalls to us much that he has omitted —
much that he has unfairly handled. His book contains some
one hundred and twenty illustrations, the greater number of
which could be dispensed with ; it contains entries from
his Diary, most of which, however interesting as traces of
thought and feeling, as moods of hope
and struggle, do not seem in their proper
place in a work professing to be a contri-
bution to geographical discovery. When '
Dr. Nansen shall have lain down to rest in

Lysaker, with the homage of his country-

•^ . *; . , , Eskimo House.

men as mcense over his tomb ; when

England, that so petted him, will talk about niches in Oxford
and Cambridge and Westminster ; when Germany thinks it pos-
sible that Berlin might have room for him in the same city with
the Kaiser William, and Paris finds a place for his statue in her

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1897.]

"Farthest North" by Dr. Nan sen.

645

Eskimo Village.

pantheon, then will be the time for his biographer to draw
upon the copious sources for character-study which his Diary
supplies. But the doctor has anticipated his immortality.

With Luci.
an*s Jove, we
say he should
have waited
for the judg-
ment of
death in order to take his rank among
the gods.

The courage and enterprise of man
are evinced in his efforts to overcome
the difficulties which those northern
regions offered to his advance. They
vindicate an origin for him that can^
not be explained by the ordinary hy-
potheses of evolutionists, and a pro-
gress that has no parallel in the social
developments of any other order of
physical being. Step by step he won
his way over snow and ice from sea to sea, and through realms
void of all life but the very lowest form — hardly distinguishable
from vegetable life — and he even passed through the deadly
embrace of an atmosphere where there was no life of animal
or plant ; until it seemed that the time had come when he
should lay his hand on the mysteries of the creation hidden in
the world of frost around the Pole. But as often as he at-
tempted the last part of the journey an obstacle barred the way,
and the idea spread at length that no step would ever tread
this land. Nothing more instructive and encouraging can be
found in the history of mankind than we derive from the part
of it belonging to arctic travel. We see that its motive cannot
be reduced to the instinct of self-preservation in its divisions of
fear and hunger, like the wanderings of the nations, or the earlier
migrations to lands where blue skies smiled and emerald seas
lapped the rocks that guarded Grecian isles. Host after host
marched to the north and to death, the later ones succeeding
with unabated vigor to the foot-prints of those before, guided
by their lifeless bones, their broken weapons, their implements,
their silent camping grounds.

And if, as Dr. Nansen seems to maintain, all this suffering
and loss of life, and — more fatal influence still upon the spirit of

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646 ''Farthest North;' by Dr. Nan sen. [Aug.,

man — the evidence of hopeless defeat before their eyes on their
routes, were encountered in the pursuit of knowledge, we can-
not but thank him for the contribution which he has given to
the supporters of the opinion that man is something more
than an improved ape and his mind not merely a mode of
motion. As we have just said, there was nothing to attract
the adventurers who went from Norway or Iceland into those
unknown regions. They must have possessed a greater or less
knowledge of the land of darkness and cold where they
believed that the goddess of death held sway,* where the
shore of the deadf lay. It was not like the yachting sail
for the Golden Fleece, on the one hand, or, on the other, under
an inspiration of enthusiasm and duty such as sent their own
Hermod to bring home Baldur from the dead ; it was clearly
and distinctly a spirit of adventure, in the prompting of which
curiosity to know about strange lands had a principal part. It
is the same spirit we read in the expedition of Nansen himself
and in every navigator whose discoveries have enlarged the
boundaries of scientific knowledge. He says, with perfect truth,
that in the pursuit of no study has knowledge been purchased
at greater cost of suffering than in those expeditions in search
of the Pole.

There can be no question that at a very early period the
nations of Northern Europe were acquainted, at least to some
extent, with the coast of America and the Polar region. So far
as Dr. Nansen's book is a report to an admiring world of official
matters entrusted to him, as its chosen servant, we pass it by.
The innumerable trivialities would almost be offensive in a
work of fiction, unless where they might serve a purpose. For
instance, the minute incidents by means of which Defoe has
enthralled the young of several generations give that character
of reality and life which is the final and controlling influence
that binds the imagination of children. They would have
little interest unless one believed the story, at least for the
time. But we do not require such indices of verisimilitude
from a man at the head of an expedition on the preparation of
which a good deal of time has been spent, a considerable sum
of money expended, a world-wide interest excited, and a
scientific warfare entered upon which could only be done justice
to by a new Battle of the Books. If Dr. Nansen be a retiring
and diffident man, his history is most unfortunate. No advertiser
of the most brazen kind could act with better success to

* Helheim. f Nostrand.

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I897-] "Farthest North" by Dr. Nan sen.

647

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Map Showing Peary's and Nansen's Routes.

announce himself than he has done in the simplicity of his heart.
The transcripts of personal feelings from the Diary, which
constitute so large a part of his two volumes before us, added
to the bell-ringing which preceded the expedition, make it the
most remarkable, because the best known, since Jason sailed
to Colchis.

Arctic exploration is, however, as he admits, not a new

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648 ^'Farthest North,"' by Dr. Nansen. [Aug.,

thing, and early exploration to the north is not, as he fain
would have us believe, a Norwegian monopoly. It is quite true
that the American coast was known to the vikings of Norway
as early as the ninth and tenth centuries. But there is an im-
portant circumstance in connection with this knowledge which
he has omitted to state — that in those days the climate was
comparatively mild. The Icelanders established a colony on
the coast of Massachusetts nearly nine centuries ago. Green-
land and Newfoundland would almost seem,
from the accounts that reach us, to have en-
joyed a temperature more favorable to pro-
gress than the . last-named island has to-day.
Greenland and Spitzbergen under the Iceland-
ers were for several centuries flourishing seats

of the fishing industry. Iceland at that time,
Lookout AT Masthead, j^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^j^^j^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^j ^

great commerce which might possibly be compared with that of
Tyre, of Carthage, of Athens, and the mediaeval cities of Italy.
Her trade embraced Northern Europe, England, Scotland, North-
ern Germany ; possibly, France and her American colonies. Now,
in an introduction which professes to be a history in brief of
the enterprise of the vikings, we have nothing about this, the
most civilized of the northern nations. They were all bound by
the ties of language and face. In 1014, when the power of the
vikings was for ever broken at Clontarf, the fleet of the Ice-
landers was not the least conspicuous contingent to their league.
It is to that disaster we must attribute the decay of the
northern nations, and not, as Dr. Nansen asserts, to internecine
wars. The latter, no doubt, existed, but they were caused by
the ruin that had fallen on all the governing elements of
Scandinavian society on the Continent and in Iceland. When
the authority of the houses that represented power and order was
destroyed, the confusion followed that invariably follows in such
circumstances.

In fact, we are not disposed to attach undue importance to
the voyages of the Norwegian vikings, or those of the viking
nations generally, as milestones along the high road of human
advancement. They have left no enduring marks such as, in
one way or another, have been left by the southern and eastern
races to be the inheritance of all. There are hints of their
deeds of exploration in the Sagas. It is quite possible that long
before the foundation of the northern kingdoms, when Den-
mark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland were first inhabited by

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1 897-] ''Farthest North y' by Dr. Nan sen. 649

offshoots from the Gothic hordes, the pressure of popula-
tion in those countries forced some to attempt the region of
iceberg and floe, as greater numbers of them later on swarmed
down upon the inviting lands of Western Europe. It may be
assumed that the former enterprises were not very successful ;

Peary's Home at McCormick Bay.

that the adventurers perished, or melted insensibly into tribes
that maintained existence by hunting and fishing in the highest
latitudes where men have lived.

Now, assuming that expeditions which had penetrated the
belt guarded by the Rimturser* were never heard of, those
from whose side they had gone would talk about them and
their probable fate. To the facts of life before they had
started, and that one of their never more being heard of,
imagination would add its ideas, until a history of few facts
and much fiction would be woven into a saga, or serve as the
belief that constituted the mystery of a rune. This is the
probable story of early polar adventure from Norway, and
we are bound to say, if it be correct, that Dr. Nansen has
less conception of historical perspective than the evolutionists
who profess to tell us of the manner of life lived by man in the
earlier Stone Age. Their theories would make him simply so
unsuitable to the surroundings they have constructed for him
that to live at all he must have never been an infant, never

♦ Frost-Giants.

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650 '^Farthest North,'' by Dr. Nansen. [Aug.,

younger than the prime of his strength and cunning, and that
even then he could not have lived long. But Dr. Nansen
absolutely makes a stage of polar exploration in these early
times, so that later expeditions had the benefit of the experi-
ences obtained by men who had passed away as if they had
never existed.

But there were expeditions later on of which we have some
results, and to these we cannot refuse the credit of having
handed down something. They do not seem to have proceeded
beyond the south-west of Greenland, or far out on the sea
north of Norway. Why settlements were not attempted in
Greenland such as those established by the Icelanders later on,
can only be suggested by the consideration that the Nor-
wegians who went there were nothing more than fishermen
and hunters, and that no relation existed between them and
the government of their own country. To follow out this hint,
though a fairly practicable speculation, on the analogy of mi-
grations elsewhere under similar social conditions, would be
foreign to our purpose now. Upon Dr. Nansen's r^sum^ as a
basis, we offer the criticism that he has in all respects ex-
aggerated, and in some imagined, the achievements of his an-
cestors in this work of northern exploration.

Dealing with the adventurers of the second class, those who
returned, we can readily conceive the accounts they would
bring with them of the inhospitable regions where eternal ice
and night held dominion. They had seen on their way crystal
mountains rising from the deep and cutting the air hundreds
of feet above them, and down in fathomless depths ultra-
marine walls chambered and tunnelled as if they were the
temples of sea-gods or the palaces of sea-kings. But at a
certain point of their voyages the ice blocked the way, and so
they sailed home to tell of the toppling over of the great crys-
tal mountains into waters lashed to whiteness by the rushing
of the waves ; to tell of the fogs that hung over headlands, and
beneath which the Kraken stretched for many a rood to draw
down ships if they approached him ; to tell that beyond that
line, whether on sea or land, to which they had reached sank the
abyss at the world's end.* As the Greeks thought that certain
spots were entrances to the world of shades, so the Northmen
placed their Nivlheim and Helheim in that unexplored coun-
try.

We have observed that Dr. Nansen has given credit for

* Ginnungagap.

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1 897-] ''Farthest North;' by Dr. Nan sen. 651

something like the spirit of scientific investigation to the old
Northmen who explored the northern seas. It is hardly worth
while saying more on this than what we have hinted. There
is no doubt that at all times men possessed a curiosity to know
about strange countries. Though we are not too ready to
adopt etiological theories for facts of history or mythology,
we think that a good deal of the Scandinavian mythology and
history were constructed in the manner we have suggested ;
and consequently that, impelled by some motive or other, the
Northmen visited those regions before anything about them — at
least of an intelligent character — was known in Western and
Southern Europe. It is possible, as our author states, that the
poetical and mythical ideas of the Northmen contained a large
kernel of observation and a clear conception of the nature of
things. He cites in support of this view a passage from " The
Mirror of Kings," which describes the ice-reaches on the sea
as they might be described by any modern explorer ; but he
forgets that when this treatise was written^ habits of correct
observation of nature were gaining ground in the schools. It
was the century of the Admirable Doctor, whose " Opus Majus "
anticipated the " Novum Organum " of the later Bacon. In
the schools the returned voyagers were subjected to a cross-
examination, possibly, as searching as any that the Royal
Geographical Society of London would enter upon to-day.
What that means Dr. Nansen would judge when he cites,
concerning his own proposed expedition, the opinion of the
greatest of Arctic explorers, McClintock,t that it was the most
adventurous programme ever brought before that body. In
attributing what he is pleased to call the " fantastic ideas "
about the northern seas that sprang up throughout Europe in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to a departure from
•* the sober observations " of the Norwegians, he conveniently
forgets that what we have of them in authoritative documents
of the time were the sifted results of the voyagers' accounts.

It is as clear as daylight that the marvellous acuteness of
the schools could discriminate between the naked fact and its
coloring, could abstract the thing seen, or supposed to be seen,
from the associations of awe or the suggestion of the mar-
vellous. Where the monks would be at a loss was in the amount

* The close of the thirteenth century. It looks as if he would have us think it was of
much earlier date, for he refers to the time when it appeared in a va^e way.

t Sir Leopold McClintock is an IrishmcUi, not an Englishman, as Dr. Nansen seems to
think. The university of his native country conferred the degree of LL.D. on him after his
return.

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652 ''Farthest North,'" by Dr. Nansen. [Aug.,

of credit to be given to optical illusions ; but we venture to
say there were minds among them as sceptical about the mar-
vellous as any minds in the nineteenth century. In the last
century, when philosophy attacked the foundations of belief in

whatever secures society and regu-
lates individual conduct, it received
with respectful attention any mari-
ner's tale about the sea-serpent. The
truth is, that the older accounts that
come from the Northmen were of
two classes — one the examined and
corrected report of the schools, the
other popular tales in which the imagi-
nation of the story-teller had full
scope, and which by becoming the
property of the people drew to them-
selves additional circumstances of the
Lieut, pearv. wonderful. That these were used by

the book-makers in the monasteries there need be no question.
The tedium of a lady's life in a feudal castle could not always
be whiled away by spiritual reading and music.

Among the fantastic ideas it is at least remarkable that Dr.
Nansen includes the theory of an open Polar sea. He thinks
the belief in an ice-free passage east or west to China or India
affords evidence of the preference for wild hypothesis to natural
explanation of phenomena. His ancestors were free from such
delusions, but he forgets that they assigned these regions as
the theatre for the great acts of their
mythology. The fact is, a great
change has taken place in the at-
mospheric conditions since the time
the idea of an open Polar sea was
started. .This idea was as firmly held
by Kane, who reached latitude 81^
22' north, longitude 65*^ 35' west,
only forty years ago, as it was by
the brothers Zeni, who sailed from
Venice more than six hundred years
ago. The wild hypothesis of a pas- ^^' ^^''^^'

sage east or west would seem to be the corollary to the theory of
the open Polar sea.

In making these strictures on Dr. Nansen's opinions con-
cerning the views and the work of other men and other

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I897-] ''Farthest North,'' by Dr. Nansen, 653

times, we have not denied his services to discovery. The
great care he took in preparing for his expedition deserves to
be imitated. Recent explorers have incalculable advantages in
commanding the best constructed vessels, the appliances for ob-
servation which modern invention has supplied, food and medi-
cine and clothing that will practically afford them, for years,
immunity from the sufferings and dangers so often fatal to their
predecessors.

What we best like is, that he had thought out for himself a
clear and well-defined theory of how to reach the Pole; that
using the results of other expeditions as materials, he hit upon a
route and a system of progress worth trying ; and that the at-
tempt was a success which places him, in one sense, in the high-
est rank among arctic explorers. This part of his work we can
commend. There is close reasoning from certain assumptions.
Men whose opinion was entitled to respect regarded the as-
sumptions as totally unwarranted ; he was not deterred one iota
by their criticism. His inferences were valid, and the result
has justified his confidence in the assumptions and inferences
out of which his theory was constructed.

Eskimo Barn, with Kayak.

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654 Psychology of the Beaver. [Aug.,

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BEAVER.

BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D.

E believe it is true to say that in the animal
kingdom there is no animal below man in which
instinct and intelligence are so closely blended
together as in the Beaver. Hartmann tells us, in
his Philosophy of the Unconscious^ that " Instinct
is action taken in pursuance of an end, but without conscious
perception of what that end is."

This definition may be a good one, yet whoever will read
the late Lewis H. Morgan's essay — an essay of distinctly
scientific value, entitled The American Beaver and his Works* —
will hesitate to say that the wonderful things which this rodent
does are to be attributed to nothing higher than instinct.

Nor among the lower animals do we know a happier one
than the beaver. It is fond of living near its kind ; but each
male and female couple has its own separate home, or " lodge,"
prettily situated near a stream or lake, with four or five other
lodges close by, and in the little village perfect harmony pre-
vails, while there is evidence to show that some beaver com-
munities are centuries old.

But as every year three or four young ones are born to
each family, the surplus population is occasionally relieved by
some of the inhabitants moving away ; and if we may believe
the Indians, when a migration takes place the old folks go up
stream and the young folks go down stream. The wise parents
and grandparents know that, as a rule, vegetation is greener
and life is easier to maintain near the sources of a stream than
at its mouth.

The beaver being by nature a burrowing animal, we may
view its lodge above ground and by the water-side as a modifi-
cation of the primeval burrow. It has learnt by experience that
an airy, artificial roof makes a more agreeable, healthful abode
for itself and its offspring than the dismal hole in the ground
of its early ancestors. The floor of the lodge is raised just
high enough above the level of the water to be kept dry, and
it is connected with the bottom of the river or pond by two

* Lippincott & Co.

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1 897-] Psychology of the Beaver. 655

passage-ways, one of which reaches the bottom by a gentle
incline, while the other descends abruptly and has several sharp
turns in it. The gently inclined entrance Mr. Morgan calls the
" wood-entrance," as it is clearly intended for the admission of
the wood-cuttings which constitute the beaver's food in winter,
while the abrupt and winding tunnel is the ordinary way for
going to and from the lodge to the water. But besides a
home with two entrances, each family of beavers takes care to
dig another burrow in the bank to which it may flee in case
the lodge is threatened. It would be almost impossible for
the trapper to discover these places of refuge — with no ex-
ternal indications to mark their upper ends — were it not for
little heaps of chips and broken wood, which the trappers
declare are left there by the beavers purposely to break and
loosen the covering of snow which in winter might prevent
ventilation ; and Mr. Morgan suggests that this habit of deposit-
ing little pieces of wood for the purpose of admitting the air
into their refuge-burrows may mark the origin o\ lodge-build-
ing. He says : " It is but a step from such a surface pile of
sticks to a lodge with its chamber above ground, and the pre-
vious burrow as its entrance from the pond. A burrow accident-
ally broken through at its upper end, and repaired with a
covering of sticks and earth, would lead to a lodge abo<re
ground, and thus inaugurate a beaver lodge out of a broken
burrow."

But the beaver has not only learned to build an airy, arti-
ficial abode ; it has also improved on Nature's water-courses,
which are liable to freshets and droughts, and it has learned to
make artificial ponds as well as canals. Speaking of these
dams and canals, Romanes, in Animal Intelligence, says they
are '* the most psychologically puzzling structures that are
presented as the works of any animal." In these works we
find the beaver voluntarily giving up a natural for an artificial
mode of life. Its ancestral habitation was a hole in the ground.
But now the animal builds a dam where the level of the water
must always be higher than the two passage-ways which lead
up to its lodge, and also a canal. The main object of a dam is
to flood the surrounding low land, and thus make a communi-
cation by water with the nearest high ground where the beaver
procures the hard wood on the bark of which it feeds, while
the object of a canal is to facilitate the transportation of this
wood ; for the ground which it has already flooded by means
of the dam may be rough and stony, and the water which

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656 Psychology of the Beaver. [Aug.,

covers it may not be deep enough for the animal to drag the
barely floating wood from the elevated ground to the pond,
unless it can pass it through a canal.

The most perfect kind of beaver-dam is called "the solid
bank dam." Here sticks, poles, and stones are abundantly
used and fastened solidly together by plenty of mud, so that
the whole presents the appearance of a hard bank of earth;
while in order to provide for surplus water a depression or fur-
row is made in the crest of the dam, and the stones, which
sometimes weigh six pounds, are carried by the beavers walk-
ing erect and pressing them against their chest with their fore-
paws. So firm, too, are the dams that a horse may walk across
them ; and some of them are very long — the length, of course,
varying with the width of the pond — and they have even been
known to measure five hundred feet.

As we have said, the beavers make on the crest of the dam
an opening to provide for an overflow, and this opening they
make wider or narrower according as the season is rainy or
dry, so as to insure always the same level of water in the
pond. This is very important, as their lodges might be sub-
merged by a sudden rise of the river, while in a drought the
lower entrances, which should always be hidden under water,
might be left exposed to an enemy's eye.

But sometimes, in the larger dams, the pressure of water may
become so great as to threaten the stability of the structure,
and when this is the case the animals make another dam not
quite so high, below the main one, thus forming a body of
water between the two dams; "and the small dam," says Mr.
Morgan, " by maintaining the water a foot deep below the
great dam, diminishes to this extent the difference in level above
and below, and neutralizes to the same extent the pressure of
the water in the pond above against the main structure."

It may also happen that one of the canals of which we have
spoken, after running for some distance through low ground,
will come to a somewhat abrupt rise, and when this occurs the
wise beavers make a little dam, and then continue the canal at
a higher level than before, the water for this higher level being
supplied by still another larger and higher dam, formed in the
shape of a crescent, and intended to catch as much drainage
water as possible. Here we might ask if such architectural labors
and engineering skill — which evince no common appreciation of
hydrostatic principles — are to be attributed to pure instinct?
Could the Indians and trappers among whom the beavers

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1897.] Psychology of the Beaver. 657

dwell display greater foresight ? Nay, could any of us apply
more perfectly the principle of locks?

And now, having finally got, by means of a canal and per-
haps one or more dams, to the hard-wood trees which supply
them with food, let us see • what the beavers do next. Well,
they begin by gnawing a ring round the base of a tree, work-
ing generally after dark ; and a pair of beavers will in two or
three nights gnaw down a good-sized tree, and we may add,
that when a tree has fallen other beavers never attempt to
steal it away ; each family is left to enjoy the fruit of its own
industry. It is interesting, too, to see the beavers^ as soon as
a tree begins to crackle, scamper off and dive into the nearest
water: perhaps in order to escape the falling branches, per-
haps lest the sound of the crashing tree might draw the atten-
tion of some enemy to the spot. Then, after waiting awhile
until they are sure there is no danger, back they come and set
to work cutting through the smaller branches, for it is the
bark of branches only two or three inches in diameter that
they care for. Having done this, they next proceed to nibble
off every twig, and when the limb is quite bare divide it
into lengths not too great to be navigated through the canal
to the pond. But some of the branches may have fallen quite
a distance from the artificial water-way, so that it may be no
easy matter to convey the sections of these remote limbs from
where they are lying to the head of the canal ; and it is very
curious to see them shoving these pieces of wood with their
hips, legs, and tails over rocks and through bushes and briers.
When, after much toil and trouble, the indefatigable animals
have succeeded in floating their burdens through the canal to
the pond, they place one end of the wood under their throats
and then push it before them until they reach the spot where
it is to be sunk.

In a paper contributed to the Boston Natural History
Society in 1869, Professor Alexander Agassiz agrees with Mr.
Morgan that some beaver-dams may be even a thousand years
old. At the bottom of a trench which was dug in a peat-bog
for a distance of twelve hundred feet, and at a depth of nine
feet, he found a number of tree-stumps which had evidently
been gnawed by beavers. And Agassiz tells us that the cpn-
struction of such big dams and canals must in the course of
time have changed not a little the aspect of the landscape ; an
extensive wooded area may have been cleared away, and where
was once a forest we may find only a swamp or a lake.
VOL. Lxv.— 42 .

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Der Flue, where Nicolas was born.

A HERO OF THE SWISS REPUBLIC.

BY MARY ELIZABETH BLAKE.

N the 2 1 St of March, 1887, ^ vast concourse filled
highway and byway of the Haut Unterwald,
and moved in constantly increasing waves toward
the beautiful village of Sachseln. The great
and titled of earth were there— long trains of
attendants upon secular prince and baron, high dignitaries of
the church; the pomp of earthly splendor and the impressive
ceremonial of religious ritual. From every hamlet of the coun-
try-side, near and far, from distant city and populous town and
lonely saater hut on remote mountain side, masses of people,
rich and poor, swelled the throng hastening down the valley.
Long processions of peasants marched, singing, across the pas-
tures; joyous pealing of church-bells waked glad echoes from
hidden glade and bare Alpine slope ; bands of women and
children, in holiday attire, brightened the sombre landscape of
early spring. And over all the sun shone lavishly, and the
pure air breathed gladness. For on this day, four hundred
and seventy summers before, one beloved of God first opened
gentle eyes on the lower world ; and again on this same day,
after three-score years and ten of peace and good will, his
spirit returned " unto Him who gave it.'*

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I897-] A Hero of the Swiss Republic. 659

In the long catalogue of lives which have left the world
brighter for their passage, are some which appear to belong by
a nearer and closer tie to the hearts of their fellows, because
of more human tenderness, or of qualities sweeter in the homely
graces of sympathy and friendliness. A few heroes have pos-
sessed these attributes, and many saints ; and where they are
found, the bonds of love between mankind and its leaders
grow closer than for any other gifts. Respect does not forge so
strong a chain, nor does veneration. They brighten and warm
that coldness of esteem which may exist in a moral appreciation
far removed from feeling, and they exert an influence beyond
any other force of precept or example. In the life of the Blessed
Nicolas von der Fliie and in his relations with his time such
traits assert themselves in an unusual degree, and this explains
the personal regard with which Switzerland honors this humble
apostle of virtue. Brother Klaus was member of no order, and
under no vows save those imposed by his own conscience.
More than two-thirds of his seventy years he passed among
the people of his native village, filling the ordinary duties of
the ordinary peasant among his fields and herds, the tender
husband and father of a beloved family, the simple and honest
citizen. When danger menaced his country, he fought in the
ranks of her defenders. When peace was won, he sat in the
humble seats of her advisers and lent the weight of his judg-
ment to her counsels. For fifty years he followed the sober,
quiet, industrious habits of the Swiss householder, distinguished
in nowise outwardly from the men about him, and carefully
guarding the phases of his inner life from observation or com-
ment. He was untaught in books, but wise in a large-minded,
open fashion that made his opinion always valuable. An
unusual gentleness seems to have kept him clear of the
jealousies which often follow such a reputation.* He was cheer-
ful, healthy, happy with that beautiful glow of inward serenity
which is the portion of lofty souls. And it was possibly the
memory of this blameless and beautiful every-day life that won
for his native Canton of Unterwald the proud distinction of
resting firm in Catholic faith, while the resurgent waves of the
Reformation swept over the rest of Switzerland. Then was
the strength of this quality of sympathy demonstrated, when
for love of Brother Klaus and remembrance of his practical,
homely virtues, his people remained steadfast when others fell
away, and glowed with fervor in the midst of the coldness of
their countrymen.

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66o A Hero of the Swiss Republic. [Aug.,

Nic6las of Flue was born in Sachseln on the 2ist of March,
141 7, eldest son in a family of well-to-do peasants' who held
some slight hereditary rank in the Haut Unterwald. Tradition
gives no distinguishing trait among his ancestors, to account
for the greatness of his spiritual gifts, but while still a joyous
and rosy child his natural bent asserted itself. Tending his
flocks in the rocky pastures about the village, his day's
work was scrupulously performed ; he was first to leave the
house and last to finish his labor. While others ran to play
or recreation during the short evening rest, he sought his
pleasure in meditation — stealing quietly away, and as quietly
returning before the usual bedtime. He sought the smaller
self-denials of fasting and silence, as his brothers their ruder
joys ; but without morbidness, being •* always glad, alert, and
ready." Except for these unusual disciplines, his life for
twenty-five years was that of the rest of the household. Fast
and abstinence left him robust and tall, with sunbrowned cheeks,
and the. gentlest eyes in the world. Strong, sober, industrious
willing, and cheerful, taking more than his share of the labor
of the farm, he lived in the house of his parents, "and was
subject to them." Then came a change.

The Wald Cantons of Switzerland had ever been thirsty for
liberty. As early as 1224, Schweitz, Uri, and Unterwald bound
themselves in league against the power of Austria, which was a
constant enemy and a harsh tax-master. Never wholly success-
ful, yet never entirely overcome, the poor and scattered ham-
lets sustained an unequal struggle with the proudest power in
Europe, heartened from time to time by such heroes as Tell,
saddened again and again by loss and persecution. Nearly a
hundred years of intermittent warfare drained valley and moun-
tain fastness both of men and resources, when the great League
of the Confederacy of Eight States followed the defeat of the
Austrians at Morgarten. Even then the final victories of
Sempach and Nafels, which led to independence, came seventy
years later, in 1378. The stubborn effort never relaxed in all
these years, nor the resistance to tyranny. It was part of the
Switzer's birthright — next to God his purest ideal of righteous-
ness. So when, in 1439, ^ ^^w alarm called the Unterwaldens
to arms to check the attempts of Zurich against the integrity
of the Confederacy, Nicolas took the field with his fellows, and
remained in the ranks until the victorious conclusion of the
war by the victory before Ragatz in 1446. As earnest a soldier
as a laborer, brave in battle, undaunted by defeat, merciful in

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1 897-] A Hero of the Swiss Republic. 66 i

Der Ranft, showing House where Blessed Nicolas passed his Hermit Life.

triumph, the chronicles blend accounts of his courage with
touching mention of his tenderness for the helpless, his kind-
ness to the vanquished, his often solitary struggle with the
passions of comrades. So far as possible he prevented plunder
and cruelty ; and his leisure was still spent by the wayside
shrine, or the village chapel, or in furthering some work of
blessed charity. Fourteen years after his return home we find
him arming again in defence of the beloved Fatherland, threat-
ened now by the Erzherzog Sigismund of Austria. And again
the record of bravery and gentleness go hand-in-hand. The
Bayard of the Unterwald gains such ascendency over his
rougher comrades that when, in the fortune of war, the Domini-
can convent of St. Catherine is given over to be burned, and
the flames are already spreading, he wins them to the side of

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662 A Hero of the Swiss Republic, [Aug.,

mercy, quenches the fire with reckless daring, and gives back
(heir home to the frightened sisterhood.

On his return from the earlier war of 1446, Nicolas appears
to have earnestly desired to retreat from the active life of the
world, and spend the remainder of his days in retirement.
One can well imagine that the horror, the suffering, the cruelty
of strife between man and man, the bloodshed and savagery of
brutal passions in which those troublous years were passed,
must have strengthened his longing for peace and the holy
solitude of meditation. But he gave up this heart's desire
when his people opposed it, and assumed instead the duties of
family life. His own good sense may have recognized the
necessity of strengthening the land with younger life, which
should, in future need, become again a safeguard for liberty.
He chose as spouse the strong, wholesome, prudent daughter
of a neighbor house, and five sons and five daughters came to
fill the frugal home to which he brought her. Great peace
dwelt with them and holy joy. Their worldly goods increased,
for no herds were better fed, nor fields better tended. Nicolas
was, as usual, first at work in the morning, and after evening
prayer and the giving out to child and servant of the next
day's stent, the first to set the example of early rest. But at
midnight, while the others slept, he arose quietly, and filled
the remaining night-hours with prayer and holy thought. Other-
wise, his days were as those of the men about him ; more
abstemious, perhaps, as he lived entirely on vegetables and
fruit ; more earnest in advice to his household ; more loving in
charity toward weaker or less noble souls.

Often it happened that the burghers of the canton desired
to make him chief magistrate, but he refused such honor. He
sat, however, for nineteen years among the counsellors, holding
that every honest man owed such duty to his country ; and his
words carried such weight that his opinion often swayed the
entire body of his associates. Old chronicles bear testimony to
the sweetness and healthfulness of the family life in the smaU
house in the Sachseln fields. That beautiful joyousness which
is the most engaging trait of sainthood dwelt for ever in his
heart, spoke from his lips, shone from the dark, clear eyes, and
overflowed in the quiet cheer of the household. None came to
that door for material or spiritual help and went away without re-
lief. All Christian virtues enriched the home, and tradition is
still fragrant with memories of its happiness. .

Yet the hidden soul had never forgot the old longing and

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1 897-] A Hero of the Swiss Republic. 663

the strong yearning for solitude, and the repose of silent com-
munion with God. No suspicion of this appears to have crossed
the minds of the household. The beloved father, the cheerful
worker, the ever-thoughtful and tender husband, seemed to

Sachseln : THE Church at the. left contains. Relics of Nicholas.

them wholly content and satisfied. And so, doubtless, had
Nicolas forced himself to be while duty lay plainly before him.
But now necessity for delay was over. There was prosperity
in field and byre ; the oldest son was nearly twenty years of
age, the routine of the house well established, each member
with his share of work apportioned, and the ties of family affec-
tion firmly knit. His own aged father still lived near by, in a
position to give counsel and support. The hermit spirit might
at last make plea for itself, and in simple words Nicolas laid
his fate in the hands of his true wife.

" I dare not," he said to Dorothea — " I dare not longer op-
pose the will of God, which draws me every day more strongly
to him. He has so often and in so many ways made it plain
to me. Thou hast done so much that was good for me while
we were together ; it now rests with thee alone whether I can
follow him. What I ask is crown of all, and the greatest that
I can owe thee. The burden of the children is no longer heavy
upon thee ; they are well grown and forward. The ways of

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6^4 A Hero of the Swiss Republic. [Aug.,

the house are clearly marked out, and can easily be carried on
by one competent as thou. I feel inwardly that the things of
time have ever less and less hold upon me. Place thyself, then,
in the presence of God ; and know that, saving him, there is
none other could turn me from thee." The woman's heart re-
belled at the sacrifice demanded. But little by little, after long
prayer and bitter tears, she yielded to what she evidently re-
garded as a call from God. " I make thee, O God," she said, ''an
offering of what, next to thee» is dearest to me ! And why
shall I not give with free will what death can at any time
take away from me without asking ? "

From this day forth neither wife nor child placed any ob-
stacle in the way of this holy project ; " for well they knew
that this fond father and truest spouse could never have taken
such a step, bringing pain to them, if the irresistible will of God
had not been made manifest to him." All earthly affairs were
put in order as by one leaving life. His property and small
possessions were divided among the children, under the guar-
dianship of the mother, who took his place as head of the family.
To Walter, the son who was to be her right hand in manage-
ment, two small mountain pastures were given beyond his equal
share, on account of the responsibility he assumed. A few
simple rules of conduct were left as his last instructions; an
earnest prayer that thought of God should be the motive of
every act, a last embrace to each one of the little group of be-
loved ones, and Nicolas von der Fliie, or " Bruder Klaus," as
he was ever after to be called, went out alone into the world,
it was the i6th of October, 1467, as, clothed in a long woollen
gown, his wanderer's staff in one hand and rosary in the other,
he turned away in the gray morning from those who held him
dear. Head and feet were bare, thick brown locks slightly
sprinkled with gray fell over the high forehead^ and the clear
dark eyes, we may well believe, were sadder than their wont.
His cheeks were tanned by fifty years of out-door life ; his tall
and muscular body full of strength, though spare of build;
and the look on his face, " in spite of grief, was joyous in con-
tent."

Two days and a night of wandering, and he feels himself
drawn back irresistibly to the native valley. He rests for a
portion of the second night in a shed near bis own house, and
in the gray twilight before dawn climbs to a tiny spot of green,
high on the side of the rocky Klauster Alp, above the Melch-
thal. Here for eight days and nights, with no shelter from the

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weather, he prays for guidance ; and a solitary hunter, scaling
his eyrie in pursuit of game, surprises his retreat and carries
news thereof to the village. Kindred and friends come, and
crave to build a hut for his protection ; but his soul is not yet
at rest, and another evidence of divine leading brings him at
last to the lonely, stony wilderness of the Ranft, where the sun
scarcely penetrates the rocky defile of the Melcha, and where,
with some pious help, he constructs a cell upon a rising spur
of rock. During the winter of 1468 there is built out from
this a tiny chapel, twenty-eight feet long by eighteen wide,
with three altars. A small window is opened from his cell into
this, and two smaller casements into the outer air. No sign of
human habitation in sight, stern mountain sides below and
around, a rift of sky above, a board for bed and a stone for
pillow — just as it is shown to the pilgrim seeking it to^day^-
this is the home of Brother Klaus for twenty years.

Now begins that strange phase of supernatural life which
would require far more time to discuss than the limits of this
short article allow. The mass of evidence in favor of the truth
of the statements made by his biographers is overwhelming ;
yet the conditions they claim are so marvellous that reason
staggers. The fact, briefly stated, is this. During the first night
of his solitary pilgrimage deep sleep fell upon him. From this
he awoke to a consciousness of awful and inexpressible agony,
•* as if knives were cutting him to pieces." After a time there
ensued a strange sense of lightness and well being ; '' and here-
after never again did he know earthly hunger or thirst, or need
of human refreshment, or eat of other food than the Holy Body
and Blood of Christ in monthly Communion." As news of this
strange prodigy crept about, there was then, as now, scoffing
and unbelief. Watch was set for months at a time upon his
movements and those of his visitors, by night and day. Pit-
falls were laid for him ; every strategy that cunning could de-
vise was used to prove his insincerity ; but never with other re-
sult than that of entire reassurance. During the early years he
attended Mass on Sundays and holydays in the parish church
of Sachseln. Later on permission was given tp consummate the
Holy Sacrifice in the little chapel of the Ranft. By Catholic
and by Protestant, in the church and state records from 1448 to
1485, as well as by oral statements of hundreds near and far,
the same unvarying account is given. There is but one solitary
exception, when a visiting bishop, under vow of obedience,
forced him to swallow three small morsels of bread, and when

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666 A Hero of the Swiss Republic. [Aug.,

the consequences were such physical agony as almost caused dis-
solution. The old church of Sachseln holds a memorial stone,
dated 1518, upon which can be still traced the inscription:

MCCCCLXVII

DA 1ST DER SELIG BRUDER CLAUSS VON FLUE, GANGEN
VON WEIB UND KINDER IN DIE WIESTE. GOTT DIENET XX HALB
YAHR ANE LIEBLICHE SPEISS. 1ST STORBEN AN ST. BENEDIKT
TAG ANNO

MCCCCLXXXVII

SIE. LIT. ER.

Except for this constant and amazing miracle, and one
other — the saving of Sarnen from conflagration on the 15th of
August, 1468 — the life of the holy man, in his tiny hermitage
of the Ranft, was simple and humble as that in his Sachseln
farm-house. Those still came to him who were in trouble or
distress of mind or body, and still received strength and conso-
lation, heightened now by profounder spiritual insight. His
cell became a well-spring of grace and charity, whence healing
spread and peace. His own wife and children knelt often be-
fore the window to hear words of help and encouragement.
The proud, as the lowly, sought relief, and found it. His speech
never lost its peasant simplicity, nor his words the homely force
that dwells with untaught men. His meditations were on the
simplest plan — phrases of the Lord's Prayer or of the Hail Mary.
But from them he drew inexhaustible meaning, and counsel that
suited itself to all needs.

It came about in this way that ere long the wilderness of
the Ranft became a place of pilgrimage, and the pious hermit
a star of hope to those sick of soul or weary of the harsh
struggle of life. The rude, clear, free air about his lonely
dwelling, where only height and depth made beauty, the peace
which belongs alone to lofty solitary places, seemed to breathe
through his words. He never exhorted to unusual forms of
virtue ; nor did he encourage that withdrawal from the world
to which he had been himself impelled. Only in two cases —
those of Ulrich, a Bavarian noble, and Cacilia, a young daughter
of the people — did he advise a life of retirement. These built
for themselves cells on the opposite side of the Ranft, and were
often cheered by the counsel of their elder brother in virtue.
They stood by his death-bed, Ulrich surviving him but four
years, "dying blessedly in 1491," while Cacilia lived through
the storms of seventy winters after, and passed to deeper peace

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Altar with Relics of Blessed Nicolas.

after a rounded century of prayer. Greater uprightness, deeper
patience, broader charity, the duties of the common day per-
formed with more abiding sense of the presence of God, were
his rules for all who asked the way of higher perfection. " Be
frugal -and industrious. Wear not costly clothing; it will drag
you down from heaven. Hold by simplicity and the plain dress
of your country ; for the clear conscience is more beautiful

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668 A Hero of the Swiss Republic. [Aug.,

than fine garments." " Keep brotherly love inviolate toward
each other, and Christian faith towards friends and strangers."
'' Each state in. life hath its duties ; he who well fills his own
can be as godly in the world as in solitude." " O men ! be-
lieve in God and hold mightily to him ; for in faith is hope,
in hope love, in love possession of heavenly wisdom, and in
wisdom victory." " Take care lest the shining of gold blind
you, and be not bought by gifts." " Hold to the Fatherland,
and work to adorn it. Go not away from it. Why should you
desire wandering and trouble ? Think only of leading a virtuous
life ; for thereby comes strengthening of faith and prosperity of
the country." " Think not of thine own glory, striving to the
end that it be increased, for that profits nothing ; hold only to
virtue. . . . For little it matters whether it runs through a
pipe of lead, or of copper, or of gold, so that the water itself
be pure ; so it is with godly grace and gifts, which flow alike
through worthy and unworthy channels, if we but give them
way in our hearts." And the "Little Prayer" which was ever
on his lips, like a refrain to all others : " My Lord and my
God ! take from me all that separates me from thee. My Lord
and my God! give me all that will draw me near to thee. My
Lord and my God! let me die to self and live only in thee.'*
His pictures in the Swiss churches are invariably surrounded
by the legend: *' Herr, nim mich mir! Herr! gieb mich dir!"

But more than for the rich harvest of spiritual gifts which
marked Nicolas von der Flue's holy life, more than for service
of counsel and refreshment in the needs of his fellow-men, more
even than for those supernatural signs which showed such evi-
dences of divine favor, Switzerland loves his memory for the
intense patriotism that ruled him from first to last. The dear
land he served in field and council, by precept and example;
his exhortations never failed to add love and honor of the
Fatherland to the list of necessary virtues. Man of peace as he
was and of charity, he besought jealous watchfulness and ready
action if danger threatened safety of the fireside ; and the
heart of the soldier beat under the humble robe of the hermit
when there was question of menace to her rights. Then, six
years before his death, he was enabled to add a crowning
glory to his name, by preserving the unity of the Helvetian
Republic.

In a series of splendid efforts — the culmination of mofe than
a century of struggle — the Swiss people had succeeded at last
in shaking off their allegiance to Charles the Bold, Duke of

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Burgundy, latest of the foreign masters who had coerced their
state to vassalage. This fearless soldier, to whom Gueldres,
most of Belgium, and both Burgundys had yielded, whom the
empire of France feared and before whom Lorraine trembled, was
utterly routed by the frenzied bravery of a poor people fight-
ing among their mountain pastures for freedom. Three times
within a single year the duke renewed the struggle, returning to
the field with new hosts and a gorgeousness of military pomp
that would in itself have struck terror to spirits less devoted.
And three times victory remained with the Swiss. Their frugal
homes were enriched by the costly plunder of Burgundian camps,
and such treasure as had never before been known in the ham-
lets of the Unterwald. An honorable peace, signed at Zurich
in 147s, drew the proudest houses of Europe to desire alliance
with the peasant warriors, and France and Austria paid in gold
and land for the privilege. The Schweizerbund had leaped at
once into power and favor.

Then came the crucial test of prosperity ; and the indomita-
ble courage, the heroic immolation of self that had made Hel-
vetia great, failed to bear it. Dissension came, and arrogance ;
selfishness and envy. The ties of brotherhood were strained,
and private interests obscured the nobler ideal of an united
Switzerland. The mountaineers, secure in rich peace amid their
lofty fastnesses, desired to cancel the bonds which held them
to share the fortunes of the lowland cities, too often drawn
into the vortex of war. The cities, on the other hand, inebriated
with triumph, counted for little the virile strength of the hill-
men, which had won glory for them. There were mutual taunts
and recriminations ; bold passions tugged already at the leash ;
the young men of Zug and Lucerne planned foolhardy cam-
paigns for ignoble booty ; leaders in council saw before them
but swift ruin, and a return to the worst evils. The thirst for
liberty which had tortured the heart of Switzerland for more
than a century appeared to have satiated itself in six short
years after the cup had touched its lips. Plots and counter-
plots, each threatening the life of the republic, were in the
air, and every man feared his neighbor.

In this dire strait a final conference was called by the
leaders of the Unterwald. It was set for the Friday before the
Feast of St. Thomas, when magistrates and delegates met at
Stanz for consultation. Upon the result of their deliberations
the fate of the country depended ; yet such was the glamor of
security and the short-sighted policy of personal aggrandisement.

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670 A Hero of the Swiss Republic. [Aug.,

that the higher claims of the Fatherland were forgotten. The
peasants of Uri, Schweitz, and Unterwald on one side, the
citizens of Lucerne, Bern, Zurich, Freiburg, and Solothurn on
the other, stood up as enemies, and closed their hearts alike to
appeals of patriotism and brotherhood. There happened what
might have been expected. During three days' sessions angry
words urged daring spirits to greater revolt ; the final meeting
was upon the point of breaking up — breaking with it the
future of Swiss federation — when a priest among the delegates,
Heinrich Imgrund, pastor of Stanz and a devoted patriot,
thought of Nicolas. Here too was one who loved his country,
who had fought for the beloved land and served it, whose
words had weight as of one whom prayer and sacrifice had
brought near to God, whose judgment would be undimmed by
those hot mists of human passion that clouded the vision of his
brothers. The little chapel in the lonely wilderness of the
Ranft was four hours' distant ; evening was drawing near, but
the good priest sped on his self-imposed errand. In the deep
night he reached the hermit's cell, burst upon its solitude with
his burning message of duty, and hurried back with promise of
his coming.

At early morning Brother Klaus entered the Hall of Council.
In his brown frock, bare-footed and bare-headed, his gray
beard falling on his breast, a staff in one hand and a rosary in
the other, he greeted the assembly "with friendly countenance,
joyous in the grace of God." Peace shone in his face, and a
clear light of penetrating power in his eyes, so that they arose
from their seats and bowed before him. Then he began to
speak : " Beloved men ! Pious and faithful Confederates of
Switzerland ! The name of Jesus is my greeting ! " His burn-
ing words poured forth, painting the beauty of brotherhood, of
love of Fatherland ; of the long struggle which for hundreds of
years their ancestors had waged against oppression, through
poverty and hunger, and faint hope ; of a future which should
more closely bind together town and country, mutually depen-
dent, mutually helpful — of Union, Union, Union, the one sole
promise of security. Of the danger of accepting gifts from
would-be allies, " lest some time it might come to pass that
the Fatherland should be betrayed for gold." Of the old
heritage of humble virtues in which lay strength, patience,
industry, faith, prudence, content ; of the duty, above all, of
love and friendliness. "Only if an outsider reach forth, then
manful resistance. But ever with faith in one another as

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Christian associates, whom nothing can part. So shall God
keep and be with you for all eternity."

" Thus spake Brother Klaus," says the ancient chronicle,
"and God gave grace to the words of his servant, so that
from this hour all went smoothly." The delegates embraced

Swiss Farm-house, inhabited by Descendants of Nicolas.

with tears and cries of joy. The disputed cities were received
into the older federation : in newer and more solemn pact they
bound themselves to an eternal alliance. Bonfires blazed from
end to end of the land ; joy-bells rang in village steeples ; bands
of men, young and old, wandered merrily from place to place,
like children of one household, welcoming and welcomed. If
some faint echo of this rejoicing crept through the high, clear
air to the lonely cell in the high Alpine wilderness, where
Nicolas sat again in deep meditation on lofty themes, what
wonder if some pulse of glad human feeling crept into his
isolation. For once more he had struck a blow for the deliver-
ance of his people.

Other distractions came to him — royal letters, and embassies,
and rich gifts — which were returned, save for some small sums
reserved to make endowment for perpetual Masses at the altars
of the tiny Ranft chapel. Tablets commemorating his service
were set in the walls of church and Rathhaus throughout the

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6/2 A Hero of the Swiss Republic. [Aug.,

Unterwald. Emperors and princes sent messages of congratu-
lation and praise, and again the common people climbed in
endless procession to the window of the cell, whence, as of
old, comfort spoke to them and counsel. Bui no taint soiled
the rugged simplicity of the brother's character, or the peace
of his days. For six other years after the " Day of Stanz," as
it is proudl}'' called in the annals of the Swiss Republic, he
lived in communion with God and holy thought. And then he
died, after an agony of eight days' unspeakable torment of
body, " as if bone and flesh were being torn asunder," but in
a gracious transport of soul that blessed those about him. By
his bed knelt Brother Ulrich, whose cell on the farther side of
the Ranft had been for so many years sole spot of pilgrimage
outside his own door ; his old friend. Pastor Imgrund ; the holy
hermit sister, Cacilia ; his faithful wife and his devoted children,
grown now to fill places of honor and trust in the land. It
was on the first day of the Swiss spring-time that he breathed
his last, the 2ist of March, 1487. Then through length and
breadth of the country-side there was mourning, and " the
weeping ran from village to village, as if in each house the
proper Hausfather lay dead."

Year by year, as the anniversary of the day returns, his
memory is reverenced as the benefactor who saved Switzerland
from ruin, and secured her hardly won birthright of free-
dom. Four centuries have but increased the devotion of his
people for this beloved Apostle of Liberty. The aroma of^iis
spiritual virtues yet makes sweet the hill-sides of the Unterwald ;
and as the seasons bring about the date of his birth, his retire-
ment from the world, or his triumph at Stanz, pious pilgrimages
fill the roads leading to the little chapel of the Ranft, the
parish church of Sachseln, or the shrine at Flueli. The ist of
August sees yet the Way of the Cross being made along the
rocky path from Sarnen to his cell, in commemoration of his
miraculous checking of the conflagration of the latter town in
1467. Although the Holy See has as yet withheld the final seal
of canonization, he is the' patron saint of the Swiss Confeder-
acy by the unanimous feeling of his countrymen. Every spot
his living feet pressed is sacred to them ; and his relics repose
under the high altar of Sachseln. Some shrine of devotion
marks rock or pasture, hillside or valley, wherever as child,
youth, soldier, hermit, or householder he paused for work or
prayer. His father's house, his own cottage, the farm where
he lodged as a volunteer of the Unterwald ; the crucifix before

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which he knelt while checking the fury of the mob before the
Dominican convent in St. Catherine's valley ; the font where he
was baptized at Kerns; the hand's-breadth of grass on the
Klauster Alp where he passed his first night •as a recluse; the
rock upon which he stood while staying the burning of Sarnen,
the meadows that he tilled — all rest in the eyes of the people
as evidences of a personality that has in it none of the dimness
of tradition to hide its human strength and weakness.

Many a life writ upon the pages of the history of humanity
has left an impress more profound and a record more brilliant
than that of Nicolas von der Fliie. But there is about him this
peculiarity: that if all its elements of saintliness were blotted
out, his practical qualities of shrewd insight, his strong and
sweet nature, and his gifts in the homely virtues of ordinary
life would yet have made him admirable. If, on the other
hand, his courage and judgment, industry, thrift, and patriotism,
were forgotten, the supernatural alone, in the rich succession of
marvellous graces showered upon him, would set his memory
apart for awe and veneration. Generous as was his dower in
both directions, the wonder is that such narrow limits should
bound his fame and the gratitude due him. Environment and
circumstance have kept his name and renown largely within the
boundaries of his native mountains ; but as if to make up for
its limitations in this regard, the love bestowed upon him has a
vital and personal force which is given to few spiritual leaders
of wider renown. More than two hundred of his descendants
have been called to positions of honor and trust at the hands
of their countrymen ; and the annals of the Unterwald to this
day bear evidence of their integrity to the principles laid down
by the founder of their family. Reverence and affection have
done their utmost to show homage to his memory; and the
country-sides of Fluelen and Sachseln are enriched by the
monuments of their zeal and enthusiasm. But the remembrance
of his cheerful acceptance of life's commonest duties, his sturdy
independence, his clear judgment, and his patriotic devotion, no
less than his blameless and holy absorption in the contemplation
of eternal truths, is still the proudest legacy left to the
Fatherland.

VOL. LXV.-43

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674 Nature Study in our Schools. [Aug.,

NATURE STUDY IN OUR SCHOOLS.

BY F. CONIGLAND FARINHOLT.

a discussion of the advisability of introducing

nature study into all schools as a systematic part

of their course, during a session of an Educational

Association some years ago, a superintendent

rose with the question which many of his hearers

felt to be a burning one : ** But where are we to find time for

anything else?*' It is the apparent hopelessness of obtaining

a satisfactory solution to this problem which keeps many a

school from making any attempt at this much-talked-of and

much-needed study.

The children have, as a rule, only a limited tiipe to go to
school, and in that period they must be taught as much of the
three R's as is possible, and make a beginning in geography,
grammar, and history ; and, to those who do not understand the
immense saving to be gained by the co-ordination of studies, the
difficulties of making any addition to the curriculum may well
appear insuperable.

But if we will consider the so-called practical aims of educa-
tion, we see that the object is to enable the child to read intel-
ligently, getting the thought from the printed page ; to write in
a legible hand and in correct English his thoughts, wishes, and
experiences, and to have a working knowledge of "the first
four rules" and fractions in arithmetic. It is the object of this
article to show that the study of nature is a help to obtaining
these results, and that in the way and along lines natural to
the child.

The most casual observer of children knows how insatiable
is their curiosity about the world around them, and how, until
their minds have been stunted by our methods of teaching,
they seize with the greatest delight any facts about nature *s
doings.

"Where does the rain come from?" "Who made the sun-
shine ? " " Where is the water going to ? " These and hun-
dreds of questions like them mothers have to answer or not
answer, as the case may be, every day and hour.

"How do I see?" asked a child of four years recently, after
various experiments in closing and opening her eyes, putting

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1897-] Nature Study in our Schools. 675

her hand before them, or covering up her head ; and, upon be-
ing answered as simply as truth would permit, she immediately
became deeply interested in light, asking, among other things :
"Why does darkness come so that I can't see?"

The same child watched two grown people analyzing flowers,
and, proceeding to an analysis of her own, spent many happy
moments that summer searching for stamens and pistils in the
blossoms which she culled.

So it is with all normal children. God has endowed them
with this loving oneness with nature and desire to know of it ;
and woe to the teacher who, whether consciously or uncon-
sciously, cheats them out of their birthright by gorging them
with a porridge of " book-learning '* !

Perhaps the record of actual school-room work will best
demonstrate how the study of nature helped and furthered many
of the other studies, besides calling into activity other parts of
the child's character, and bringing into the routine a wholesome
breath of freshness and novelty. Previous to the week in which
these lessons were given there had been observations of clouds,
studies of rain, illustrated by condensing the steam from a tea-
kettle on a cold tin pan, daily note of the direction of the
winds, etc.; and now a most unusual snow-storm had come, with
opportunities not to be neglected.

" What color were the clouds when the snow began ? At
what hour did the snow begin ? How long was it falling ?
How deep is it ? Which way was the wind blowing during the
snow? Where is the snow deepest? What is a drift? What
shape are the snow-flakes? Catch some on a black cloth if it
snows again, and look at them through your microscopes. (This
they did eagerly.) What is the temperature of snow? (Here
the thermometer was plunged into it.) On which side of our
school-house does snow lie longest? Why? Press some snow
hard in your hands. Why does packed snow often turn into
ice ? Does the ground freeze under the snow ? Does it freeze
as deep as the ground from which the snow has been cleared ?
(There were numerous experimental diggings in many back yards
to ascertain the answer to this question.) What is the use of
snow ? (Various answers here.) Who has a question to ask the
class? Who can tell us any stories about places where the
snows are frequent? (This to bring out the experiences of a
diffident boy who had lived in Minnesota. He warmed to his
subject and gave a picture of life in a Northern winter which
was worth to his hearers many pages out of a book.)

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676 Nature Study in our Schools. [Aug.,

" Who will find a story or poem in their readers about snow?
That will be to-day's reading-lesson. Who will find one for to-
morrow's ? Who will see what the geographies say about snow
and ice ? How many will bring us news from the newspapers
as to this storm elsewhere ? "

These and very many other questions were asked by teacher
and pupils, the teacher seldom answering a question except by
guiding the children in their search for the right answers.

During that week every lesson in the readers bearing at all
on the subject was read with an appreciation born of awakened
interest in it ; every item in the geographies about the land
of snow and ice was searched out, and the glaciers of the
Alps (they were studying the geography of Europe) were un-
derstood far more readily. Then, when the observation hour
on Friday came, the children wrote about the snow, telling in
their own words what they had learned and observed, being
warned that no " paper " having a misspelt word would be
accepted, but being also assured that the teacher who stood by
the blackboard, chalk in hand, would write any word which
any pupil should ask her how to spell.

We can see how in such a week's work — which, in passing
be it said, kept the attendance in that room, despite the un-
precedented weather, up to ninety-four per cent., while that of
the other rooms dropped far into the eighties — the pupils
were aided in developing closeness of observation, independence
of investigation, accuracy of expression, and willingness to share
with their companions whatever knowledge they had gained on
a subject of common interest. They were shown the value
of books in supplementing and rounding out their own obser-
vations ; they saw, too, the kinship of the world by hearing of
the effects of the same storm elsewhere ; and their " composi-
tions," being the recounting of what they had themselves seen,
had in them no hint of the drudgery which made the prepara-
tion of essays the bugbear of our school-lives, while the spell-
ing, being of words in their own vocabulary, was of immediate
and practical use to them.

This is but one week out of the session, no day of which
was without its half-hour of nature-work. Much which these
children did in the way of field-lessons, the study of brook and
river and the search for plants and flowers, is impossible in
the cities ; but in the veriest shut-in school in the closest quar-
ter of New York there need be no lack of material for nature
study. The sunlight, the stones of the pavements, the clouds,

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winds, rains, frost and snow, the blades of grass struggling for
life in some cranny, the trees and their leaves, the flowers ob-
tainable — all these can help the child to a broader and deeper
knowledge. In the study of plants, especially, much may be
done. Some boxes in the windows, some wet sponges, and the
seeds of flowers and vegetables can easily be had everywhere,
and can be made the basis for many lessons. And the study
of leaves is in itself a treasure-house. The class above re-
ferred to had a month of leaf-study in the fall of the year,
when they were taught how '^to press the leaves and mount
them on white card-board, and were asked to write in the
corner of each board a description, learned by little and little,
of the shape, venation, margin, and species of the leaf mounted
on it. Later on these really beautiful specimens were used by
them as models for their drawing, and gave hints for some ex-
cellent designs.

Nor should any teacher excuse herself from attempting such
work because of her ignorance of it. Almost ideal teaching
can often be done when teacher and pupils learn together —
especially in nature-work. Let each member of the class, in-
structor included, begin with a flower in his or her hand, and
see what can be found out. Gray*s How Plants Grow or
Youman's First Book of Botany will give the terms as they are
needed, and it will be surprising how fast the class will pro-
gress. And it is so with any observations or studies of nature ;
the pupils enjoy investigating for themselves and the teacher
escapes the temptation to help them, which is almost irresisti-
ble if she already knows much about the subjects.

I would not undervalue the advantages a teacher versed in
natural sciences would possess, but I am most desirous of
encouraging the many who feel their ignorance to make of it a
power for the advancement of the children, rather than to per-
mit its hindering for one day the beginning of work which will
be of such unspeakable help to their pupils and to themselves.

As to the schools in towns and villages, their opportunities
are limitless. After years of teaching, I venture the belief that
in the proper study of the brook and brook-basin nearest their
school, the children will learn more geography than they would
get from Maury's Manual ; more language than from ten
books of language lessons ; more poetry than from " Paradise
Lost," and more spelling than they would acquire by conning
Webster's Blue Back from b-a ba to incomprehensibility. And,
what is worth more than all of these, they will be gaining

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678 Nature Study in our Schools. [Aug.,

knowledge in ways that are ways of pleasantness and along
paths that are paths of peace. It is time that we should part
company for ever with that false idea of teaching which
would train a mind by forcing it into unnatural and therefore
distasteful channels ; and along with this idea there should go,
never to be seen again, those schools where the child is so
taught as to make him unable to see for himself, and ready to
behold the world through the spectacles of other men, rimmed
by the covers of a book.

There has been a powerful reaction against such criminal
cruelty to humanity, and thoughtful teachers everywhere are
striving to realize that ideal of education in which the whole
being, spiritual, moral, mental, and physical, shall be harmoni-
ously developed. Many fall short in their efforts for lack of
perceiving that no amount of ethical, mental, and physical
culture can produce the perfect man if it be not supplemented
by a spiritual development which is possible only when Religion
joins hands with Science in the training of the young. * But the
Catholic schools meet no such difficulty, for in them is daily
taught the most human as well as the most divine religion
that this world has ever seen. And if, in addition to this
culture of the spirit afforded in no other schools, the Catholic
teachers, religious and secular, throughout the United States
will maVe common cause with the great educators outside the
church in seeking and finding, and faithfully practising, the very
best and most progressive methods of mental and physical
training, then might we see what the educational world has so
long looked for : schools wherein all the capabilities of that
complex entity which we call a child are led upward and out-
ward to the fulfilment of their highest 6nds — where, in a word,
the children would be truly educated.

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i897-] A Heartless Sin of Omission. 679

A HEARTLESS SIN OF OMISSION.

BY REV. G. LEE, C.S.SP.

SAD anomaly in the American religious world is
the fact that so many children are allowed to die
without Baptism. It is quite true that such chil-
dren are not condemned to suffering, but they are
deprived of what would have been a source of
greatest joy. How so many people can believe in regeneration
by baptism, and yet listlessly allow a great part of the Ameri-
can-born children of our race to die without being ** born again
of water and the Holy Spirit " seems humanly inexplicable.

It is only an actual faith in the supernatural that can render
one anxious about souls; and such belief may not be by any
means commensurate with external church-membership or church-
work. Building up the externals of religion may be a lab9r of
true devotion, most noble, most sacredly meritorious; it may
also be merely natural, or deeply selfish, or even crookedly
vicious. To attest the presence of actual supernatural belief
we must find sheer energizing anxiety about individual souls
and their impending eternity. No show, no talk, no raising of
edifices or filling of registers, give conclusive evidence that a
man believes in the unseen. One hidden effort for an unknown
and unnamed passing soul is more conclusive proof of faith
than finances and foundations that wrap the world in admiration.
If this supernatural belief could be thoroughly awakened into
action, the children of this country would begin to fare better.
The case of these most helpless and most immediately neces-
sitous members of our human family is simply awful and
heart-rending. Unfitted for Heaven, they pass from amongst us
in endless throngs, while we stand idly by and do next to nothing.
Consider the plain facts. With a medium death-rate of 20
per 1,000, some 1,400,000 souls pass into the other world every
year. Comparative statistics show that about half of these
never attained the full use of reason, and hence were incapable
of determining their own fate for eternity. A far higher pro-
portion would need to be given had we to treat of the myriads
feloniously cut off before they can come even to the first birth.
Therefore, annually 700,000 American children die, of whom
less than one-third, or about 200,000, are baptized. Our con-

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68o A Heartless Sin of Omission. [Aug.,

cern is with the remaining half-million who annually die unre-
generated by the saving waters of baptism.

And here let no one say that this question is idle, or fanci-
ful, or quixotic. If faith is a reality, this question is as prac-
tical and as pressing as any ever discussed in camp or con-
gress or council. These hundreds of thousands of children are
ceaselessly passing into their fixed eternal state. Does it matter
nothing what that state may be? They are human beings,
and their lot is everlasting. In such a matter to remain vaguely
ignorant or indifferent is cowardly inhumanity.

Religion teaches that the difference for these children be-
tween going away baptized and going away unbaptized, is just
the difference between possessing and not possessing the beati-
fic vision of God in heaven for all eternity. The baptizing de-
pends on us, but the consequences are for the helpless ones whose
fate was happily or unhappily placed in our hands — though, in-
deed, the consequences of a guilty omission can hardly fail to
reach us also ; for, as St. Jerome wrote to the Lady Laeta —
apparently an anxious mother — " The crime of leaving unre-
generated children in the bonds of sin will be attributed to
those who were unwilling to baptize them." It cannot be other-
wise. The crisis is one of supernatural beatitude or not ; and
in such a case we are strictly bound to make an effort, espe-
cially when the effort required is light and ordinary.

But all who bear the name of Christian do not believe that
the privat jon of baptism has such grievous consequences ? No ;
or at least some such say that they do not believe it. I fore-
see the objections provoked by my statements, and I hasten to
meet the objectors. Indeed, for them mainly do I write. To
Catholics I do not so specially address myself. They hold the
necessity of baptism as a part of their faith ; and they are
poor Catholics who are not ready to give up their lives rather
than let any child die unbaptized by their neglect.

Now, it can, I think, be unanswerably shown to professors
of Christianity in any form that in no case whatever should they
allow their loved little ones to pass to their future state with-
out baptism. And for this no controversy is required. The
simple, earnest statement of admitted facts and principles
should prove sufficient.

The question concerns the respective lot for all eternity of
the human beings who depart from this life as children, with
or without the regenerating rite instituted by their Redeemer.
Generally speaking, all Christians may be said to agree that

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1 897-] A Heartless Sin of Omission. 68 i

baptized children are sure of being saved. About them there
is no anxiety. A few admirers and followers of Christian prac-
tices — comparatively very few and very recent — think that un-
baptized children may also fare well enoupjh. These persons
do not pretend to know that what they say is true ; they mere-
ly think it may be so. Rather, perhaps, they find such a
theory fits in with their other opinions, which without this
tenet might appear less consistent.

Unhappily, however, their theorizing in this matter of the
baptism of infants is most gravely practical in its consequences.
Were it merely an affair of theoretic opinion or elaborated sys-
tem, one might claim to be allowed the enjoyment of his favorite
ideas. But if every day your theory irrevocably settles the
eternal fate of thousands of souls, no view but the safest
should be brought to bear on your conduct. It may please
some speculators to think that unbaptized children can be
saved. What if they cannot ? If the reality is not as they
think, who can undo the wrong to the helpless children ?

Were baptism only probably necessary, it would still be
wicked to deprive the dying child of it. As a rule no such
vicious folly is committed in temporal affairs. Aiming at a
necessary end, we take the best means within reach, though
their efficacy be but probable. Indeed, that is commonly all
we can do; for, as experience abundantly shows, "probability
is the ordinary guide of life.** And who that believes in Chris-
tianity at all can intelligently deny all probability to the state-
ment that baptism is necessary for salvation ? The overwhelm-
Tng majority of Christians have unhesitatingly repeated and un-
hesitatingly continue to repeat the words of the Gospel : Unless a
man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost ^ he cannot enter into
the Kingdom of God. Have these words, then, no practical value ?

To be convinced that the necessity of baptism for children
has been universally and constantly maintained, one requires
but a very elementary acquaintance with church history. In
fact, another truth so widely proclaimed and so constantly in-
sisted on can hardly be mentioned.

The early Christian families are found careful to baptize
their infants ; and they affirm, in the most ancient writings
which touch the subject — as those of St. Irenaeus and Origen —
that the usage came from our Lord and his Apostles. As early
as the year 250 we find it regarded as a dangerous abuse to
defer the baptism of all the new-born to the eighth day, in
imitation of circumcision. Councils condemned the practice

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because, as St, Cyprian explained, some of these children
might die before the eighth day, and so be lost through our
fault, whilst our Lord wants all to be saved. Clearly, there-
fore, they considered it a question of life or death.

St. Augustine's belief was expressed categorically enough
when he warned a correspondent neither to think nor teach,
if he wished to be Catholic, that children could, without bap-
tism, be freed from inherited guilt. Indeed, those who main-
tained the contrary were cut off from the body of the faithful.
And even those astray on kindred points — as the Pelagians, who
denied the transmission of original sin — yet held that children
needed baptism for admission into the Kingdom of Heaven,
were treated in like manner.

The church's view, as well as the individual view, at the end
of the fourth century, was summed up by Innocent the First's
strong phrase : " To say that children can have the enjoyments
of eternal life without the grace of baptism, is utter fatuity"

The same thing is repeated by the other holy Fathers, and
by the church taught as well as teaching, down through the
centuries. To question the necessity of baptism for children,
was an ordinarily unheard-of absurdity ; to let children die
without it, an almost unpardonable iniquity. The great schools
and universities discussed every Christian topic. On this point
they saw no room for discussion. They had the subject before
them when they speculated on the obscure condition of the
poor unbaptized in Limbo, and on the period at which the sac-
rament became of precept and necessity in pagan countries ; bujt
the central question — its necessity for those born among Chris-
tians — they left untouched, as a matter clear and clearly of faith.

So it was through all the Catholic centuries and genera-
tions up to the middle of the sixteenth century, and so it is
to-day among the very great majority of Christians. That
here or there an isolated contradiction should be eccentrically
uttered, is of little account in face of a world-wide affirmation.

Notice that I am not at all treating of the authority that
has the decision of such matters. I am but trying to repre-
sent what an indifferent, impartial looker-on must conclude.
An outsider intelligently viewing this Christian question would
not be easily persuaded that this or that minister, or this or
that modern partial society, was completely right in denying the
utility of infant baptism, while all the Catholic multitudes, ac-
tual and past, were entirely mistaken in affirming its necessity.
If a practical doubt arose and a decision were needed, he would

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1 897-] A Heartless Sin of Omission. 683

say the great probabilily was on the side of the great majority.
Could such a case come under the cognizance of a court of
law, it would decide in the same way.

A consideration which should have weight with those who
neglect or refuse to baptize their dying children is the disin-
terestedness of those who urge them to do so. The advocates
of baptism in these circumstances have nothing temporal in
view. It is of no earthly advantage to them. There is no
proselytizing ; the children need be neither named nor counted ;
it need not be known that they were baptized. Their benefac-
tors are satisfied to await the revelation of results at the Last
Judgment. See how the church acts. In everything else she vin-
dicates for her ordained ministers the exercise of the ministry ;
but in this she insists that every human being may and ought
to do the sacred work. She takes the trouble to define and
teach that man or woman, heretic or pagan, everybody with-
out exception, is able and is to be induced to baptize the
dying. Her care for the children's souls is her impelling mo-
tive, and she must have strong reasons for resorting to such
unusual measures. For the children of her own members she
takes extraordinary precautions. If there be any doubt what-
ever about their baptism — about the fact itself, about matter,
form, intention, anything essential — she, though so careful to
avoid even the appearance of sacrilegious repetition, will enjoin
a new conditional administration. Understanding that baptism is
absolutely necessary for those dying in childhood, she will see
that they have it at all, and even with the gravest, inconvenience.

Should this example of the church prove too vague and
general to impress some of my readers, I would request them
to make a concrete instance for themselves. They have, v/ith
few exceptions, friends, or at least acquaintances, among the
Catholic clergy. Let them choose out the ecclesiastic whom
they think best gifted and best conditioned — whom they regard
as a humanly happy success. Well, we can assure them that
that man, be he priest, bishop, or archbishop, would in the
line of duty — were it necessary — have to sacrifice his prosper-
ous life for the sake of baptizing any unbaptized dying child,
no matter what its race, color, or condition. Merely balancing
his own temporal existence against that child's advantage in
dying baptized, he would be bound to prefer the higher good
and sacrifice his bodily life to the unknown infant's salvation.
So strictly would he be bound that most grievous sin might
be incurred in shirking the obligation.

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684 A Heartless Sin of Omission. [Aug.,

Is it without any reason that your respectable, common-sense
acquaintance recognizes such responsibilities and is prepared for
such risks? If the particular priest or prelate you have in
mind is held to this duty, are there not some obligations on
each one of us arising from the law of charity ?

Very necessary, therefore — in fact, altogether essential — the
Catholic conscience of the world and the ages must judge the
baptism of dying children. Is there not some extrinsic proba-
bility of the necessity of the sacrament in such an intellectual,
disinterested attitude and conduct on the part of the great
majority of sincere believers ? There is, at least, enough to
make a conscientious non-Catholic pause before deciding ad-
versely in given circumstances.

An obvious argument to propose to parents is found in
their own course in temporal risks. If their child was grievous-
ly sick, and nine out of ten of the available doctors said that
a simple remedy — milk, water, air — would certainly cure it,
while the remaining man of science declared all remedies use-
less, on which opinion would they act ? They would, of course,
try the easy means so authoritatively proposed. If they did
not and the child died, their own note on the case would
probably be that they should never forgive themselves. It is
fearful to think that the " never forgive '* may have to be pro-
nounced in the other world. More than nine out of ten — ^aye,
more than ninety-nine out of a hundred — of those who have
authority to speak on this subject, tell parents that by neglect-
ing or refusing to have their dying child baptized they con-
demn it to the loss of the true eternal life.

To how many, it may be asked, of the people of the United
States can conscience-appeals of the nature just indicated be
seasonably suggested ? To nearly all, it would seem ; for nearly
all give sufficient credit to Christianity to render the baptism
of their dying little ones an obligatory expedient. Besides the
large fraction of the citizens of the Republic who believe with
the absolute assent of faith all the Christian truths, a great
many others hold in general that Christianity is the one divine
religion. The rest, for the most part, regard it as in some
degree true and authoritative, and even more than human.
Those who would deny to Christian doctrine all respectability
and all verisimilitude are few and of little account.

Now, if the truth of Christianity be at all probable, com-
mon sense requires that we pay some heed to its more abso-
lute behests. To admit that its fearful, categoric statements on

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1 897-] A Heartless Sin of Omission. 685

eternal life and eternal death may be true, and yet not move
a finger to put ourselves or others on the safe side, is surely
the acme of folly. Stolid indifference when poor children are
in jeopardy is cruelly heartless.

The father who merely admits that Christianity seems to
have more in it than other systems have, should never let his
child die without the " chance " afforded by Christian baptism.
If he be so cruelly inconsiderate, the mother should not consent.
Horridly deluded she must be, when she lets her offspring be
defrauded of the prospect which excellent authorities declare
so glorious. If she is at all instructed or reminded, she will
not tolerate so irremediable a wrong.

We need not stop to consider the case of parents who will
not have their infants baptized, even at death, because they
think it morally wrong to do so. It is to be hoped that they
are very few. The self-sufficiency which passes wanton censure
on what has been and is being piously done by such countless
multitudes of the holiest and most faithful Christians, is too
arrogantly foolish to be common. It is ignorance or negligence
that usually stands in the unhappy children's way.

What can Catholics do in the matter? They ordinarily take
good care of their own. If an infant of theirs might have been
baptized and was not, the sad self-condemnation is life-long.
But is there nothing to be done for the children of non-Catholic
families around them ? They have more or less intercourse
with these families, and they know that in them, as in others,
the deaths of children are frequent. Why do they not oftener
say the needed word in time ? The unpretentious, simple, sin-
cere assertion of the awful consequences entailed by neglect or
omission of baptism will frequently have its effect. Catholics
who try this in a gentle, friendly way are sometimes invited to
do what they think necessary. Even when they are not so in-
vited, the evident disinterestedness of their earnest suggestion
may finally move the troubled parents to merciful private action.

The occasion offering, a man may manfully say among his
fellows that he for one would never let child of his go away
without the mark of the Christian on it. The school-children
can say to their non-Catholic companions that the dying baby
these latter are bemoaning would be so happy hereafter, if it
were only baptized. But women, mothers, can suggest most
effectively. What more natural in their condolence and sym-
pathy with the hopeless mother than to affirm and repeat that
the strong consolation is to have the cherished one regenerated

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686 A Heartless Sin of Omission. [Aug.,

in the saving waters and securely sent home to God, to pray
for its own here below?

A tactful, prudent woman, who is a good neighbor and a
good friend, can have her own way at the cots of many dying
children ; and if her discretion and zeal are equal to the occa-
sion, she can, in mixed communities, be reaping as sure harvests
for heaven as can the best missionary in Africa or China.

Oh ! how pious women exult when they can furnish means
to buy into freedom and have baptized in their name some far-
off, enthralled child of paganism ! And they do right ; the
charity is well ordered, the work is sublime. But is it not a
pity that they do not oftener use their own kindly hearts and
hands to get baptized into Heaven the passing, much-wronged
little ones of their own Christian country? If they think, they
will exert themselves. Would there were some association to
keep them methodically at so great an apostolate !

I trust it will be understood that nothing either underhand
or intrusive is here recommended. There is no paltry interest
in view, no merely personal advantage selfishly furthered.
Prudence is required, because the work is delicately sacred ;
but there is no sly attempt at proselytizing. Nobody wants to
register these newly-baptized anywhere except on the rolls of
the blessed. Nor is there any fraud or deception — not more,
certainly, than there is in privily barring the pitfalls in the
way of the blind, or stealthily removing poison and deadly
weapons from the reach of the insane.

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1897.] Mother Duchesne, R. S, H., $87

MOTHER DUCHESME, R. S. H., AN UNCANONIZED
AMERICAN SAINT.

BY S. L. EMERY.

[N the 13th of September, in the year 1804, when
the church in France was just beginning to
emerge from the terrible deluge of the Revolu-
tion, and was still engaged in painful struggles-
for its true liberties — liberties which men, with a
wild cry of " freedom *' ever upon their lips, strove violently to
thwart — there came to an old Alpine convent of hallowed
memories four nuns of a newly established rule. Yet they
were, in a very marked manner, the spiritual descendants of
those who had first made it their home, nearly two centuries
before. But a few years since, if not to-day, an archway there
bore this inscription : ** St. Francis of Sales chose this place for
the foundation of the fourth monastery of his order of the
Visitation of St. Mary. The first stone of it was laid in his
presence on October 16, 1619." And here is still to be seen
St. Francis's confessional, and the place where St. Jane de
Chantal was kneeling when an unearthly visitant whispered to
her, *' He lives no more," and she, unsuspicious of her great
bereavement, cried out : " It is true. Lord ! he lives no longer
except in thee.**

At the time of the Revolution the nuns were expelled ; but
when the state of affairs began to change, a valiant woman who
had been a novice there, Philippine Rose Duchesne, returned
and strove with all the might of her resolute soul to bring back
the old rule and the old life to the place. God, however, had
other designs in store for her. She failed then, as all her long
life afterwards she seemed to fail, other people's success being
built upon the sure foundation of her heroically borne cross.

When, on that memorable winter day, the four strange nuns
came to Sainte Marie d'en Haut, one of them was but twenty-
five years of age, yet had held the office of superior since she
was twenty-two. She was of lowly birth and of timid and re-
tiring disposition, and was forming a new and as yet very
small and but little known community. Yet, at sight of her,
Philippine Duchesne — ten years her senior, and accustomed to
the religious life when the other was but a child ; belonging to

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688 Mother Duchesne, R. S. H., [Aug.,

a family well known in the political and financial world, and
possessing naturally their imperious self-willed characteristics-
came down the steps of the house which she herself had lifted
from the dust of its ruin, knelt humbly at the young nun's
feet and humbly kissed them ; giving her, not her house alone,
but her entire self, with more than the simplicity of a little
child, to be guided and governed by her in holy obedience. If
it be true that the name of Philippine Rose Duchesne is to be
brought forward as worthy to be joined with the title of saint,
we may regard this striking and characteristic incident of her
life as one long step towards that glorious consummation, for
" he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

When the venerable Mother Barat, now so widely known as
the holy foundress of the great teaching Order of the Sacred
Heart, entered this convent home, so generously made over to
her will, she saw there what must have explained to her much
that might else have seemed strange. The Visitation Order,
which gave to us Blessed Margaret Mary, had left many traces
in this old home of theirs that spoke of the love of the Sacred
Heart. The wounded heart, the crown of thorns, the flames,
the cross, texts telling of divine love and goodness — these
things abounded ; and in the chapel was a statue of the Sacred
Heart, while altar and sanctuary arch and the very pavement
bore the sacred symbol. To this home of the Sacred Heart
the Order of the Sacred Heart had come, and she who could
not carry out her own holy plans and earnest wishes there,
found rest and better things for herself in God's will triumph-
ing over her own designs.

We must notice in this saintly life that Philippine herself
says that from the age of twelve she could not recollect letting
one day go by without praying for light to know God's will
and strength to do it. This practice seems to have been first
begun in regard to her vocation, but her whole difficult life
bears ample testimony to her unfailing endeavor and unremitting
prayers to do the will of God. And Mother Barat, so unlike
her in natural characteristics, but so akin to her in the com-
plete, tireless service of God, understood her well. It is quite
important to quote here from a letter of hers to this her
dear child, although her elder sister, for it shows the high
standard set before these women who are both now lifted out
in bold relief by our present hope of their future glory, then
so utterly unsuspected :

" Are we so far removed from the ages of sanctity, and may
we not hope to see some amongst us treading in their foot-

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1897.] An Uncanonized American Saint, 689

steps ? Shall I own it, my dear child ? When I think of the
graces our Lord has bestowed upon you since your infancy, I
cannot help hoping that, as he has given you an affectionate
and grateful heart, you will love God as some of those great
souls have done. The circumstances which you are placed in
are somewhat similar to those which contributed to make them
saints — a new order, assisted by men full of the Spirit of
God; and above all, the Heart of Jesus speaking so forcibly to
your heart." And later on, Madame Duchesne wrote in her
strong language : ** I ought to be a saint, seeing how many
saints I know."

For fourteen years these two kindred souls toiled and
prayed together for the glory of the Sacred Heart and in the
cause of Christian education. Then, in the year 18 18, the
ardent desire which Madame Duchesne had long experienced
for the foreign missions was gratified.

Sundering the ties which bound her to kin and country, she
bade farewell to the superior who had become to her friend
and mother, knelt once again and for the last time before her
and again kissed her feet, looked for the last time upon her
face, and departed to our western land, which for another life-
time was to be her second home. Madame Duchesne was then
nearly forty-nine years of age, and she was to live in these
United States thirty-four years longer, and to die here, worn out
but unwearied in her Master's service, at the advanced age of
eighty-three.

The standard of heroic sanctity had been set before her
eyes in her European training. It remains to be told to what
extent she acted out that teaching in our American soil.

When, on the 29th of May, 1818 — the feast, singularly enough,
of that year, of the Sacred Heart — Mother Duchesne first set
foot upon our shores, the outlook was far from promising to
human eyes. The hard and uncomfortable voyage had lasted
more than two months. " In the first days of May,'* writes
one of her companions, " the ship was driven by stress of
weather five times backwards and forwards across the tropics."
They landed at last six leagues from New Orleans, and
the Ursuline nuns received them with loving hospitality un-
der their convent roof. Through the miscarriage of letters
from Bishop Dubourg, to whose diocese of St. Louis they
were promised, a most trying delay of six months occurred,
a forcible corroboration of his own words to them:

'* You say that you have come in quest of crosses. You

VOL. LXV.— 44

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690 Mother Duchesne, R.S.H.y [Aug^

have indeed hit upon the right place for that purpose. You
may rely upon it, you will not have long to wait for them. If
I did not feel certain that such was your spirit, I should be more
alarmed than pleased at your arrival. But as it is, I fear noth-
ing. God will be with us. Only strengthen yourselves more
and more in this spirit. That is the important point."

Little, in our day of rapid locomotion, do we appreciate the
trials of the journey at last undertaken by this brave woman
and her four companions, even though they were to travel,
she hopefully declares, ** in steamboats, an admirable invention
which enables people to accomplish in twenty days what used
to be a business of six months." Seventeen persons were stowed
into one narrow room, and there these nuns contrived to medi-
tate and pray, and to study English. Almost every day some
accident broke the monotony : bread failed them ; intoxicated
men and disorderly women shocked and grieved their hearts;
and not till more than forty days had gone did they reach
St. Louis. There they found the bishop's palace a sort of
barn, with only one room, serving as dormitory, refectory, and
study for the bishop and four priests ; and they discovered, to
their consternation, that they themselves would have to begin
their work at some distance from the city, in a place called
St. Charles — a sore disappointment, for it deprived them of
much spiritual aid. "We are indeed in the headquarters of
poverty," wrote Mother Duchesne. " There is every appear-
ance that we shall sow in tears; and too happy shall we be
to do so, if others are to reap in joy, surrounded by the chil-
dren our prayers will have won for them."

From that time on Mother Duchesne's life — her long life,
was one continuous way of the cross. The great teaching order
which now has its magnificent houses and great schools in
New York and New England, filled with earnest students and
crowned with holy success, was founded in such complete low-
liness and destitution that the nuns used to water the cows,
clean the stable, dig the soil, and were so poor that, to use
Mother Duchesne's heroic or saintly phrase, they " had the
blessing of being actually deprived of bread and of water."
Sickness overtook them, evident ruin seemed to confront them,
and still there is no cry of complaint. ** We are happy in the
midst of this destitution. There is happiness in our hourly de-
pendence on the visible aid of God which it inspires. I never
have the least doubt as to the will of God and his watchful
care for the extension of his work in this country. My cor-

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solations exceed my trials ; . . . my prayer is one continual
thanksgiving for the knowledge of that much-desired will of
God, which will be clearer still as time goes on, and the Sacred
Heart and its daughters extend the reign of Christ all over
the land."

The hard soil about them was but a type of the harder
soil in the population of the new land which they came to
serve. Souls neglected, hardened, arrogant, ignorant, filled with
self-conceit, devoted to ease and pleasure and self-indulgence,
gave little encouragement for the future. Yet the good nuns
struggled on. But in one year they had to leave the place —
another instance of the constant disappointment that was to
be Mother Duchesne's earthly portion. *' One day the Sacred
Heart was to return to that place, and to gather in the har-
vest she had prepared. This was always her part of the work
in our Lord's vineyard. Others reaped where she had conquered
the soil inch by inch. She opened the way amidst brambles
and briers. She was in the desert the pioneer of Christ."

At Florissant they began again the life of farm-servanls, en-
during cold and destitution, and again the glad cry rose from
this valiant woman : *' I see nothing but happiness in all our
privations. Could God grant me greater favors? Nothing but
martyrdom would exceed in blessedness what I have received."

The bishop wrote to Mother Barat that Mother Duchesne .
was a real saint, but not quite enough after the style of
St. Fran:is of Sales. The lack of pliability and sweetness
in her natural disposition was the source of many hard trials
for her, and in her holy and deep humility she acknowledged
the defect, and begged to be released from her position as su-
perior and to take the lowest place. Her request remained un-
granted, however, until she was an old woman.

She founded a novitiate, she saw her houses planted slowly
here and there, and the heavy crosses still follow everywhere
she went. Poverty, sickness, misunderstanding, spiritual depri-
vations far worse than temporal, the deaths of those she dear-
ly loved, the failure of long-cherished plans and hopes — these
were her lot and her life. In the visitation of her houses she
was struck with yellow fever, ** alone, helpless, in a strange
land, laid prostrate on the sand, consumed by a burning thirst,"
she reminds one of St. Francis Xavier at his hour of death,
and yet she lived.

The Florissant school was deserted, but the novitiate in-
creased. Bayou la Fourche was suppressed. Then came from

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692 Mother Duchesne, R.S.H,, [Aug.,

France the news that the dear old home where Mother Du-
chesne welqpme'd Mother Barat, and made over to her the con-
vent she had loved and raised anew, had been suppressed like-
wise. A new nun arrived from Europe, and this holy woman,
who had for twenty-two years borne the burden and heat of
the day, who had faced terrible trials undaunted, and had been
the head, through all this troubled time, of a great work for
God, knelt down again in her humility, as she had done thirty-six
years previously, at her young superior's feet and humbly asked
a stranger's blessing. Then she requested to be relieved from
her position as superior ; her request was granted, and Madame
Duchesne, at seventy years, was again a simple religious.

At this great age another very ardent desire was at last ful-
filled. She was permitted to be one of a band of sisters who
went far west on a mission to the Indians, the savages, who
had long had a strong attraction for her missionary zeal. What
could she do among them — she so old, outworn, and broken
down ? She could at least pray, and she could show the In-
dians and her companions what a saint's life can be when hu-
man usefulness is past. The Indians called her '* the woman
who prays always." It was all she could do ; and four hours
in the morning, four hours in the evening, she dwelt in the
little church. The Indians, for whom she would have gladly
died, came reverently up behind the motionless, aged form and
kissed her poverty-stricken dress, regarding her as a being
quite beyond themselves in her evident union with the Great
Spirit whom she worshipped. In the winter she was often very
ill ; but on her bed of pain her withered hands were busy with
her knitting, and she offered herself, as on a cross, for the In-
dians' souls. When her superiors found her in this state the
order for removal came again— that order which must have
seemed to her at last the rule of her life — and she was brought
back, by a strange dispensation of God's will, to die at her
first foundation in America, the St. Charles Convent, now once
more opened by the Sacred Heart nuns.

God's will was to the last the ruling passion of her life,
obedience her unfailing stay. She resigned her heart's desire
to die among her dear savages, and returned to live for ten
silent years of prayer and suffering close to the heart of her
Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, the seeming failure of whose
life-work she had so singularly been called upon to share.

There was a little cell close to the sanctuary, eight feet in
length, sixteen in breadth. Like another St. Alexis, to whom

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I897-] An Uncanonized American Saint. 693

her sisters reverently likened her, Mother Duchesne by choice
dwelt there. And still the crosses came. This very house, so
dear to her sensitive soul, was threatened with suppression ; and
though this great trial was averted, Florissant was not spared.
She used to say : " Ste, Marie and Florissant are like two swords
in my heart, which I shall feel to my last breath." Bishops
and priests who had been to her fathers and friends and guides
died, or went otherwhere to distant fields. Her old companions
and sisters, those who came with her and those who had been
her children in religion, passed on to their reward. Their
saintly deaths filled her with great joy, but left her more and
more alone. Even that most special tie which had bound her
with intense and undying love to Mother Barat, a love un-
weakened by distance, age, and a myriad cares, was made the
cause of another heavy cross, for, by some misunderstanding,
no word came from her to her old companion-in-arms, her
daughter, sister, and servant, for a long mysterious while.

But light shone out at last. God gave her, when the work
of trial and loneliness and suffering had done their work, con-
solations of the sweetest kind. There came to her from across
the seas, sent by the mother-general on purpose to console her
and make all things clear, Mother Duchesne's niece, a nun
of her own order; and this nun wrote to Mother Barat on her
arrival : " This letter will apprise you that I am with my holy
aunt. I can say, like St. Anthony, * I have seen Paul in the
desert.' Yes, I have seen a great saint who is drawing near
to the end of her long life. This noble soul, whose lot it has
always been to have great crosses to bear, suffered terribly from
the thought that she had displeased our first mothers, and par-
ticularly our mother-general. A perfect ecstasy of joy beamed
in her face when she read our reverend mother's letter, and
heard that she had sent me to St. Charles on purpose to see
her.':

After this much consolation came. Her dearest American
daughter was placed at St. Charles to comfort her last days
and help her die. Every care was taken of her that she would
allow, for her old habits of penance and self-denial still held
sway, though, with that still stronger habit of her noted
humility, it was her happiness to obey her first American
novice, and to call her own spiritual daughter by the name of
Mother.

" She ceased," we are told, " to care for anything earthly ;
poverty had delivered her from every care, giving her Jesus as

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694 Mother Duchesne^ R.S.H., [Aug.

her only treasure." Her niece described her room as the very
sanctuary of holy poverty, and said that she was sure no sister
in the society could have a more miserable bed or more tat-
tered garments. '* The Blessed Benedict Labr^ might claim her
as his sister. And on this point it is useless to contradict her,
so great is her attraction to this mode of life." Her prayer
was continual. This loving service was still possible to her in
her extreme old age, and she was resolved to persevere in it
every moment till death. Sometimes she would serve three
Masses in succession. Kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament,
she forgot the things of time and sense. ** How can one be
tired who is with our Lord ? " she asked.

The great Father De Smet openly expressed his feeling that
she was a real saint, and said he regarded her as the greatest
protectress of his wonderful missions. The children often saw
rays of light around her head after holy Communion. In her
old age she still uttered her life's watch-word : " God's will ! —
God's will ! " And during those last ten years of solitude and
prayer at St. Charles's, the Sacred Heart Order founded three
times as many houses as it had done in all the previous years
of work in North America. A colony of the nuns went to
Canada, and, on the last day but one of her blessed life, she
was permitted the immense joy of beholding the face of an-
other nun who was, in the next year, to establish the Sacred
Heart in South America. Singularly enough, on the very day
after she had landed upon our continent, thirty-four years pre-
vious to her death, Mother Duchesne had written to a friend :
" If God will leave me long enough upon earth, I think I might
one day set foot in Southern America at Lima, under the
protection of my patron saint, St. Rose, or at Carthagena, under
the patronage of the Blessed Peter Claver."

It was, indeed, time now to sing her Nunc dimittis. " Come,
Lord Jesus, come; make no delay; come and take me hence ! "
Such were the words that rose Irom the dying lips. At noon,
on the 17th of November, 1852, the great soul of this valiant
and much-tried woman went forth to meet the Lord whom,
with passionate, untiring devotion, she had served. She was
eighty.four years of age, had been forty-seven years a professed
nun, and had spent thirty-four years of her arduous life upon
our American soil. South America has given us the great St.
Rose of Lima. May God, if it be his blessed will, prrant us
yet to see beside her on our altars a St. Rose of Missouri for
these United States !

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lars, because no true poet, however great his admiration may
be for some one light that to him outshines all others in the
firmament of fame, can continue to follow his lead in servile
imitation. The reason is obvious. Originality frequently asserts
itself in forms of expression which are mannerisms, and has a
way of looking into things in peculiar relations ; that is, of see-
ing uncommon relations by preference. In a man of genius all
this may, perhaps must, be welcome ; for it is the manifesta-
tion of a great individuality. But, unfortunately, such peculiari-
ties are what are laid hold of by the crowd of imitators. Not
every one can bend Apollo's bow ; but if the aspirant possesses
in any considerable degree the Far-darter's strength and skill,
though not the whole of these, he will employ them on an in-
strument which he can command. So it is with Mr. Thomp-
son's discipleship to Patmore. He could not follow his master
in all the methods of art, and though these are distinctly
traceable, there is the independence of a new and original
mind in the poems before us. His admiration for Patmore is
the true idolatry of a poet, blind as a passionate woman. We
do not express our opinion of the powers of Patmore beyond
implying that our author is the superior, and that this can well
be without banishing the former from Olympus. He still re-
mains what the later poet calls him, in his fine threnody en-
titled " A Captain of Song," a " sad soul of sovereign song."
This sadness has fallen upon himself, and with it a higher and
wider dominion than the sovereignty of Patmore over the
thoughts that blanched his hair "with travel-h^ats of hell."
It is gratifying to -find that the church, which is the nursing

♦ New Poems, By Francis Thompson. Boston : Copeland & Day.

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696 Talk about New Books. [Aug^

mother of all true poetry, whose conceptions of the true and
beautiful are instinctively caught by real genius no matter what
its creed, is becoming represented once more in the language
of Chaucer, Shakspere, Pope, and Dryden. And so, turning to
the volume before us from this new poet, we find that Mr.
Thompson dwells in the interstellar spaces with the gods of Lu-
cretius, but he has cast upon the empyrean that shadow of
pain, begot of love and duty, which Epicurean gods could not
conceive ; and he tells of this pain with Wordsworth's know-
ledge and Spenser's power of words. He has caught their har-
monies ; but now and then there is a fierce strength in his
verse that rudely smites the ear, while the mind sees the
thought breaking from its fetters.

In " The Mistress of Vision " we have a realm where he
sees "the Lady of fair weeping" enshrined in fancies which he
pours out with a variety and power hardly inferior to that
master of poetic diction, Shelley ; but there are one or two
instances of the struggle between the thought and its cerement
which we have spoken of. We point out as an instance of this
the seventeenth verse, the harsh clangor of which contrasts with
the music of many others. It would be difficult to find a more
perfect rhythm than in some lines of the opening stanza:

" Secret was the garden ;
Set i' the pathless awe.
Where no star its breath can draw.
Life, that is its warden.
Sits behind the fosse of death."

It brings us at once into a spirit-world, where the fancy is
enthralled by a passion of sighs from which images emerge in
a profusion " like leaves of Vallombrosa," or the flight of
countless bees or birds of brilliant plumage. In this revery he
sees no moon

" Save the white sufficing woman."
He sees

" Light most heavenly, human —
Like the unseen form of sound
Sensed invisibly in tune " —

an unseen foim folding the sound, as it were ; an idea by no
means new, but possessing newness in the mode of expression,
which is the only originality now attainable.

The low sun which lit the garden is "vibrant visible." Po-

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1897.] Talk about New Books. 697

lonius and critics of his order would say this was a vile phrase,
and critics of another order would wonder how light could be
vibrant ; but there is a sufficient nearness to each other in the
operations of sight and hearing to suggest parallels from sense to
sense reciprocally, which a poet with an original turn of thought
can be well understood as deeming himself entitled to lay hold
of. Some of Tennyson's fanciful metaphors and similes are
more remote, by a long distance, than any we can find in this
poem — when, for instance, he compares a bank covered with
violets to the heavens breaking through the earth, or the stars
to fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

There is an " Ode to the Setting Sun *' which has passages
that may fairly be matched with any in the odes of Dryden,
Collins, or Tennyson. The difficulty in handling the changes of
metre proper to the ode so as to preserve, amid the variations,
unity of movement should prevent attempts at this exercise of
the poetic art, unless by one conscious of an unbounded com-
mand of rhythm. There is another danger, that in the verses
corresponding to the alternate strophes of the choral poetry of
the Greek plays the bard may descend to prose — no doubt
eloquent prose, but that can be had from prose authors in a
much more natural form. We think that in this ode there is
poetry in every verse, but not of equal excellence ; and we
think, too, there is a harshness here and there in the lines, like
sweet bells jangled out of tune.

We consider the expression exquisite in many places apd
fully fitted to the thought, which is, perhaps, the best test of
true poetry. Poetry is the language of vivid sensation, and we
have it in the following passages we take — not cull — from the
ode :

" Yet in this field, where the Cross planted reigns,
I know not what strange passion bows my head
To thee, whose great command upon my veins
Proves thee a god for me not dead, not dead !

** For worship it is too incredulous ;

For doubt — oh, too believing-passionate !
What wild divinity makes my heart thus

A fount of most baptismal tears ? Thy straight,

" Long beam lies steady on the Cross. Ah me !
What secret would thy radiant finger show ?
Of thy bright mastership is this the key?
Is this thy secret, then ? And is it woe ? "

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698 Talk about New Books. [Aug.,

There is a shadow on most of Mr. Thompson's poetry ; and
we think this itself an evidence of real communion with the
higher spirits of the Unseen. It is not the sadness of satiety,
such as occasionally lends a refined softness to the sensuous
word-painting of Swinburne ; but it is that melancholy which
Shelley so well expresses when he says : " Our sweetest songs
are those that tell of saddest thought "; a melancholy that ex-
presses the soul's longing for immortality, a home above that
firmament where

" The Moon, and the light of the Day, and the Night with its
solemn fires,"

revolve — a firmament which Lucretius thought too stately a
home for the fierce and lustful gods of Rome.

But when he enters into the wild music of choral numbers
we see the power with which he launches thought and thought,
like thunderbolts. We hear "the tumults of the firmament"
as the sun descends amid ''visible music blasts," and
" cymbals " clanging the Occident to fire. The down-stricken
Day, drawing all the splendors of heaven around him in his
fall, is not a new idea ; but its working out is new, so far as we
know, in the clangorous accompaniments of cymbal clash
mingling with the crimson blaring of the " shawms." * It is not
so much the dying of a king as his entrance into his pavilions
of gold and purple amid the crash of an army of bands, even
though the next strophe recalls what he had seen in the vast
seasons gone when he was

" Candid Hyperion

Clad in the light of " his " immortal youth,"
" Ere Dionysius bled" his "vines"

" Or Artemis drave her clamors through the wood " ;

when he witnessed the war of the " brawny Titans " and saw
Enceladus shoulder Pelion with its swinging pines.

It is a triumphant death at least, and so the poet does not
wonder that he should be a god.

The inner spirit of this defeat is far from hopeless, though
there remains the shadow which rests upon all the activities of
life in relation to the higher self. Such poetry is healthful in
an age like this, weighted with the vast responsibilities arising
from triumphs over the forces of nature that no myth has ever

* This word sounds as if it were used throug^h the exigency of rhyme ; still, it may have a
meaning in the poet's mind linked with barbaric pageantry which no synonyme would afford.

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i897-] Talk about New Books. 6(^

surpassed in the elements of wonder ; and the tendency, in
consequence, to a feverish pursuit of intellectual and physical
excitement in the hope of finding a resting-place. There are
two alternatives — for men to become as gods to themselves, and
therefore idols with feet of clay, or to recognize that there is
a Power holding in its hand the infinite movements of the uni-
verse of spirit and matter, and that this Power must, by the law
of its being, have intended harmony.

Lucretius represented the first alternative as if he had before
him the intellect of the nineteenth century. Despair was upon
all he thought, as if, looking down the centuries, he had before
him men making day and night hideous with their steam-
whistles and the roar of machinery for no purpose — for no pur-
pose but to disturb the silence of eternity for the brief space
allotted to the life of mankind. In the manly Christian note
Mr. Thompson sounds we have the other road, which leads
upward ; and so leading, gives a reason for the toil and sorrow
that darken life.

There is a fine poem on *' Contemplation," which is per-
vaded with the same hopeful spirit. This is the spirit that
runs like a golden thread through all of them, and shows itself
in a deep but playful light in a poem endowed with the rather
curious title " The After Woman."

We have a volume of "Lyrics" by John B. Tabb.* Open-
ing this little volume we come on a chaplet of nine lines, called
"Dawn." It seems to us simply perfect:

" Behold, as from a silver horn

The sacerdotal Night
Outpours upon his latest-born

The chrism of the light ;
And- bids him to the altar come,

Whereon Tor sacrifice
(A lamb before his shearers dumb)

A victim shadow lies."

The sextet " Echo," on the opposite page, is rather labored,
but suggestive in the conception of Echo as a prodigal that
had received all with his father's last breath, and for whom it
was idle to seek his door again in expectation of a new
inheritance. It is more than a conceit, but not so felicitously

* Boston : Copeland & Day.

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700 Talk about New Books. [Aug.,

expressed .as might be expected from the manner in which
" Dawn " is executed. The verse " Pain " is sound morality,
but hardly poetry ; " The Young Tenor '* is a charming lyric ;
the " Snow-Bird " is good, and so is the ode to the " Wood-
Robin," but it reminds one somewhat too painfully of Shelley's
matchless lyric "The Skylark."

We can recommend these verses for their purity of thought,
the taste and finish of their execution.

We have in The Falcon of LangiaCy by Isabel Whiteley,* a
tale of the time of Francis I. The author appears as a Breton
gentleman of that time writing his autobiography ; and though
we know of the illusion when we look at the title-page, we
soon forget our knowledge and find ourselves in the home of
the family, and with the " Falcon," in every step after he leaves
it until he is happily married. We have incidental proofs of
the influence Francis possessed over his people, notwithstand-
ing the disasters of his reign, as when hats sweep the ground
at the mention of his name with something more than the old-
time reverence to the king. Such touches as these reveal the
artist. The young Irishman who figures in the latter half of
the tale is a light-hearted soldier-adventurer, very different
from the stern and cunning adventurers that went out from
England in the succeeding reigns to take part in European
wars. With the exception of Sidney, they were mercenaries
and plunderers on the land and pirates on the sea.

We are curious to know where Miss Whiteley got her con-
ception of the Irish soldier, so gentle and so dashing, so pure
and high-minded, so reckless in courage and so capable of plan-
ning ; but we are very grateful to her for showing us in her
pages reflections of many whose names are writ large in story,
and many more who sleep in silence on battle-fields everywhere
from east to west, and until the west is east. M. de Pennelec,
who is the villain of the piece, is a gentleman of the most
elegant manners, and could stand side by side with Leicester
in good-breeding and rascality. Curiously enough, there is not
the remotest suggestion that this accomplished scoundrel was
fashioned on an Italian model, though it might easily have
been pardoned by example. No ; she seems to find his charac-
ter in that sincere flaLtery of his English friends which is called
imitation. On the other hand, M. de Brimeau might have
been the companion-in-arms of Bayard. The elder brother of

* Boston : Copeland & Day.

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the " Falcon " — brother by his father's first marriage — seems a
type of the unscrupulous baron of the time, such as might be
expected in a condition of society when the bonds of chivalry
had become loosened and the era of law had not arisen. He
might well have a place in such a work as La Bruy^re's
Characters^ representing the seigneur who made his people
** creatures that dug the ground fiercely," and which only on
close inspection could be discovered to be human beings.
Constance reminds us somewhat of Rosalind, and approaches in
some respects to Scott's superb Rebecca ; but the resemblance
can, of course, ofily extend as far as her small stage permits.
Still the elements are there — not as possibilities suggested in
*'a Country Church-yard," but as facts furnished by an imagina-
tion "all compact," and from which we expect greater results
in the good time coming.

The Metropolitans* is a society novel and pretends to be noth-
ing more, consequently it is liable to the imperfections atten-
dant upon that class of literature. A life consumed in the com-
ings and goings comprised in the rubric of social intercourse
is necessarily shallow and unsatisfactory, and so acknowledged
by all whose experience was joined with sufficient mental capa-
city to make a verdict possible. And similarly in stories of
society life, we are apt to. conclude our reading with a general
feeling of dissatisfaction, and that regretful consciousness
usually succeeding dissipation ; for a novel that is worth the
reading necessarily engrosses the reader's attention, draws him
into the action of the story, and engages his sympathy for the
little sayings and doings that make up the life portrayed ;
wherefore in reading the best of society novels we are neces-
sarily thrown into considerable bad company. Still, if we will
dissipate — and most of us will — let us have a society story whole-
some and clean, free from suggestion as well as from coarse-
ness, yclept realism, bright, clever, artistic at need, and here
and there showing some appreciation of things serious, noble,
or deep. Jeanie Drake's book is among this better class of
stories — in parts as entertaining as anything we have read, of
especial interest to New-Yorkers of course, but not purely lo-
cal in flavor. The conversation is bright : the wit good — some-
times very good ; the description, perhaps, a trifle stinted ; the
style occasionally below its usual high standard, or showing

* The Metropolitans. By Jeanie Drake. New York : The Century Company.

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702 Talk about New Books. [Aug.,

in an odd sentence amateurish finger-traces ; the plot interest-
ingly impossible. The denouement we imagined a trifle disap-
pointing; but what would you have when a gilded youth, his
fortune gone, in love with a Stuyvesant Square girl, and in
turn adored by the Hungarian prima donna of his own newly-
written opera, is checkmated by the latter lady visiting her of
the Square? Nothing could be more comforting than what
came about, namely, the hero's departure with an arctic expe-
dition ; but when the prima donna enlisted too, it became
necessary for some one to die if things were ever to straighten
out. We would have liked several characters* painted a little
more minutely — Penrose especially — and various incidents might
have been made more vivid, and therefore more interesting, by
another touch or a change of tone. And the few dim little
references to Katherine's religious feeling had best be left out
or emphasized. We prefer them emphasized ; but, after all, let
us remember it is only a society novel. Well, though we ap-
pear critical, we dissipated over the volume — and, alas ! enjoyed
the same. Try it yourself.

I.— LIFE OF CHRIST.*

The earthly career of our Divine Lord, as it is an inexhausti-
ble topic of meditation, so will never cease to be the inspira-
tion of a special literature all its own. The numerous writings
which have appeared, and still continue to appear in a succes-
sion that will be endless,^ cannot exhaust the capabilities of a
subject fruitful in due proportion to its immense importance
and deep significance. Cover the ground as you may, with
volumes descriptive, historical, meditative, mystical, critical, still
there is opportunity for further contribution on the part of any
man who can express in words what he has learned by close
acquaintance with, and reflection upon, a matter grave, and
vast, and to all men vital. Lives of Christ are not all meant
to be biographies, and the one before us presents an instance of
one not concerned with chronological record and comment upon
the various activities of the God-Man. Indeed, it might be
more properly considered a series of essays upon several signifi-
cant questions connected with the sayings and doings of the
Christ — debates as to the point of view to be taken in study-

* The Life of Christ, By the Rev. J. Duggan. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubncr
& Co. ; New York : Benziger Brothers.

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1897.] Talk about New Books. 703

ing or meditating the lessons conveyed by him in word and
work. The method of the writer is somewhat original, the
reflections serious and worthy of consideration, the possible
fruit spiritual refreshment and wealth to those who are study-
ing the Gospels in order that, by imitating the life and manners
of Christ, they may become like unto him. True, nothing is
more real and more sublime, nothing richer in abundance of
doctrine and spiritual precepts, nothing dearer, nothing more
efficacious than the inspired words of the sacred writers them-
selves ; but for the better understanding thereof we have need,
not only of piety, as k Kempis teaches, but of the light and
instruction to be gained from those of our fellow-men who, by
long study, have come into a position where they can appreci-
ate a special significance in the simple phrase that to the casual
reader has remained unmeaning. Hence the utility of Father
Duggan's work.

And while on the subject it seems appropriate to state our
conviction that even after the many volumes produced in the
last decade there remains a lack in the literature concerned
with the life of our Lord. We have had learned disquisitions
and critical dissertations in abundance — and it is well. But we
know of nothing which quite conforms to our idea of a popu-
lar life of Christ, a book appealing to the rank and file of men,
as being free from fine points of topographical or textual con-
troversy, and aiming to set forth the life of Jesus simply,
clearly, and vividly, in a manner calculated at once to enlight-
en the intelligence and warm the affections of every-day Chris-
tian men and women. In our time, when invention and inge-
nuity are taxed to the utmost to devise means of propagating
knowledge, and great minds are ever busied with methods
of education and aids to study, it seems a pity that the gap
indicated remains yet unfilled. Such a book, if written, would
play its part in the religious instruction and formation of every
Christian family.

Let us state our idea of it still more definitely. The
model life of Christ, to our mind, would contain at once all
the inspired words that record actual sayings or doings of the
Christ, a sensible, careful, and pious commentary upon them by
a writer very devout and very intelligent, and finally, though
not least, a whole picture-gallery illustrative of the life of our
Lord — a series of sketches that would form a complete story
in itself, a pictorial biography appealing to the heart with a

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704 Talk about New Books. [Aug.,

vivid and lasting impression not otherwise possible. Let us
have such a volume, neatly published, well advertised, and
cheaply sold, and our Catholic literature will be the richer
for it.

2.— ABOUT LOURDES.*

Summer Talks about Lourdes is a little volume daintily bound
in blue and gold. Its aim is to advance the honor of Our
Lady of Lourdes by narrating, in a simple yet very entertain-
ing way, some of the most remarkable cures, bodily and spiritual,
wrought at Lourdes. Those who read it and realize the sig-
nificance of the facts related, cannot but feel their confidence
in Mary increased and their desire to invoke her rendered
more ardent. Of interest to many, the volume will be specially
appreciated by those whose privilege it has been to visit the
favored spot, recalling, as it must, some of the soul-stirring
scenes witnessed by every pilgrim to the grotto.

3. — A LONG PROBATION.f

A good, clean, wholesome work of fiction, full of incident,
interesting, and not without its share of artistic strength, is A
Long Probation. The tone is thoroughly Catholic, and the gen-
eral aspect of the story clearly religious ; still, there is none of
that namby-pamby, wishy-washy rhapsodizing too often passed
off as the literary expression of deeply pious emotion. In ad-
dition, the tale has a couple of well-marked characteristics apt
to commend it to the best class of readers ; we mean, first, the
strong, healthy, manly flavor that comes of dealing with rugged,
hearty men or youths,' sound and healthy in mind and limb,
able to box and swim, used to think on serious questions,
morally pure and upright as a cloistered monk could be. Then,
again, there is a pleasant breadth of view, a readiness to see
good wherever it exists, such as would lead one to recognize
merit, even though it implied our '* giving the devil his due."
The opening scenes of the story bring us into a closely-fitted
series of untoward events that hint at some rare mysteries and
promise the gradual working out and revelation of deep secrets

^Summer Talks about Lourdes. By Cecilia Mary Caddell. New York: Benxis^er
Brothers.

t A Long Probation, By Henry Gibbs. London : Burns & Oates ; New York : Benxi-
ger Brothers.

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i897-] Talk about New Books. 705

insoluble to the uninitiated. The foundling, who first appears
before us so suddenly and unaccountably, we follow through
boyhood, youth, and manhood, here and there striking the
loose end of a tangled thread, until, sufficient time and history
having elapsed, he straightens them out and the mystery of
his birth is solved, as the author taught us to foresee it would
be. The book is a long one, let us say a very long one, and
the writer seems to do a good deal of wandering, introducing
scene and character suddenly or profusely, and then making no
great use of either except to entertain the reader — certainly no
undeserving work. True dramatic force peeps out several times
in brief passages, such as in the tragic accident at the acrobatic
performance, and again in Valerie's dive. The over-free use of
foreign words and phrases mars the style, 'we think, and even
the supposed pure English of the author sometimes smacks of
the Continent. That passed, however, the description is good
and not too heavily laid on ; and some of the story, especially
parts of the second book, remind us of Thomas Hughes, and
cause us to wonder if the author might not produce a good,
readable story of the style of our school-boy epic, as free from
plot, aggressive moral, or purposeless description as that im-
mortal biography of Thomas Brown. Read the volume if you
are a quiet soul, and " its perusal may profitably fill a leisure
hour or beguile a weary one," as ran the author's hope.

TOL. LXV.— 45

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i^::ii^Miri

Father Hewit, the Editor-in-Chief of this

igazine, has been called home. For the past

\':y^tir^ year he has been waiting in the outer vestibule—

wailing for the door to be opened to admit him to his reward.

His name has been a household word to the thousands who
have been helped by him. Since the establishment of The
Catholic World .Magazine, thirty-three years ago, scarcely
an issue has appeared without some luminous article from his
pen. No man in America has done more than he to translate
into clear, vigorous English the vital principles of Catholic
theology, and so accurate and comprehensive was his know-
ledge that his very name had become a tower of strength for
orthodoxy. While we cannot grieve over his going, for he had
filled up the measure of his fruitful years and, like an old
veteran, had retired with honor from the arena, yet ihe clear
insight into the truth which he possessed, and the wonderful
fund of theological lore which was his, constituted him a re-
liable adviser as well as a veritable encyclopaedia of erudition,
and in this capacity particularly will the readers of the maga-
zine feel his loss.

Numerous testimonies have come from thoughtful men,
estimating at its real worth Father Hewit's service to religion
during the half-century gone. The hand of the stranger can in
a more impartial way point to his niche in the temple of fame.
When his work is measured, the valuable service which his
presence and counsel rendered to the Catholic University in its
early beginnings, as well as his active promoticn of the higher
studies among the clergy, will not be forgotten. The splendid
work which he did in the Temperance movement will be re-
membered as well.

Father Hewit was a truth-seeker from his youth up. This
passion for the whole truth led him into the church in early
life. His delight of soul and satisfaction of mind in the full
possession of the truth in the Catholic Church were some of
the great joys of his life. His is a splendid instance of what
superb characters the Puritans become when they thoroughly
absorb Catholic doctrine and spirit. He was a typical convert,
thoroughly Catholicized.

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1 897-] Editorial Notes. 707

He was saintly in life, and did not a little to hold aloft the
standards of sacerdotal perfection. He was a zealous apostle
as well as a profound scholar. He has not unfitly been called
the "Newman of America."

While his promotion was to himself a joy and a gain, we

cannot but deplore our loss and deprivation.

♦

The Canadian School Question is now in the hands of the
Holy Father, and we may expect a speedy settlement, accepta-
ble alike to civil as well as ecclesiastical authorities. Monsig-
nor Merry Del Val, in his official letter to Archbishop Lange-
vin and to all the Catholics of Canada, voiced a truism not
always remembered, and which for this reason cannot be re-
peated too often. It is as follows :

** It must be clear to every enlightened Catholic that we
cannot invoke or sustain the authority of the Supreme Pastor
if we disparage the authority of the bishops ; and that, on the
other hand, we weaken episcopal authority if we curtail in any

way the free exercise of the authority of the Head of the Church."

: — ♦

Father Mickle, of Cape Charles, Va., has started a move-
nnent that has met with an abundant share of success. He asks
for current magazipes. His purpose is to send them to the
non-Catholics in his territory. His parish is about 75 miles
long and 50 wide. He has a population of 60,000 people, and
only 250 Catholics. If a«iy one wishes to send his copy of
The Catholic World Magazine after he has read it, send
Father Mickle word, and he will send wrapper addressed and

stamped. Send to Rev. Edward Mickle, Cape Charles, Va.

The higher education of women under Catholic auspices re-
ceives an» impetus by the establishment of Trinity College, un-
der the direction of the Sisters of Notre Dame, on a plot of
ground contiguous to the Catholic University in Washington,
D. C. It is noted, first, that this new college will be a post-
graduate school, accepting only women students who have fin-
ished courses in the academies and high schools of the country ;
second, that in a sense it is semi-officially affiliated with the
University ; third, it offers three courses — a classical course, a
scientific course, and a letters course, all leading up to the de-
gree of Ph.D.

Besides offering unusual advantages to women in the higher
studies, the new college will do not a little to co-ordinate the
iiumerous academies in the country, and afford an opening to
professional life to their brighter students.

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7o8

Authentic Sketches of

[Aug.,

AUTHENTIC SKETCHES OF LIVING CATHOLIC

AUTHORS.

Few among the younger Canadian writers of to-day are
more widely or popularly known than Thomas O'Hagan, poet
and critic. He was born near Toronto, in Ontario, and edu-
cated chiefly at St. Michael's College and the University of
Ottawa, graduating from the latter institution in 1882 with
honors in English, classics, and modern languages.

Mr. O'Hagan has also pursued post-graduate studies in his-
tory, English, and the Romance languages at Syracuse and

Cornell Universities, N. Y., for

which he holds the degree of

doctor of philosophy. While

^f^-^^. ^t ^^ latter institution, in 1893-

g **^^ 94' ^^ ^^^ ^^^ adva^ntage of at-

^^^^ M tending the lectures in litera-

mm^f^ ^ ture of Professor Corson, the

^L^ * eminent Shakespere and Brown-

J^Hfe^ k ing scholar.

^^^^^j" At an early age the subject

of this sketch entered the pro-
fession of teaching, and took an
active interest in the life and
welfare of the Roman Catholic
Separate Schools of Ontario.
Indeed, it is doubtful if any
other Catholic layman in his
native province has done as much
for the upbuilding of the Catholic schools of Ontario as Mn
O'Hagan. He organized the first Provincial Separate School
Teachers' Association and was appointed its first president ; and
out of this very movement which he set on foot has grown near-
ly all the legislation which has made for the betterment of the
Catholic schools of Ontario during the past decade of years.

Nor has Mr. O'Hagan's interest in Catholic education been

confined merely to agitation in its behalf. For several years

he has been offering medals for competition in a number of

the principal Catholic schools and colleges of the province.

From 1884 to 1893 our subject held English and modern

^^^:^

Thomas O'Haoan,
Anthin, Ontario, Can.

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1 897-] Living Catholic Authors. 709

language masterships in a number of the leading Canadian
high schools and collegiate institutes, where his clever and
bright methods of instruction will long be remembered. As an
inspiring teacher and interpreter of English literature it is not
too much to say that Mr, O'Hagan has few equals in the
schools of Ontario.

In the literary field Mr. O'Hagan's pen has been extremely
active. Beginning in his college days, he has been conscien-
tious and constant in his every effort to develop and perfect
his literary gifts. His graduation poem, " Profecturi Salu-
tamus," written in 1882, was of such merit as to win the praise
and admiration of the poet Whittier.

His first volume of poems, A Gate of Flowers^ published in
1887, secured for its author immediately a place among the
most promising of the younger poets of Canada. This volume
has been since translated into French in Paris. In 1893
appeared his second book of poems, In Dreamland^ which
attracted wide attention ; the little lyric, " The Song My
Mother Sings," contained in this volume, being regarded by
so competent a critic as the editor of the Canadian Magazine
as one of the finest poems of the kind ever written in Canada.
It is, too, perhaps worthy of noting here that the quality of Mr.
O'Hagan's poetic work has been such as to attract the atten-
tion and win the commendation of such veterans of the literary
art as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Dudley Warner,
Louis Frechette, Charles G. D. Roberts, and Katharine Tynan
Hinkson.

But it is probably as a critic that Mr. O'Hagan is best
known. His studies in poetry, contributed in the form of
papers to various magazines during the past year, have brought
out prominently his critical taste and judgment ; and it has
been acknowledged on all sides that no finer critiques have come
from a Canadian pen for some years than his able articles on
" Canadian Poets and Poetry" and Tennyson's " Princess," which
have appeared respectively in The Catholic World and
Catholic Reading Circle Review magazines.

As regards the study of literature, Mr. O'Hagan holds that
too much attention is given in our schools and colleges to
technique^ workmanship, and style; that too often the letter is
emphasized and the spirit neglected, and that the moral import
and message of the poet to his times are in many instances
wholly lost sight of. He also attaches great importance to the
voice as a factor in the work of literary interpretation, con-

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7IO Authentic Sketches of [Aug.»

tending and pleading, like his great chief and teacher, Dr. Cor-
son of Cornell, for a wider and more liberal recognition of
vocal culture in the literary courses in our schools and colleges.

As a lecturer and reader Mr. O'Hagan is in wide demand,
possessing as he does many of the graces and gifts that con-
tribute to success upon the lecture and recital platform.

Personally he is a man of sterling integrity and honor; a
hater of sham and humbug in every form ; an intensely patri-
otic Canadian : loyal to his friends and generous to his foes.
Among his fellow-Canadian litterati Mr. O'Hagan is held in
high esteem, and few of the younger writers in Ca,nada enjoy a
wider or more deserving friendship. For years he has pursued
the very highest ideals, believing in the wisdom of Emerson's
advice to young men: ^^ Hitch your wagon to a star T^

Mary Elizabeth Blake. — Wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes on
the appearance of Mary Elizabeth Blake's second volume of
poems. Verses Along the Way : " I find in them the same spon-
taneous and natural expression of lively feeling and sympathies
which I recognized in your earlier volume. You are one of the
birds that must sing.*'

In other words, though special training and conscious effort
are revealed in Mrs. Blake's prose-work, poetry is her birth-
right ; and, clever and interesting though her essays and sketches
of travel are, it is by her poetry that she is most widely known
and loved, and will be longest remembered.

The poems of her earlier years appeared in volume form in
1882, under the simple title Poems. They were followed within
a decade by The Merry Months All and Youth in Twelve Cen^
turies — two collections of children's poems — and Verses Along
the Way. These four volumes, all bearing the imprint of the
fastidious house of Houghton, Mifflin & Company, represent the
author's contributions to the best secular and Catholic publica-
tions : the Boston Gazette^ in the palmy days of P. B. Shillabcr's
editorship ; the Boston Journal^ the Wide-Awake^ St. Nicholas^
The Catholic World, the Independent^ the Pilot, Scribner's,
Lippincotfsy and include also her poems written for special oc-
casions, as the splendid odes at the commemoration, by the
City of Boston, of Wendell Phillips, in 1884, and of Admiral Porr
ter, in 1891 ; and " The Women of the Revolution/' for a
patriotic celebration in Quincy, the home of Abigail Adamsr—
where Mrs. Blake's own girlhood was spent.

It is interesting to note the development of her own nature.

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I897-] Living Catholic Authors. 711

through happy marriage and motherhood, through increasing
religious, intellectual, and social interests, and travel in foreign
lands, as revealed in all Mrs. Blake's literary work, but es-
pecially in her poetry.

Love and death, friendship, sympathy, patriotism, often in-
terchange the harp of this poet's life as the years go by ; and
the listener is thrilled not only by the distinction, but by the
ever-increasing depth, sweetness, and fervor of the melodies
they evoke.

Mrs. Blake's poems of child-life are as good as Eugene
Field's. She is unequalled among the women-poets who have
written for and of children, except by Mrs. Sarah M. B. Piatt.
Her few love-poems are exquisitely tender and reticent.

In her narrative poems — idyls of humble domestic life, in
which she is singularly happy — she often flashes into that
delicate humor which is never very far from pathos, like the
smile and the tear in the eyes of her native Erin ; and, although
she has proved her strength where many women but prove
their weakness — in the treatment of patriotic themes — even here
she is at her best in a poem like " Greeting," where the sub-
jective note prevails.

" A great poem," said John Boyle O'Reilly of this " Greet-
ing," a poem which Goldsmith, or Moore, or Mangan, would
have been proud to call his own.

Mrs. Blake's prose-works include On The Wing^ the record
of a trip to California, which went through six large editions ;
Mexico : Picturesque^ Political^ ProgressivCy written in conjunction
with Mrs. Margaret F. Sullivan, with whom she sojourned for
several months of 1885 ^^ o^^ neighbor Republic ; and A Sum-
mer Holiday in Europe.

Mrs. Blake has since contributed many essays on social and
ethical questions, and bits of travel, to the North American
Reviewy the Ladies' Home Journal^ Lippincotfs^ the Youth's Com-
panion^ Donahoe's, and other magazines, in which her poems
also have appeared.

Her prose style is clear and picturesque ; and, as regards the
technique of her poetry, she is one of the few, like Maurice F.
Egan and Louise Imogen Guiney, who need never blush for
evidences of haste or crudity in their youthful work.

Mrs. Blake has been the president of the Catholic Union .
Reading Club of Boston since its formation, in 1889 ; was one of
the esss^yists at the first session of the Catholic Summer-school
of America ; has read charming papers, now and then, befoi:e

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712 Authentic Sketches of [Aug.,

the convent schools and literary societies in Boston and various
New England cities and towns, as well as in New York and
Chicago ; is a good Latin and French scholar, and especially
strong in the Spanish language and literature.

She comes of the old Celtic family of MacGrath, noted for
its long tradition of scholarship and patriotism. Her iirst
teacher and literary guide was her father, of whom she has
written a most beautiful memoir.

Mary Elizabeth Blake has been for many happy years the
wife of John S. Blake, one of Boston's leading physicians. To
her five stalwart young sons and her one daughter, still a school-
girl, she has been mother, comrade, and chief intellectual aid ;
her unusual culture, wide reading and observation, being first
for them and next for literature.

The intimates of her lovely home, the sharers of her social
life, love the woman even more than they admire the author,
and often pay her this highest compliment that a woman of
letters can receive :

** You might live with her a life-time without once hearing
her exalt her own work, or disparage the work of another."

Miss Mary Josephine Onahan is one of the young writers
of the West, and has much of the dash and originality that
are the birthright of the Western Muse.

Born in Chicago, she received her education in the Convent
of the Sacred Heart in that city and in St. Louis, and her aunt
Is one of the most valued and accomplished members of the
order. This education has been continued in her father's house,
which is lined with books and curios from attic to cellar, and
in whose cozy " den " have gathered many of the history-making
men and women of the day. Here the bright, eager girl has
been the instant friend of every guest from far and near. She
has won them by her ever-ready wit, enthusiasm, and verve ;
she has kept them by the sterling genuineness of her character.

Miss Onahan is a welcome contributor to each and all of
the Chicago daily papers, and a number of her articles have
been copied by the great dailies of New York. She believes
that one of the important duties of American Catholics is to
see that the church is done justice to, her charities, her teach-
ing, her influence in that most tremendous of modem powers,
the columns of the daily press.

She has also done regular editorial work for the Catholic
papers, and articles from her versatile pen have appeared in a

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i897-] Living Catholic Authors. 713

Mary Josephine Onahan.

number of magazines. These articles cover a wide range of
subjects, literary, musical, philanthropic ; but the ones in which
she takes special interest are those telling of efforts for the
practical betterment of the world, for, as one writer says of
her : " * Molly ' Onahan would take more pleasure in the ap-
proving whoop of a lot of * newsies * than in prim congratulations
from all the prelates of a general council."

Her work is the more effective because entirely free from
obtrusive religiosity and air of controversial championship. She
is constitutionally and everlastingly a bright, vivacious, sunshiny
girl whose blue-stockingism is but one side of her character.
She has also written verse, though she seldom owns up to it,
and her papers at the Representative Women's and the Catho-
lic Congress were among the best read.

Of her style Walter Lecky says : " Although the youngest
of Chicago's literary coterie, she is a writer of marked ability.
There is a graceful mingling of strength and delicacy in her
writings. If she will have patience, learn to use the pruning-
hook, her future is assured. The product of Ireland in Ameri-
ca, a Celt in artistic environment — the only environment natural
to a Celt — she points to what the Celt must be before another
century lapses."

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714 WffAT THE Thinkers Say. [Aug.,

WHAT THE THINKERS SAY.

THE LAST DAYS OF FATHER HECKER.

{From Le Phre Hecker^ par le Comte de Ckambrol, in " Le C^rrespondant^')

The French religious papers and magazines have been de-
voting a great deal of space recently to character studies of
Father Hecker. But three weeks ago there appeared from the
press of Lecoflfre, Paris, a translation of Elliott's Life of FaUur
Hecker into French by Count de Chambrol, and already it is in
its second edition. La Quinzainey La Revue du Clergi have printed
long reviews of the book. The French leaders are looking to
America for many of their inspirations, and they find in Father
Hecker the embodiment of ideas which bring them back to the
purity and simplicity of the Gospel teaching.

In Father Hecker's last days there came over him at times
a desolation of spirit which seemed to some, who know not the
ways of God with men, an apparent forsaking by God. All
was dark ■ to him, and he seemed to cry out, Why am I for-
saken? Count de Chambrol tells the story of these days as
follows :

" This period " (that of the Vatican Council) " was the crowning point of
Father Hecker 's career. In Rome he became acquainted with the choice spirits
then thronging thither, and in his letters and journals we find all the names that
are dear to us. For his own part, he was amazed at finding himself well known,
and his humility took the alarm ; but he accepted his notoriety as useful to the
cherished ideas which he expressed more boldly than ever.

'* Thus it seemed as if Providence were putting tools into his hands for a long
and glorious task.. But Providence seldom acts in this way with those whom it
has marked with the strange seal of sanctity.

"In 1 87 1, a year after his return to New York, he was attacked by a terrible
illness, which lasted sixteen years. Combining physical exhaustion with intel-
lectual powerlessness, it slowly reduced this man of action to an inert life ; this
body of iron, which had exaggerated all austerities, to the trifles of the impotent;
this joypus Christian to interior sadness. The noble athlete stood long on the
defensive. Several journeys in Europe, and even in. the Orient, were undertaken
without affording either relief or cure. During these travels Father Hecker saw
again the friends who had remained dear and loyal to him. Not Montalenr.bert,
alas! who had received him so cordially, and' to whom he remained attached until
the end, but Monsignor Mermillod, the Abb6 Dufresne, Madame*" Craven, and
many others who, hearing him talk as ardently as ever of the t>eauties of the
reign of the Holy Spirit in souls, were far from suspecting the spiritual trials of
the speaker.

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1 8970 What the Thinkers Say. 715

" His biographer, Father Elliott, shows us these trials respectfully but with-
out disguise. ;. and, truly, the « religious public in America for whom this recital
was intended must be far advanced in spirituality, public opinion must be pro-
foundly respectful for all that touches the conscience, to permit the author to un-
veil before it this instructive but austere picture.

" One might wonder whether this secret sadness of Father Hecker did not
arise from a doubt concerning his work ; whether, impassioned as he was for the
authority of the church and the initiative of the individual soul, he did not trem-
ble at the difficulty of the problem which consists in developing them simultane-
ously ; whether his mind was not rent with the anguish produced by the oppos-
ing forces which equally attracted him ; whether he did not behold obstacles aris-
ing on every side from the human passions which his confidence in man's innate
rectitude had made him unwilling to contemplate ; whether he did not weaken in
view of a future for the church totally different from that which he had hoped for.
Many an initiator of new ideas has suffered from such tortures.

"Nothing authorizes such a supposition. Neither in his letters, his notes,
nor in his confidences to his friends does it appear that Father Hecker conceived
any doubts of the verities acquired in his youth by such painful labor, and served
with such faithful courage while he retained his vigor. Nor, for that matter, was
there anything in his surroundings which could occasion such an inquietude. He
beheld the American Church growing in strength and wisdom before God and
men, and taking an ever larger place in the bosom of the universal church by the
practice of the very doctrines which he preached ; he saw a vigorous episcopate,
the true ilite of the national clergy, favoring the ideas and the writings of the
Paulists and considering them as precious co-laborers ; he saw his community,
ever zealous, ever animated by his sentiments, even when he could no longer
direct them personally, succeeding in their labors and extending them. A special
work would be required to follow these fearless missionaries of the new method
in their apostolate and their successes among Protestants.

"It must be recognized then : we stand here in presence of a special phe-
nomenon well known in the life of all the great Catholic souls who have ap-
proached sanctity — interior desolation.

" Not the least curious nor least attractive chapter of this book is that in
which this mystic fact appears, stamped with every characteristic of the lives of
the saints of old, in this positive American world, in this free and modern intelli-
gence. And it is well that it ap{>eared there. Hecker happy to the very end,
moving at ease in an unrestricted circle, might, after all, have seemed a free lance
of the church, a Protestant camping out in Catholicity. Nothing of this sort could
be dreaded when he also was signed with the cross ; beyond a doubt he is of the
lineage of the seers, who have always had to pay for their interior lights by
indescribable sufferings. In the middle ages the cross was stamped on the money
of all peoples ; the effigy might be changed, the inscription be written in an un-
known tongue ; the cross was always there to indicate that the coin was good,
the gold in it pure. It is still the cross which is the coin of every Christian work
and thought. And when, on December 22, 1888, Father Hecker died surrounded
by his weeping community ; when this convinced apostle of Catholic submission
and individual initiative saw the end of his sixteen years of misery approaching,
those who had loved and admired him could say with confidence : *' This was an
American, because he always acted ; this was a saint, because he never ceased to
suffer."

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7i6 The Columbian Reading Union. [Aug.,

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

IT will be a surprise to many of our readers to learn that as far back as the year
1855 the Very Rev. Augustine F. Hewit dedicated to Right Rev. John N.
Neumann a small volume, translated from the German, entitled the Life of thi
Princess Bor^hese, eldest daughter of the late Earl of Shrewsbury. The intro-
duction to the work directed attention to the numerous specimens of this kind of
literature in the German language, and expressed the hope that many of them
would be translated to enrich Catholic biography in English, as works of this
lighter class were more likely to do good than heavy and learned works of con-
troversy. Father Hewit placed himself on record strongly against the founder of
the established Church of England in these words, taken from his introduction :

" The picture presented in this biography is for many reasons worthy of an
attentive study. It is most consoling to see, amid the dark scenes of treacher>',
sacrilege, and brutal cruelty, with which the annals of England have been stained
since the time of the modern Nero, Henry VHI., an illustrious family like that of
Shrewsbury preserving, like Ariel amid the hosts of Lucifer, unshaken, unseduced,
unterrified, their loyalty and faith, and love and zeal. They are a connecting link,
we may hope, between the glorious old Catholic England of the past and the
humbled, penitent Catholic England of a future not far distant.

" This noble woman is a model which the Catholic women of America, as
well as those of England and Rome, would do well to study and imitate. The
history of her childhood gives us a glimpse into the interior of a truly Catholic
family ; a family where, in the midst'of rank and wealth, in the heart of a Protest-
ant country, and surrounded by a Protestant aristocracy, the purest principles of
Catholic faith, and the strictest rules of piety, governed and sanctified every-
thing. . . . Who can fail to admire Gwendoline's unswerving attachment to
her faith, and her immovable humility, amid the splendor of courts and the flat-
teries of the world ; and particularly that signal instance in which she displayed
these virtues in a manner so illustrious and so worthy of imitation by rejecting
the hand of a prince of royal blood, simply because he was not a Catholic.

" The splendor of Gwendoline's rank and position casts a peculiar lustre on
her virtues. Virtue is indeed the same in a lowly as in an exalted station. But
human infirmity causes us for the most part to admire this jewel more when it
has a brilliant setting. . . . Her actions present nothing singular, and her
perfection consisted, not in doing uncommon things, but in doing common things
uncommonly well. Only in one respect she seems to rise near the level of a St,
Elizabeth, or. a St. Frances of Rome. That is, in her charity to the poor and suf-
fering. And it is precisely this active charity of the saints, as Father Faber re-
marks, which seems to be most imitable by Catholic women of the present day
who aspire after holiness."

Father Hewit had many friends indebted to him for lucid explanations of
Catholic truth, who knew him only through the printed page. This letter is a
tribute from a woman to whom he was an intellectual benefactor : " It is with a
feeling of deep personal loss that I venture to write my condolences on the death
of Rev. Father Hewit. Though I never met him in life, he was nearer to n»c.

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1 897-] The Columbian Reading Union. 717

and to a large number of Catholics, than friends whose material beings were near
by us. By his soul we knew him, and as we try to express our sympathy with his
immediate family, his dear Paulist Fathers, the loss to all the American Catholics
is impressed on us. I never can see any sorrow in the death of a brave Chris*
tian, excepting in the want the church militant has for good men ; yet selfish
sorrow will creep in as we feel our personal loss."

The Columbian Reading Union department of The Catholic World has
had the advantage of many wise suggestions from Father Hewit. He rejoiced to
see the formation of Reading Circles especially devoted to the wider diffusion of
Catholic literature. His approval was cheerfully given to the plans stated from
time to time in these pages for providing a more liberal supply of the best works
of fiction for young readers. During intervals of rest from more serious occupa-
tions he read with delight every historical novel worthy of note. On his recom-
mendation />/V7;i a;f^/ M^ Sybils "was published in The Catholic World, and
even after reading Ben Hur and Quo Vadis, he still regarded it as one of the
very best specimens of historical fiction produced by any author of the century.

Miss Sara Trainer-Smith, of Philadelphia, has written an estimate based on
long observation of the results that are evidently due to the work of Catholic
Reading Circles. It is here given for that large number who need an impetus
from Philadelphia :

It seems but a short time since we first heard of the Reading Circle
movement, yet it has so developed and taken such a hold on those who
entered into it with spirit that it has become a part of our educational system, and
a most admirable part. The season has arrived for the annual receptions, assem-
blies, etc., of the different circles as a whole, and each year of the four which
have been so marked has shown a steady strengthening, and growing under-
standing, of the object of the Reading Circles. We have undoubtedly a clever
generation of young women now stepping forward into the world's active arena.
They have taken up new lines of study, and have fallen into the habits of stu-
dents far more readily than any one could have anticipated, and there is a change
in them most satisfactory to those who have the opportunity to obser\*e the new
channels of thought, and the new subjects of conversation which are coming more
and more to the fore. In Philadelphia the clergy have been most kind and
patient in the interest they have shown. Not only have they pointed out the
paths of study and research which must be pursued, but they have made the
meetings most interesting by discussion and explanation. There are scores of
young girls in Philadelphia to-day who have been brought from the vague and
formless intuitions of a faith they have accepted as their parents' faith to the
clearer understanding and sincere adherence of an intelligent and appreciative
Catholic, through these Reading Circle meetings. This is of far more importance
than the acquisition of a cultured taste and a nineteenth-century readiness to use
the pen and twist the best English into original and striking " papers." There
has been a great deal of that done, of course, and there has been more than the
usual percentage of really good and sound matter among these papers.

The last winter was less amusing than the winter of 1895-96, but it was as
fruitful of results. Dr. Loughlin has been at his post and as inspiring as ever,
for his learning, his pleasant manner, and his evident earnestness in the matter
are certainly inspiring. To his untiring perseverance we attribute our advance in
this direction, for kind and forbearing as are the other priests, I believe Dr.

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7i8 The Columbian Reading Union. [Aug,,

Loughlin had the most faith in our ability and ambition — the faith which urged
him to give to our young women such a noble chance. They have nobly re-
sponded to his exertions. This year's work closed on the evening of the 27th
of May, when the reception of the Archdiocesan Reading Circle Union to his
Grace Archbishop Ryan was given in Horticultural Hall. The first reception was
held in the hall of Notre Dame Convent four years ago, and there was plenty of
room for the attendance. Horticultural Hall is a vast and beautiful place of
assemblage, and its wider sweep and loftier height is but typical of the growth
m in tally of the circles. Dante is no longer a very misty personage, and his work
a myth to them. Milton has stepped from the mustiest shelf of the bookcase,
and is now a familiar. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspere, even far-away Pieis Plow-
man, are all more than mere names. And in history, church or secular, the girls
now know where to go to find what they do not know or to make sure of what
they do. That a good deal of information was needed in certain quarters I am
sure. I solemnly declare that I heard an Irish-American girl — pretty, well-
dressed, and easy-mannered — ask another girl at a *' Moore evening," in a tone of
utter, innocent ignorance : " Who was Moore, anyway ? I don't know anything
about the old fellow ; do you ? What kind of songs did he write ? " She knew
before the " evening " ended, and she seemed very much pleased, and quite dis-
j^usted with her former state. If I had not heard it myself, I never could have
believed in such ignorance anywhere in the United States. Of the deeper
matters of literature many and many a woman or man may be ignorant and
feel no shame ; but of the heart-songs and home-lyrics of this century, how can it
be possible? Verily, Reading Circles which work at the deeper matters and
make their recreations the lighter and more familiarly genial work of the poets
deserve a warm encomium. ^

Here is a question for some of the publishers: Where can copies be prc-
cured of

Thalia, or Arianism and the Council of Nice, by the Abb6 Bayle, author of
the Pearl of Antioch ;

Cineas, or Rome under Nero, by J. M. Villef ranch i ;

Ti^ranes, a tale of the days of Julian the Apostate, abridged from the Italian
of Rev. J. J. Francho, S.J.;

Simon Peter and Simon Magus, a legend of the early days of Christianity in
Rome, by the Rev. J. J. Francho, S.J. ;

The last Cctsars of Byzantium f

In answer to an inquirer, we would state that, besides the compendium of
Lingard by Burke, a history of England for the young was compiled by the Sis-
• ters of the Holy Child and published by Mr. P. F. Cunningham, of Philadelphia.

Our friends, J. A. M., of New Zealand, and J. A. C, of Arizona, should send
for a sample copy of the Reading Circle Review, published at Youngstown,

Ohio, U. S. A.

* ♦ ♦

Patrons of good literature will be delighted to know that the one thousand
dollar prize story, completed in October, 1894, by Florence Morse Kingsley, of
Staten Island, N. Y., has already reached a sale of 500,000 copies. It is called
'J itus, a Comrade of the Cross, and is sent, postpaid, at five cents a copy by the
David C. Cook Publishing Co., 36 Washington St., Chicago, 111. The book is
furnished in library binding, three hundred pages, finely illustrated, for one dollar.

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1 897-] T^^^ Columbian Reading Union. 719

The perennial falsehood about Luther and the Bible has been again repeated
in print. Rev. A. Henderson, P.S.M., very promptly gathered the facts which are
here presented from the column of Notes and Queries in the New York Sun : The
first German printed Bible issued from the Mentz press about 1462. Another
Version appeared in 1466, two copies of which are still preserved in the Senatorial
Library at Leipsic. In the famous Biblical collection of the King of Wiirtem-
burg, at Stuttgart, there were twenty-seven different editions of the Bible in
German printed before Luther's, besides the two in the library at Leipsic.
Commenting on these facts, the Athenceum of December 22, 1883. observes : *' It
is time we should hear no more of Luther as the first German Bible translator and
of his translation as an independent work from the original Greek." As to the
English versions of the Bible, we have no less an authority than that of Sir
Thomas More for saying that ** the whole Bible was long before Wycliffe's days,
by virtuous and well-learned men, translated into the English tongue, and by
good and godly people, with devotion and soberness, well and reverently read."
Again, on another occasion, he says : " The clergy keep no Bibles from the laity
but such translations as be either not yet approved for good or such as be already
reproved for naught (bad), as Wycliffe's was. For as to the old ones that were
before Wycliffe's days, they remain lawful and be in some folk's hands." I take
these quotations from the work of a Protestant writer, the Rev. E. Cutts, D.D.
{Turning Points of English Church History, pp. 200, 201, published by the
Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge). Other Protestant authori-
ties, as well as Catholic, I could quote to the same effect were it necessary.

Father Henderson's letter is a concise statement of the facts, which, however,
are not set forth in the cyclopaedias. yohnson*s Cyclopcedia alone suggests that
there were earlier translations than those of Wycliffe and Luther. Professor M.
F. Valette declares that there were twenty-two European versions of the Bible,
which had passed through seventy editions, before Luther's version.

M. C. M.

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/■

THE

. . . n r' \ ■ " ' 7

CATHOLIC WORLD.

Vol. LXV.

SEPTEMBER, 1897.

No. 390.

SOCIALISM AND CATHOLICISM.

BY REV. FRANCIS W. HOWARD.

HE spirit of inquiry prevailing in our
day is largely directed to the work of
ascertaining and describing the laws of
physical nature, but the same spirit of
inquiry is directed with increasing test
towards the task of investigating the
laws of social phenomena. The pur-
poses of this inquiry, so far as it is directed towards the laws
of human society, are to understand the actual operation of
social causes, and also the mode in which those laws may be
modified so as to promote social well-being. This study of
social causes, therefore, leads to two distinct classes of theories
in regard to society, namely : those which may be called de-
structive, which describe evils that exist and remedies which
should be applied ; and those which are mainly constructive,
in that they point out the ways in which men must act if they
wish to use the best means to promote the welfare of human
beings living together in civil society.

SOCIALISM VERSUS RELIGION.

The broad difference between socialism and religion, so
far as they both deal with the problem of social welfare, may
be said to consist in this. Socialism sees the evils existing in
society ; the strongest part of its theory is found in its exposi-
tion and bitter denunciation of existing social abuses ; it sees
no hope in the continuance of existing relations, and it has

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722 Socialism AND Qatholicism, [Sept.,

often exhibited in its practical manifestations a tendency to
destroy rather than to construct. The teaching of religion,
however, is that the well-being of society can result only from
the individual and social observation of moral laws ; that where
the law of conscience reigns, social well-being is a natural con-
sequence ; and where unrest and turbulence and social disorder
exist, these conditions are due to the failure on the part of in-
dividuals or of communities to observe the higher laws. Social-
ism would reform society by introducing a perfect industrial
system, by organizing the division of labor and the co-opera-
tion of the various classes in as perfect a way as may be
known to man's intelligence, and it relies solely on the powers
of legislation to effect its purpose. Religion sees something
higher in human society than an ideal distribution of commodi-
ties, and in its efforts to uplift humanity it appeals to con-
science and the sentiments of justice existing in the hearts of
men.

It is well said by an eminent French economist that " the so-
cial problem is before all things a religious and moral problem.
It is not a question of stomachs ; it is quite as much, and more
perhaps, a spiritual question — a question of the soul. Social
reform can only be accomplished by means of moral reform.
In order to raise the life of the people, we must raise the soul
of the people. In order to reform society, we must reform man —
reform the rich, reform the poor, reform the workman and
reform the master, and give back to each of them what is at
present lacking equally in each of them — a Christian spirit " (P.
Leroy Beaulieu, Revue des Deux Mondes^ December, 1891).

THE SOCIAL PROBLEM.

It has become customary to speak of ** the social problem "
of our age, and the phrase as commonly used is an extremely
indefinite one. Nearly every one to-day who thinks about or
discusses matters of social import formulates his theory of them
as a problem of some kind, and the phrase " social problem "
usually means for him his own problem regarding that particu-
lar phase of social activity which has occupied his attention.
Thus the phrase " social problem " sums up many minor prob-
lems. It is evident to reflecting persons that special attention
is directed in our time to the problems connected with the in-
dustrial economy of society, to the problem of wages, the growth
of machinery, the concentration of capital ; and all these prob-
lems are conveniently summed up and denoted by the phrase

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1 897-] Socialism AND Catholicism. 723

in question. To give an exact definition of what is meant by
the social problem would be a difficult task. A definition would
be meaningless to those who have not thought on the subject
for themselves, and for those who have reflected on the prob-
lems of modern society no definition would be sufficiently com-
prehensive.

The social problem may be said to have a political side and
an economic side. On the political side the social problem is
the problem of democracy as we have it in our civilization, and
on the economic side the most important phase of the social
problem is manifested in the great modern movement of social-
ism. These two sides are very intimately related, and no one
can thoroughly grasp the significance of the problem of our age
unless he sees these two movements in their mutual relations.
The theoretical socialists claim that their system is but the con-
sequence of political democracy, and the extension of its princi-
ples to the economic system of society.

THE MOVEMENT OF DEMOCRACY.

The great movement of democracy may be said to be a
movement towards political equality. The struggle for democ-
racy is essentially a struggle for political power. There have
been great extensions of the power of the people during this
century, and once a step in advance has been gained it has not
subsequently been lost. Carlyle has said : " Universal democ-
racy, whatever we may think of it, has declared itself as an in-
evitable fact of the days in which we live ; and he who has
any chance to instruct or lead in his days must begin by ad-
mitting that."

Many have affected surprise at the frankness with which the
movement of democracy has been regarded by the church.
But the leading social principle of Christianity is, that all men
are equal in the sight of God ; and the theory that men should
be equal in the sight of the law, which is the basis of sound
political democracy, is a derivation from the principle of Chris-
tianity. There is also to-day a movement towards equality of
opportunity. Its basis is that man should develop the capacity
originally given to him and should not be thwarted in this
work by the efforts of his fellow-men. There are many influ-
ences tending to bring ^bout this equality of opportunity, and
the existence and public support of popular education seem to
be the tacit recognition that democracy owes, so far as is prac-
ticable, equality of opportunity to all the citizens. Thus far

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724 Socialism and Catholicism. [Sept.,

it may be said that democracy bases its theory on man's rights
as a moral being.

Socialism, as distinct from democracy, is a theory of econo-
mic equality, and it aims at securing perfect equality in the
distribution of material goods. It is not easy to ascertain what
any particular writer means by perfect economic equality. The
more reasonable socialists — such as the eminent Von Ketteler
in Germany, and the " Christian socialists " in England of twenty
years ago — often interpret this equality to mean no more than
equality of opportunity. But there is no sufficient justification
for regarding economic equality, understood in any other sense,
as a consequence of political equality ; for equality of men be-
fore the law has its basis in the moral nature of man, while in
equality in the distribution and possession of material goods
has its primary ethical justification in the original natural in-
equality of the capacities and abilities of men. Socialism is a
movement which, whether for good or for evil, has profoundly
affected modern thought. The church has been brought into
relations with this movement at many points, and the study of
the relations of the church to modern socialism is a study of
great importance. The church finds in this movement many
things to condemn, some to tolerate, and some to approve. To
say, in general, that the church condemns or approves socialism
would not be accurate, except in cases where a particular doc-
trine has been termed socialism and condemned as such. The
term has been made too inclusive, and, as has been pointed
out, over one hundred and fifty definitions of the term have
been given. The movement has of late yeais been modified to
a great extent, but it will continue to be of living interest for
a long time.

Socialism may be regarded in two ways : as a philosophical
theory of society and the end of man, and as a mere theory
regarding the industrial organization of society. The criticism
of socialism, regarded as a system of philosophy, is mainly ethi-
cal, while socialism, as an economic theory, is to be criticised
from the stand-point of economic science.

SOCIALISM WITHOUT RELIGION.

There has been in the past an intimate alliance between the
theory of socialism and materialism.* Socialism is not a mere
theory about the collective control of the means of production.

* By materialism we mean that theory which denies intelligfence in the ruling of the uni-
verse, and ignores Providence.

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1 897-] Socialism AND Catholicism. 725

Socialism, as we find it explained in the writings of its leading
exponents, such as Marx and Engels, assumes that man is but
a chapter of accidents, aad that he subserves part of no higher
purpose in the world. A man is on the earth but a brief period
of time, and his life is an error if he fails to obtain the greatest
quantum of satisfaction for. his desires. It is plain that if a
man gives up his belief in Providence and in the future life,
his conduct will Ae governed by a new set of principles, and
hence a democracy without religion will be dominated by a
passion for material well-being. Here may be pointed out the
difference between the ideal of modern socialism and the so-
cialism of Christian communities, particularly those of early
times. Modern socialism aims at obtaining the greatest amount
of satisfaction for the greatest amount of desire. The religious
communities aimed at the repression of desire. Socialist theo-
ries, also,, are largely based on the utilitarian theory of ethics.
Acts are to be judged by their consequences rather than from
the motives by which they were prompted, and conscience it-
self is regarded as no more than inherited experiences of social
utility. The violent attacks of socialists on the rights of pro-
perty are all based on this assumption. Property is not regarded
as a right which comes from man*s nature as a moral being,
but is regarded as a mere social convention. All rights are sup-
posed to originate from the state, and not merely to be guaran-
teed by the state. This is certainly not an unfair account of
socialism as a philosophical system, as we find it in the writings
of the ablest of the socialists.

Socialism, therefore, is not a mere theory regarding the eco-
nomic organization of society, but it is a theory regarding the
nature of society and the end of man. This is also by far the
most important aspect of the subject, and it is to socialism as
thus understood that the opposition of the church is mainly
directed. A system comes to be characterized from the result-
ing tendency of all its tendencies, and socialism has been in
large part an attempt to substitute a new ideal of human
life for the ideal of religion. To speak of Catholic socialism,
therefore, is an attempt to join two incongruous ideas. With
socialism as above explained there has been and can be no
compromise on the part of the church. The church has higher
business in the world than to teach men to obtain as much
satisfaction as they can. Active socialists often attend only to
their economic programme and overlook their principles ; but the
principles which govern men's actions alone are important, and

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726 Socialism and Ca tholicism. [Sept.,

the church points out and insists that if men start from wrong
principles and seek a reconstruction of society, they would, even
if successful in their immediate aim, find that they had but
grasped Dead Sea fruit.

SOCIALISTS MUST LOOK TO PRINCIPLES.

Leo XIII. has clearly perceived the dangers that come from
a strong movement for material well-being, untess it is governed
by sound principles. The actions of men will not be condu-
cive to social welfare unless they are dominated by the higher
ideals. The pursuit of wealth is but a minor end of human
life. Art, science, and religion are the three highest aims of
human endeavor, and it is only the ideal of religion that can
harmonize and give due proportion to the minor ends of man's
existence. Leo XIII. has pointed out the defects that are
inherent in socialism as a theory of society. But his teaching
is not merely valuable for its criticism, or its merely negative
side. His positive teaching is of the greatest value, and he
demonstrates that the desire for material well-being is perfect-
ly legitimate, and that it is the duty of the leaders of society
to foster and encourage this movement, and that it should be
influenced by the spirit of religion. Material prosperity will be
all the more conducive to social well-being, and to social
cohesion, if men inspired by religious convictions and high
moral ideals lead the way.

But for the most part socialism, as popularly discussed, is
regarded as an economic system. It proposes the perfect
organization of the industrial system of society, and the collec-
tive control of all the means of production. Under the rigime
of socialism the state would be the universal provider and the
sole capitalist. The formation of trusts and the concentration
of capital in few hands are tendencies which are viewed with
apprehension by many, but with favor by the socialists, for they
argue that each step in this direction is an advance towards
the complete realization of the economy proposed by socialism.
It would not be feasible here to enter into any extended ex-
amination of the socialist position, but one or two considera-
tions of importance may be briefly indicated.

In the first place, this movement towards concentration is
confined to certain kinds of industry, and it is by no means as
pronounced a tendency, as a general characteristic of modem
industry, as many are apt to believe. The movement towards
concentration appears in those industries which satisfy the

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1 897-] Socialism AND Catholicism. 727

necessary wants, and involve large investments of fixed capital.
But as civilization progresses men look for higher and newer
kinds of excellence. Life grows more qualitative and refined,
and men demand products which require intelligence rather
than mere mechanical skill. We find that as some industries
become organized others develop, and this is a process which
will continue. This is the movement we call progress. It is
very likely that an inquiry into the facts will show that there
has been no decrease in the total number of establishments in
the larger cities. Mr. Mallock asserts that in London there
has been an increase of eleven per cent, greater than the
increase of population in a period of ten years.

This brings us to the second criticism of the economic
theory of socialism, namely, that socialism exaggerates the im-
portance of the rSle played by commodities in the industrial
activity of society. Economic or exchange goods consist of
commodities and services. As civilization develops, mere com-
modities, or material things in which labor has been embodied,
constitute a relatively smaller proportion of the total exchanges
which take place in society. Exchanges of goods become ex-
changes of services. Higher forms of labor, skill, and ability
develop. This organization of some industries, therefore, only
makes possible a higher specialization in others. Socialism sees
only one part of the changes going on in society, and there is no
reason to believe that all industries will be perfectly organized
and brought under unified control until everybody is exactly
alike in their wants and in their modes of satisfying those
wants.

Socialism as an economic system, therefore, and in so far as
it does not affect the right of property, is very largely a matter
of expediency. That there is a tendency to frame a unified
management and operation in many industries is certain, and
there has also been a parallel movement towards a stricter
state regulation in regard to these industries ; but there does
not seem to be any valid reason to believe that this centraliz-
ing tendency can ever become a general characteristic of all
industry.

To sum up in a word : socialism, as a philosophy, cannot in
any way be reconciled with Catholicism, and socialism, as an
economic system, can hardly be reconciled with the facts of
industrial life and the principles of economic science.

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728 The Humdrum Story OF A Tired Woman. [Sept.,

THE HUMDRUM STORY OF A TIRED WOMAN.

BY MARION AMES TAGGART.

RS. MARJORIBANKS shook her duster out of
the window into the syringa-bush, laden with fra-
grant blossoms. Her house stood back from the
street, and had an asphalt walk dividing its neat
little lawn, a remnant of the days when the
street, instead of being one of solid brick blocks in the middle
of a busy city, had been a street of individual houses in a
peaceful town.

Mrs. Marjoribanks had been left a widow with an only child,
this house, and an income of a little less than a thousand a
year. It required close economy and much sacrifice to live on
.this in a manner suitable to her birth and breeding as a gen-
tlewoman ; but by the exercise of care, by dint of doing her
own housework, and by giving up all thought of her own plea-
sure, Mrs. Marjoribanks had made the sum suffice for the pre-
servation of a home wherein was daintiest refinement, artis-
tic feeling, and plenty of books, if none of the splendor which
a larger income might have allowed.

And now she was sixty, and her daughter past twenty-five;
and Mrs. Marjoribanks was tired.

She gently freed her duster from the syringa-bush with
which it had become entangled, and sighed as she knelt to
wipe the dust from the claw feet of her ol(f-fashioned mahog-
any chairs.

"I'm so tired, Eva," she said suddenly, sinking down on
the floor, " that it seems to me sometimes that I can't go on
another day."

But Miss Marjoribanks did not hear. She was hurrying to
finish a note, and was so used to her mother's saying that she
was tired that the words came to her ears like an old refrain
with very little meaning. She sealed her note and sprang up,
saying: "There, I've told Mrs. Woods that I'd take charge
of buying the candy and decorations for the festival. I think
that is enough for gne person to do."

" You do a great deal, Eva ; I really don't understand how
you have strength for it. I feel that you aren't able to under-
take so much," said her mother.

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1 897-] The Humdrum Story of a Tired Woman. 729

Something of the weariness in her mother's delicate face
and the weakness in her voice struck Eva Marjoribanks with a
passing pang.

" Do you feel ill, mother ? " she ^sked.

" No, only good for nothing," said Mrs. Marjoribanks, rising
and trying to speak cheerfully. " Every morning I feel as
though I could not get through the day, but I always do — after
a fashion. There are a good many steps to be taken, Eva, and
by the time I have gotten breakfast, made the beds, washed
the dishes, and swept and dusted, I feel exhausted. I suppose
I am not growing stronger as I grow older. Are you going
out, dear?"

" Yes, I am going to see that poor woman whom they gave
me to visit at the Associated Charities, and I may run down
to see how Alice is ; the poor thing is so lonely since her baby
died," Miss Marjoribanks answered, going toward the door.
" ril send you home half a dozen of that malt that helped you
last year. You are getting run down. And don't do so much ;
lie down and rest till luncheon."

" Lie down and rest ! " echoed Mrs. Marjoribanks, as her
daughter shut the door. " I wonder what would become of the
house if I left everything undone ? Dear Eva ! " she added,
as her daughter waved her hand to her as she hastened down
the walk, " how useful she is ! and I never did anything for
any one in all my life."

Eva Marjoribanks was indeed a useful person ; both in paro-
chial and private works of charity she was untiring. Her
mother had become a Catholic in her girlhood, and Eva was
born in the church. Her friends pointed out the difference be-
tween the sweet piety of the girl and the lukewarmness of her
mother. Very few days found the daughter absent from Mass,
while Mrs. Marjoribanks was often missing even on Sunday.
She was such a reserved woman that no one knew that she
was too exhausted from Friday's sweeping and Saturday's bak-
ing to take the walk from her own door to the church, and
Eva's lightly uttered, ** Mother is not very well to-day," was
accepted as an effort on the girl's part to conceal her mother's
indifference. No one saw the slow steps, the frequent pauses
for breath on the stairs, the thin face drawn by the pain in
the tortured head, with which Mrs. Marjoribanks went about
her duties on Sunday morning, while Eva went to help in the
choir.

Nor did Eva herself ever realize that if she had not sat so

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730 The Humdrum Story of a Tired Woman. [Sept,,

tenderly and sympathetically reading to poor old blind Betty all
Saturday forenoon, but had taken her mother's place in the
kitchen, her mother could have gone to Mass too. As it was,
Eva felt the unspoken opinion of her friends, and had a latent
suspicion herself that she cared more for the sweet practices of
her faith than did her mother. " After all, there is something
in inheriting faith, I suppose," she said to herself, " and poor
mamma's Protestant blood tells." Mrs. Marjoribanks* inheritance
told, in her reticence in all that related to herself, and not
even her daughter guessed the depth of that piety which sought
no outward expression, but enabled her to lay down every-
thing that would have been for her comfort alone.

No one receives less justice, even from those who love
her, than the woman who is never well, yet is never downright
ill. It becomes so much a matter of course that she should be
unequal to her daily efforts, that no one guesses the martyr-
dom of their constant renewal, and the aching head and weary
flesh become so thoroughly a part of her life that an augmen-
tation of her suffering is not a matter of much concern to any
one. There is an unspoken feeling that though she may be ill,
she never dies, and her frequent little sicknesses attract slight
attention. It is only when her tired body rests at last that those
who watched her daily struggles realize suddenly how great
they were, and feel with a pang that too late they know how
they might have spared her, and did not.

Eva Marjoribanks was not exactly selfish, and was far from
cruel. Her piety was sincere of its kind ; but it was self-cen-
tred, although no one knew it to be so. She would take no
end of trouble to help others. She walked miles to visit the
poor, and was not only gracious and sweetly sympathetic to
the lowly, but ready to listen with untiring interest to the con-
fidences of bores of her own class, and ever willing to help by
advice or labor any one in any sort of difficulty. She melted
into tears at the sight of suffering and moral degradation ; she
recognized the claim on human love and pity of our dumb
" little brothers," and would put herself out to any extent to
relieve a suffering brute. But though her eyes rested on her
mother's worn face many times a day, the mute appeal of her
weakness alone never touched her.

Eva had a class in Sunday-school, sewed for the poor in
the St. Vincent de Paul Society, helped zealously in parish
library work, fairs, and all schemes for increased usefulness and
prosperity. What wonder that so busy a girl had no time for

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i897«] • The Humdrum Story of a tired Woman. 731

household employments, or came home so weary that her
mother often had to bring her tea to her as she sat, and put
away the cloak and hat that she was too tired to hang up?

Miss Marjoribanks hastened down the street on her errands
of mercy. She found the poor woman sullen and distrustful,
and set herself to win her confidence, succeeding so completely
that at the end of half an hour her gentle tact had put her in
possession of the poor creature's story, and she was weeping
softened and hopeful tears, called forth by her visitor's kind-
ness.

** God bless you, miss ! " she said, as Eva rose to go, with
assurances of help and words of comfort. " It's a lighter heart
you've given me the day than I ever thought to have again."

With her steps sped by this blessing, Eva went to see the
friend bereft of her baby. As she sat holding the poor moth-
er's hand, and watching her face with her own eyes filled with
tears, suddenly her friend's head drooped on her shoulder, and
she sobbed out a story that took away Eva's breath with sur-
prise and pity — a story of a mistaken marriage, of a fate hard
to bear.

" I wouldn't tell any one but you, dear Eva," said her
friend, after she had been soothed and strengthened by Eva's
loving counsel and sympathy. "You have such a genius for
helping others that I have told you what I thought never to
have told any one, and you have already made my burden
lighter."

Eva stopped on her way home to report her case at the
Associated Charities, where the board was in session and
welcomed her with warmest cordiality. ** I said if we could
give the case to dear Miss Marjoribanks she would open the
woman's lips," said the vice-president. "No one can resist
her; she is like sunshine wherever she goes."

Eva went home with all this praise warming her heart like
wine, and feeling that it really was deserved. " What a happy
morning this has been for me, that I have been able to con-
sole two suffering hearts ! " she thought, and she walked quick-
ly, humming a gay little tune, rejoicing in the good she had
done, and, though she did not realize it, enjoying still more the
power and admiration it brought her.

She found her mother putting the last touches to the lunch-
table, walking slowly from the kitchen to the dining-room, rest-
ing a hand on the back of the chairs as she passed them as if
needing their support. She looked ill, but Eva did not see it.

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732 The Humdrum Story of a Tired Woman. [Sept.,

''O mammal I've had such a busy forenoon, and I really
have been able to do some good, I think," she cried gaily.
" But Tm thoroughly tired. Would you mind just taking these
things for me?"

Her mother accepted the hat and jacket in silence. When
she returned from the hall she said sadly : '* You are always
doing something for somebody, dear ; I have never done in all
my life what you do- in one week."

" Oh ! well, you are so shy and quiet, perhaps you couldn't
if you tried," said the daughter in a tone of kindly patronage.
" I am not the one to be hidden, and you are not the kind to
go outside yourself."

''I was not always so dull and stupid, Eva," said Mrs.
Marjoribanks. " I think I'm so tired all the time that I could
not talk if I tried."

Eva laughed lightly. " You're not eating any luncheon ;
why is that ? " she said.

" I'm too tired to eat," her mother answered.

" What makes you so tired ? Did you rest after I went
out?" the daughter demanded. Mrs. Marjoribanks shook her
head.

'' Why not, pray ? "

" Why, Eva, how could I ? " her mother asked, half fretfully.
" The tradesmen came for orders, and then came back with the
things. And the iceman came, and I had all the morning work
to finish. I did think that I could rest for half an hour, and
threw myself down on the library couch; but after I had lain
there ten minutes the postman rang, and you know there is no
one else to answer the door. So I got up ; and then I remem-
bered having left the morning milk in the kitchen and I took it
down the cellar, and then it was time to quicken the kitchen
fire and get luncheon."

" Poor mother ! I suppose you'll always go on making
mountains of mole-hills," sighed Eva. "You should rest more."

" Mountains of mole-hills ! The work is to be done ; I don't
invent it ! " cried her mother.

" Well, I'll tell you : you're getting run down, and you need
some little luxuries. I'll order wine for you, and go without
the new dress I was to get ; you know I don't mind one bit,
for I care so little for dress."

" I know, my dear ; but as long as you go about so much
you must be well dressed," said her mother. " It does not
matter about me, because I stay at home ; but it is of consc-

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1897.] The Humdrum Story of a Tired Woman. 733

quencc that you should look well. No, my dear, get the dress ;
but since you are so unselfish toward your poor old mother,
ril asjc you something that I have been dreading to speak of,
and would not mention now if I were not afraid of breaking
down. Fd like to have you give up your table at the fair next
month, and perhaps help me occasionally a little here in the
house. There really is too much for one pair of hands to do,
and I'd be very glad if you thought that you could give me a
lift now and then.*' Eva's face clouded.

" Why, mother, how can I give up the table ? " she cried.
"They depend upon me, and it is absolutely impossible. I'll
help you, if you want me to, but don't forget how busy I am.
And don't get imaginative about yourself. You're not ill ;
there's nothing at all the matter with you, only you're not
strong." Mrs. Marjoribanks smiled, with a strange look in her
eyes.

" I promise not to imagine anything, Eva," she said. ** Can
you tell me how to imagine that I am young and strong?"

But she said no more, and Eva forgot the conversation —
forgot it so completely that after lunch she went away to rest,
and left her mother to take away the luncheon and wash the
dishes. She had a table at the fair, and at the end of the first
week it proved that, though the fair was throughout a super-
lative success, Miss Marjoribanks' table had made the largest
returns.

Eva was very happy, but very tired ; she found that she
could only attend to her wearisome tasks each afternoon and
evening by resting in absolute quiet all the morning. Mrs.
Marjoribanks had never again expressed a desire to have her
daughter give up her charge, and bore her burden silently — a
burden which daily grew so heavy that each night she lay down
wondering if she could resume it in the morning. Eva had
forgotten all about the request so gently made that solitary
time, and was too busy to see the daily failure of her mother*s
feeble strength. She only regretted that her mother was so
little interested in her work that she made no effort to go to
the bazaar to see how tastefully her table was arranged, and
how bright and pretty the whole hall looked.

At the end of the first week Eva came home on Saturday
night, attended by her friends who were engaged in the same
work of charity.

" Good night, my dear," said the lady whose esteem Eva
most coveted, as she left her at the gate of her old-fashioned

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734 The Humdrum Story of a Tired Woman. [Sept.,

home. " Good night, and rest all day to-morrow in preparation
for next week's triumphs ; for of all indefatigable, self-for-
getting, splendid girls you have proved the best through these
long, hard days."

"Oh! I don't think that I have done anything," cried Eva;
" but my body does feel that a little rest would be wel-
come."

A light burned in the library as she ran up the walk, but
her mother did not come to meet her as usual. Letting her-
self in with her key, Eva pushed open the heavy door and
lifted the portiere of the library. Her mother sat before the
fire, a closed book on her knee, her head drooping on one
shoulder. " Poor mother, she got sleepy in the warmth,"
thought Eva, and tip-toed over to her. She laid her hand on
her shoulder, and then the whole room rang with her cry:
" Mamma, mamma, speak to me ! " For the first time in
her twenty-seven years of life her mother was deaf to her
appeal, buc a faint fluttering beneath the finger which she laid
upon her pulse allayed her first fear, for it showed that her
mother was not dead. Eva brought brandy from the closet
and forced it between the white lips, and in a few moments
Mrs. Marjoribanks opened her eyes and looked dully at her
daughter.

" Are you ill, mamma ? Were you faint ? " asked Eva, kneel-
ing by her.

" I think I fainted," her mother murmured. " I'm not ill ;
only exhausted."

" Come upstairs and go to bed," Eva said, gently raising
her.

Mrs. Marjoribanks leaned heavily on her daughter's shoulder.
" I am afraid I can't get there, Eva," she said.

It was nearly an hour before she could get her mother to
her room and at rest for the night.

** I'm not ill, dear ; don't be frightened. I am only tired,"
she said.

In the morning Mrs. Marjoribanks tried to rise, but fell
back half-fainting. Eva was startled as she saw her pale face
when she entered.

"Not rested yet, mamma?" she asked. Her mother's white
lips parted in a smile.

" I shall never be rested again till I sleep for ever," she
said.

Eva sent for the doctor in spite of her mother's protests.

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i897-]' The Humdrum Story of a Tired Woman. 735

" I am not ill ; only tired/' she repeated, " and the doctor can-
not help me while the conditions of my life remain the same."

Eva made beef-tea while she waited for the doctor. She
was not anxious about her mother, because she felt sure that
she was not ill in any way, and she was accustomed to her
being tired. " She is only overdone a little," she thought,
" and will be all right again soon." And she thought regret-
fully of her vacant place in the choir, and planned a slight
change which she would make in her dress to wear at the fair
the following evening.

The doctor looked grave as he stood beside Mrs. Marjori-
banks' bed, holding her thin hand, counting her feeble, irregu-
lar pulse, and listening to her quick, light breathing. He wrote
a prescription, and then another.

" This is to stimulate the heart's action, and this is a tonic,"
he said, handing them to Eva in succession. ** Your mother
must have absolute rest here in bed, and constant nursing,
beef-tea, stimulants, nourishment, all that she can bear."

" Doctor, I must get up to-morrow and go about my du-
ties ! " cried Mrs. Marjoribanks with something like energy.
'' Eva has her table at the fair, and as she did not feel that
she could refuse to take it when I asked her to, she certainly
cannot stay away now that she has assumed the charge."

The doctor looked at Eva with extreme disfavor. "There
is no choice. Miss Marjoribanks will be obliged to exercise
some of her well-known charity toward her mother. We have
had about enough of your vicarious good works anyway, Mrs.
Marjoribanks ; but now there is absolutely no choice. You could
no more go down those stairs than you could walk to Rome for
Vespers in St. Peter's this afternoon. Come here a moment.
Miss Marjoribanks ; I have something to tell you," the doctor
•said as Eva followed him down-stairs, and he led the way into
the library. " You must pardon some very stern but necessary
truths from me. The doctor and the priest have to say dis-
agreeable things very often, and the doctor has this advantage,
that he speaks from his own knowledge and observation, while
the priest has only to judge from what he is told, and even very
well-meaning people are horribly self-deluded. You have been
one of this class for a long time. I am sure that you have
felt that you were playing a saint's part, and your mother is
so silent and unselfish that no one knew that you walked on
her flesh and nerves to your charitable work. I have long seen
that she was killing herself by inches, and wondered at your

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736 The Humdrum Story of a Tired Woman. [Sept.,

blindness, though I had no right to speak until I was called
upon,

'' It is largely her own fault, as it is always the fault of these
self-immolating women who never utter a complaint, but gladly
assume everybody's burdens, that their families are selfishly in-
considerate. I suppose my inward protest has been the only
dissentient voice in the chorus of praise of your zeal and
charity; but I think every work that you have had the credit
of doing was really done by those weary hands upstairs, which
slaved that you might be free to live your life as you would.
And I think that little hidden woman will have all the merit of
every good act of yours, with all the additional glory of her
silent forbearance and the false estimate of her neighbors.
And you, my child, must find all the consolation you can in
the remembrance that you did not realiae what you did, be-
cause of established habit. But your work was vicarious charity,
done by your mother, whose burdens you never dreamed of
lightening while you went abroad to do good. You m^y think
I speak severely, but I see enough in my professional work of
mothers martyring themselves that their children may be free,
and sometimes I think every American daughter has moral
ophthalmia. Your mother can never be well again ; she is so
very ill that I fear she may even never rise again from that
bed."

Eva had listened to the stern yet kind old man in stunned
silence, but at these words she uttered a little moan.

"There is no disease," the doctor continued, "but she is
exhausted, and the fires of her life are nearly burned out for
lack of fuel. Put all thought of outside charities away, and do
your utmost to compensate that lonely, unselfish, sweet woman
for your life-long blindness and neglect.**

Poor Eva did not venture back to her mother*s bedside till
long after the doctor had gone. She needed time to gather to-
gether her bewildered and tortured senses to be able to take
her place as nurse with the cheerfulness necessary to the pa-
tient's welfare.

For days there was no change in Mrs. Marjoribanks ; her
strength had been taxed far beyond its powers, and nothing
could supply that which had gone from her. Through the long
hours in which she sat by the bedside, looking at the thin,
worn face, with her newly aroused vision, Eva wondered how
she could have failed to see the lines of pain coming which
were now so plainly printed there before her eyes. With an

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I897-] The Humdrum Story of a Tired Woman. 737

agony of compunction which, it seemed to her, would drive
her mad« she recalled the thousand and one occasions when
she had taxed her weary mother to serve her, had left her
alone hours and days, busy beyond the chance to rest, while
she went to read to some poor woman who could not need
her as her mother needed her. She remembered the mute
appeals to her mercy and help which she would have seen
if a suffering dog had shown them to her, yet which from her
mother passed unheeded.

" Ah, God ! " she gasped, and the tightening band of pain
around her heart left no breath to add, " be merciful to me a
sinner ! " " Because I never cared for gaiety and dress, because
I found pleasure in works of mercy, I thought that I was good ;
but selfishness is following one's own path at the expense of
another, and what does it matter where it leads ? " thought
poor tortured Eva.

At last Mrs. Marjoribanks rested. The end was so gentle
that Eva, sitting by her, did not know for several minutes that
it had come. The doctor had said that, there was no hope,
and the last Sacraments had been administered on the previous
day. It was as the doctor had said — the fires of her life had
burned out, and the exhausted body could not be raised again
to even a little of its frail strength. Silently, quietly as she
had lived, the gentle woman slipped away to the rest that she
craved. Eva took the worn hands and crossed them on her
breast. Her own were white and fair, and her mother's were
stained and battered that they might be so. She could not
weep, but her body was shaken by her long, gasping sobs.

" I killed you, mamma, by neglect and selfishness ! But I
loved you. O mamma, mamma ! now you can never know how
I loved you. Come back just one moment, mamma, and see it ! "

But her mother smiled, resting at last for ever, and Eva
was alone with memory.

VOL. Lxv.— 47

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Main Altar of St. Peter's.— Entrance to Crypt is by stairway under the
Statue of St. Veronica, at left.

IN THE CRYPT OF ST. PETER'S.

[MONG the many hallowed spots with which eternal
Rome abounds ; among its basilicas and mediaeval
churches, its ruins eloquent of the mighty past,
there is one quiet shrine which stands out against
the background of centuries in bold relief ; strong
in its vivid reality of association, as if eighteen hundred years had
not come and gone since the first Vicar of Christ was laid to
rest in this soil of Rome !

The first thought of the Catholic pilgrim in Rome naturally
turns to the Tomb of St. Peter ; for him the two words, Rome
and Peter, are inseparably connected, and only when he is stand-
ing beneath that Dome of domes which rises so triumphantly
above the Tomb of the Fisherman of Galilee, does he realize
that he is indeed in the Eternal City which has been the object
of his hopes and dreams perhaps for many a year back.

" Tu es Petrus ! " — Thou art Peter. The words seem to ring^
in the ears here with a note of unutterable triumph, as if re-

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1897.] I^ ^'^^ Crypt of St. Peter's. 739

echoing gently down from those golden heights above, where
the solemn words of the calling of St. Peter are blazoned forth
in colossal letters of gold encircling the dome, and forming, as
it were, the epitaph written above this most glorious of sepul-
chres.

We have come to this grand Basilica to-day to see St. Peter
as Prince of the Apostles and Head and Ruler of the Universal
Church ; for here generation after generation have brought
tlieir tribute of love and homage to enrich the hallowed shrine,
and king and emperor, prince and sovereign, have found their
way to St. Peter's feet, while the long line of his successors
vied with each other in raising a monument worthy of the
memory of the great Apostle, and to mark the heart and cen-
tre of Christendom — the abiding place of Christ's Vicar on earth.

A colossal baldachin of peerless bronze-work, supported by
four massive spiral columns, rises over the main altar above
the Apostle's tomb, soaring out into the almost limitless spaces
of the dome above — that wondrous dome which was the migh-
tiest effort of a master-hand, and which always seems a living
embodiment of the triumph and joy of the Resurrection, a
symbol of hope to those below in the shadow of earth.
Through its high windows pour ceaseless floods of golden
light. The first glorious reflections of rosy dawning filter
through those skylit windows, and pick out the gold on the
mosaics ; the radiant splendor of mid-day beats with a burn-
ished lustre on the bronze of the shrine and the exquis-
itely-colored marble pavement, and the last rays of sunset
paint it with martyr's red, lingering there lovingly in rosy
and purple shadows till the moonbeams arise to take their turn
in watching, and change the scene from the radiance of gold
to the pure, cold sheen of silver. Around the shrine, rich with
marbles and precious stones, are the eighty-six lamps of mas-
sive bronze which burn by night and day, and a balustrade and
staircase of inlaid marble-work leads down to the "Confession,"
or tomb, which is guarded by beautiful gates of bronze-gilt
and bronze-gilt statues of SS. Peter and Paul.

But we must not linger by this gorgeous shrine to-day, ad-
miring its matchless beauty, for it is to the twilight depths of
the dim crypt below that we are to turn our steps, and be
privileged to kneel even closer yet beside the hallowed ashes of
St. Peter, and assist at the Holy Sacrifice, offered up by a priest
of our little party of pilgrims, at an altar which possesses as its
relics the bodies of SS. Peter and Paul.

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740 IN^ Tff^ Crypt of St. Peter* s. [Sept.,

In former days in Rome a permission could be obtained
most readily to visit the Crypt of St. Peter's ; but in late years,
when it is necessary to take the greatest precautions, this
privilege has been much more difficult to obtain, and it re-
quires a special permission from the Pope for Mass to be said
there.

Furthermore, this permission (as a rule) is given for only
five persons at a time, besides the priest who says the Mass;
so one can judge it is not altogether easy to obtain it. It had
always been one of the privileges we coveted most in the
Eternal City, this Mass in the crypt of St. Peter's, and there-
fore great was our satisfaction when, on a bright spring morn-
ing, it was announced that through the kindness of Monsignor

V , one of the papal chaplains, the long-wished-for favor

had been granted us.

The Mass was fixed for eight o'clock in the morning ; so
shortly before the time appointed our party were assembled
and waiting under the beautiful statue of St. Veronica holdings
the Veil with the impression of the Holy Face, which is one
of the four colossal statues of saints which stand against the
four piers supporting the dome, and directly under which is
the entrance to the crypt.

A sacristan, two little acolytes, and one or two of the " San-
Pietrini," or special workmen who belong to St. Peter's and who
live up above on the very roof of the sacred edifice, now join
us at the door with a couple of lighted torches ; so we have
not long to wait. Conducted by our guides, we pass in single
file through the low doorway and down the narrow flight of
steps which lead to the crypt. After the strong light above,
the torches scarcely serve to dissipate the dense darkness which
reigns below ; but before long our eyes become accustomed to
the gloom and we are able to discern the objects around us.
It had been arranged that we should make the circuit of the
crypt and see all its places of interest before the Mass begins;
so we first visit the part which is more immediately below the
dome, called the " Grotte Nuove." We are no longer now in
the stately basilica of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ;
no longer in the St. Peter's of the Renaissance, the St. Peter's
of Julius II., of Leo X., of Michel Angelo, of Bramante, and of
all those master-spirits who reared the matchless fabric we gaze
upon in the St. Peter's of to-day; but in the ancient church
with its mediaeval tombs, its old mosaics, and its fragments of
precious marble-work — all that remain to us of the countless

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i897-] I^ ^^^ Crypt of St. Peter's, 741

treasures which adorned the old basilica, and which were
brought here on its destruction when the building of the new
basilica was begun! ...

We found ourselves first in a long and narrow corridor with

Monument of Pius VI.

various chapels opening out of it ; the first of these contain-
ing as an altar-piece a mediaeval painting of the Madonna said
to have been painted by the Sienese artist Simone Memmi,
which once stood in the portico of the old basilica.

There is also a most exquisite marble statue of St. Peter on
a throne, said to be a copy of the famous bronze statue of St.
Peter in the church above ; but even more beautiful in the
pure white marble. The throne on which it is placed, with
the exquisite inlaid marble and mosaic-work, called " Opus
Alexandrinum/* did not originally belong to the statue, but to
the tomb of Benedict XII., another mediaeval monument.

In this chapel there are many precious fragments of statues
and carvings, most of them detached bits from the various
Gothic tombstones of the old basilica; but in the dim light of
the crypt the minute fineness of their handiwork is somewhat

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742 In the Crypt of St. Peter* s. [Sept,,

lost, and one longs for leisure to examine their delicate beauty
and light to appreciate the exquisite designs.

Near this is another chapel, also possessing as an altar-
piece a mediaeval Madonna of the same epoch of art. There
are some beautiful ancient mosaics in this chapel ; one of the
Blessed Virgin said to date as far back as the eighth century,
while another, and a most striking one, is a large figure of our
Saviour between SS. Peter and Paul, with his hand outstretched
in benediction. This mosaic once adorned the tomb of an
emperor, Otho II., which formerly stood in the atrium of the
old basilica. All along the narrow corridors of the '* Grotte
Nuove '* we find many a gem of mediaeval art — statues, bas-
reliefs, and beautiful mosaics, some of these latter almost
colossal in size and representing the heads of the apostles ;
but time forbids us to linger, for before the Mass begins we
have yet to visit the second and more important part of the
crypt proper, called the " Grotte Vecchie," and which is the
burial-place of so many of the sovereign pontiffs.

This crypt is considerable in extent, for it covers an area
of the whole nave of the ancient basilica, which was three
hundred and ninety-five feet in length, only half the size of the
St. Peter's of to-day.

On entering, the darkness seems more impenetrable than
ever, though faint glimmers of light come through the occa-
sional circular iron gratings in the floor of the upper church.
The vaulted roof is so low that one must almost stoop to enter,
and long rows of columns divide the nave into aisles.

All around, far as the eye can reach, stretch dim vistas of
. re-echoing space, where many a sombre tomb and mediaeval
sarcophagus loom out white and ghostly against the massive
walls. It is an impressive and solemn scene, this crypt of the
ages, with its silent company of the mighty dead lying so
peacefully all around us in their sleep of centuries, undisturbed
by the life and joy of worship going on ceaselessly in the
great basilica above them. Pontiff and sovereign, king and
queen, royal exile and royal pilgrim — the great ones of the
earth whose names made history in their time — all alike, " after
life's fitful fever," have found a resting-place here, where no
vain dreams of earthly pomp and ambition can rise to trouble
their quiet rest near the feet of the Prince of the Apostles!

We can find a striking commentary on the vanity of earthly
things as we wander through the crypt of St. Peter's, and
pause to gaze upon the monuments and their inscriptions which

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1897.] IN^ THE Crypt of St. Peter* s. 743

cover all that is mortal of so many potentates ; for even the
mighty monuments they had hoped would last till time should
be no more have been dismantled, and many of their most
beautiful ornamentations detached and scattered by successive
generations, and in the process of removal from the ancient

Monument of the Stuart Princes,

basilica ! Now only one privilege remains to them — a privilege
which at the last they must have valued more than all the
honors this world could have showered upon them — that of
resting under the same roof which shelters the remains of SS.
Peter and Paul.

Pausing to gaze for a moment at an exquisite marble bas-
relief of the Blessed Virgin with the Divine Infant, which was
once part of a mediaeval tomb, and carved by Arnolfo del Cam-
bio, our little sacristan comes to hurry us on with a reproach-
ful air, as if in remonstrance that we should waste so much

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744 J^ THE Crypt of St. Peter's. [Sept.,

valuable time on mere works of art, when there is so much of
historical interest to see further on.

Accordingly we follow him obediently where he leads the
way, down the long corridor lined with tombs, till he pauses
at last before some sepulchral urns with a long inscription
placed above them; then lifts his torch high aloft, so that all
may see to read, and points out silently the inscription record-
ing the last resting-place of the Stuart princes:

Jacobo III.

Magnae Britt : Scott : Franc :

Rex.

Vixit annos LXXVIL Menses VI. Dies XI.

Obit. Kal: Jan: MDCCLXVI.

The "Old Pretender," the "Young Pretender," and the Car-
dinal Duke of York — James III., Charles, Edward, and Henry;
the last scions of the hapless Stuart race> whose beautiful
marble monument is in the church above, lie here in peace at
last. Rome was kind' indeed to these royal exiles, for she gave
them a shelter here in life when all things earthly failed them,
and in death a sepulchre close to the Prince of the Apostles.

" Sic transit gloria mundi ! " is our reflection as we turn
away from the ashes of those whose lives, despite their exalted
station, were one long struggle against the adverse fate which
pursued them even to the confines of eternity. Passing
still more rows of massive sepulchres, where the remains of
many a pope and emperor repose, we come to a halt before
the sarcophagus which once contained the body of the fa-
mous Borgia Pope, Alexander VI. It is a huge stone sarcophagus
with a full-length, recumbent statue of the pontiff upon it, clad
in pontifical vestments ; and we gaze with interest on the
strong, clear-cut features of the man upon whom posterity has
heaped such obloquy — let us hope much of it undeserved and
exaggerated by the bitter hate of enemies and the lapse of
time ! During the pontificate of Pope Sixtus V. and Paul V.
the body of Alexander VI. was removed from its sepulchre in
St. Peter's, and buried first in the Spanish church of St. Giaco-
mo, then transferred to Santa Maria in Monserrato, where it
still rests.

A little further on we see the sarcophagus of a queen and
royal convert, Christina of Sweden, daughter of King Gusta-
vus Adolphus, who died in Rome in the year 1689.

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1897.] I^ THE Crypt of St. Peter's. 745

"The Man upon whom Posterity has heaped such obloquy."

Our sacristan is brimming over with importance now as he
pauses beside an enormous sarcophagus of red granite to say
with the utmost triumph : " li unico Papa Inglese " (the only
English pope), "Break-his-spear." And we recognize that it is the
tomb which we have often looked forward to seeing — that of
Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas Brakespeare), who occupied the Chair
of St. Peter in the twelfth century for five years; being the
only Englishman upon whom this dignity has ever been con-
ferred. We look with particular interest on the colossal granite
tomb which contains the. remains of the only English pope;
and it seems strange to think that one who had been Bishop of
St. Albans, the see of the first English martyr, should in after
years be the first English pontiff and ruler of the Universal
Church.

Still more tombs and more inscriptions arrest our notice as
we pass along, for this ancient crypt is like a page of history
spread out before us wherein we may read the roll-call of names
made famous for all time.

Here are the tombs of the Piccolomini Popes, Pius II. and
Pius III., in beautiful early Christian sarcophagi ; there the

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746 In the Crypt of St. Peter's, [Sept.,

tomb of the learned Pope Nicholas V., who first founded the
splendid Library of the Vatican ; then, further on, Pope Paul 11^
Pope Julius III., Nicholas III., Urban VI., Innocent VII., and
two popes of the sixteenth century, Marcellus II. and Innocent
IX., who reigned respectively only for twenty-five days and
sixty days. Many another sepulchre, with its recumbent figure
wearing the Triple Crown and the Fisherman's Ring, still remains
to claim our interest ; but we cannot delay longer, except for a
passing glimpse of the sarcophagus of the grand old mediaeval
pontiff, Boniface VIII., who was the first successor of St. Peter
to publish the Jubilee, in the year 1300, and whose life was
passed among the stormy scenes which characterized the Italy
of those mediaeval days. Exile, imprisonment, and suffering
were the portion of this mighty pontiff, whose proud heart
and inflexible will bent to no man ; but no trace of the strife
and struggle linger on the serenely tranquil features of Pope
Boniface, whose full-length figure, sculptured by Amolfo del
Cambio, lies so peacefully over his tomb. Only the everlast-
ing calm of centuries dwells on the proudly chiselled features
and the folded hands with the Fisherman's Ring, and we feel
as we gaze on the sculptured semblance of the aged pontiff,
that after his troubles " it is well with him," and bis rest is
indeed blessed near the tomb of St. Peter, where "beyond
these voices there is peace." Another remarkable sarcophagus
of almost colossal dimensions is that of the Emperor Otho
II., which stood in the grand portico of old St. Peter's, and
which is more like a monument of ancient Egyptian workman-
ship than the graceful marble-work of the middle ages to which
we have become accustomed.

Now our round of the monuments of the " Grotte Vecchie "
is completed, and we turn to leave reluctantly ; feeling that if
it were possible one could linger long amid these relics of the
past, reading the life-histories of those who lie buried below,
and whose portraits are graven for eternity upon the lasting
stone.

Once again we find ourselves in the corridors of the
" Grotte Nuove " which lead directly to the shrine of St.
Peter ; and here again are more fragments of mediaeval carvings
and bas-reliefs, exquisitely beautiful works of art, and many of
them from the skilled hands of the great Florentine sculptors,
Arnolfo del Cambio and Mino da Fiesole, whose beautiful
carvings are such a feature in the churches of their birth-place —
the old-world city on the banks of the Arno. But sculptor and

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1 897-] In the Crypt of St. Peter's. 747

artist alike have no more power to claim the attention upon
the portals of the tomb of Peter, that hallowed spot to which
the hearts of pilgrims from many lands have turned so lovingly
throughout the centuries !

We can hardly realize or appreciate the beauty of the bas-

General View of the Crypt.

reliefs of the martyrdoms of SS. Peter and Paul which guard*
the sides of the entrance, nor the intricately lovely work on
the ancient marble sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, prefect of
Rome, which stands directly opposite the doorway ; for one's
eyes are riveted on the quiet shrine beyond, where the soft
glow of many lights sheds a radiance on the inlaid marble
walls and the bronze-gilt bas-reliefs which adorn it. . . .
After the gloom of the crypt the interior of the shrine seems
a blaze of light ; from the candles on the altar to the antique
bronze chandeliers which hang at intervals from the roof, and
in brackets from the walls.

The chapel is of small dimensions, having room for hardly
more than a dozen persons, and it is in the form of a cross ;
one of the two sides forming the arms of the cross being used
as a sacristy, where the priest vests for the Holy Sacrifice.

The altar under which the precious relics rest is simplicity
itself ; simple as the altar of the Church of the Catacombs,
with a colored marble casing outside, on which the keys of
Peter, the reversed cross, and the triple crown are represented.
Immediately above the altar is a life-like mosaic picture, repre-

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748 In the Crypt of St. Peter's. [Sept.,

senting SS. Peter and Paul, and said to be of most ancient
workmanship, and all around the walls are a series of medallion
bas-reliefs, showing the different scenes in the life of St. Peter.

As we kneel in this quiet spot waiting for the Mass to
begin, its history, traditions, and associations seem present so
vividly before us that we can almost see them and live in their
time. We recall how, after his martyrdom, the body of St.
Peter was buried here in the Circus of Nero — ^in that soil
hallowed by the blood of so many martyrs ; and in a spot near
the centre of the Circus which tradition has it '' Inter duas
Metas." Here also, according to the " Liber Pontificalis," St.
Anacletus, one of the first successors of St. Peter and ordained
by St. Peter himself, erected an oratory in A. D. 90 over the
tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, where in due time he him-
self was buried, as well as several other pontiffs who succeeded
him.

But later comes a darker side to the picture, in the times of
persecution and barbaric invasion, when, to prevent their dese-
cration, the bodies of both SS. Peter and Paul were removed
from their plages of sepulture and placed in the burial-places
of the early Christians on the Appian Way, now called the
"Catacombs of St. Sebastian."

A brighter scene follows this when peace came once more
to the infant church with the reign of Constantine, and we see
the great emperor carrying with his own hands twelve loads of
earth, in honor of the Twelve Apostles, to begin the foundations
of the Basilica of St. Peter's ! Afterwards Constantine enclosed
the relics of St. Peter in a magnificent bronze sarcophagus,
with all possible pomp and splendor, and in which it still lies.

Innumerable have been the discussions and controversies of
archaeologists over the exact and precise spot of St. Peter's first
sepulture ; but sufficient for us that it all took place here
within the radius of these walls ; that here St. Peter died and
here his hallowed relics were laid to rest, thereafter to make
the whole site of the Circus of Nero sacred for all time.

Now the preparations for Mass are complete, and the priest,
clad in his vestments of glorious martyr's red, emerges from the
sacristy and begins the Votive Mass of the Apostles, which, ac-
cording to the Rubric, is the only Mass allowed to be used at the
tomb of St. Peter, no matter what the feast. It is a most im-
pressive scene — this shrine in the depths of the earth, where the
solemn stillness that reigns is broken only by the low voice of
the priest at the altar; and a host of hallowed memories of

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1 897-] I^ THE Crypt of St. Peter's. 7^g

Bas-relief representing the Martyrdom of St. Peter.

the great apostle seem to linger about his last earthly resting-
place.

As the Mass proceeds, and we hear repeated the words of
the Gospel, of St. Peter walking on the water to meet his
blessed Master in fear and trembling, with the cry for help on
his lips of " Lord, save me, or I perish " ; and realize that the
solemn words are being pronounced over the very tomb of the
Apostle who spoke them, our minds go back to that sunlit day
on the shores of Genesareth, and in spirit we are far away
among the fair green Galilean hillsides, where the humble
fisherman first listened to the Master's call.

We are with him in all the varied scenes of his life, through
his many trials and vicissitudes, and we feel our hearts beat in
intense sympathy with one so chosen of his Lord ; so near us —
that great Prince of the Apostles — in the pitifully human weak-
ness of his denial of his Master, so touching in the humility
of his contrition, and so lion-hearted in his apostolic mission
and the glorious confession of faith which ended it ! We fol-
low him even to that closing scene in Rome, here to the Cir-
cus of Nero, where he suffered his cruel [martyrdom on the

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7SO In the Crypt of St. Peter's. [Sept.,

spot on which this grand basilica now stands^ and where we
love to think that the last sigh of that great, generous heart on
earth turned to the Master he had loved so faithfully in his
supreme act of faith and love, which on the confines of eter-
nity he could breathe out with love and confidence : " Lord, thou
knowest all things, and thou knowest that I love thee."

It is indeed a privilege for us to have knelt in this spot
to-day, close beside the Rock of Peter, the very tomb and
resting-place of the apostles ; and a deep awe and wonder seems
to rest upon the spirit here, as one realizes the inspired words
of St. Ambrose : " Where Peter is, there is the Church ; and
where the Church is, there is no death, but life eternal '* !

At last the Mass is at an end, and the Holy Sacrifice has
been offered up once more over the Rock itself, upon the relics
of Christ's first Vicar. The celebrant and acolytes have turned
from the altar, and one by one the lights are extinguished,
leaving the quiet shrine once more to the twilight peace which
ever lingers around it.

As we stand on the threshold and take one last look back
at St. Peter's tomb, we feel that our visit to the crypt seems
to have strengthened our loyal adherence to the See of Peter;
and at the shrine of the first Pontiff our thoughts turn natur-
ally to his living successor, and we breathe a prayer that the
Keeper of the Keys may watch over and guard his representa-
tive on earth, living so near, in the mighty shadow of St. Peter's
Dome, white indeed with the weight of years, but vigorous and
strong still in his mental power and loyal service of his Master:
" Lumen in coelo " now, as he was when the Ring of the Fisher-
man was placed upon his finger nearly twenty years ago!

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1 897-] A Citizen of the Democracy of Liter a ture. 75 1
A CITIZEN OF THE DEMOCRACY OF LITERATURE.

BY RICHARD E. CONNELL.

HE world of literature." How often we hear
the phrase ! What does it mean ? Is there a
world in which belongs all that we under-
stand by the comprehensive word literature ?
Then what sort of a world is it? By what
law, what power, what system, what influences is it regulated?
Is it controlled, or is it controllable ? Is it a despotism ? is it
an autocracy ? is it a monarchy ? or is it a democracy ? It is
certainly not a despotism ; for if it were, how could an obscure
play-actor at Avon or a lowly plough-boy at Ayr gain so many
of its honors? or how could a rake and a wanderer, with his
Raven, his Bells, and his Annabell Lee, come and sit in one
of its proudest places ? It is not an autocracy. If it were, a
penniless exile, an escaped prisoner from a penal colony, could
never have died mourned by the cultured city of Boston, loved
and cherished in book and in memory by millions for his liter-
ary work, as did John Boyle O'Reilly.

At the risk of being termed careless as to scientific details
regarding this world of literature, and with the certainty of be-
ing more or less unsuccessful in the application of a system of
government thereto, let me call it a democracy. More than
that, I believe it to be the broadest, the most patient, the most
charitable, the most tolerant, the. freest, and the most interest-
ing democracy of which we have any knowledge. If it were
not immeasurable in breadth, how could it give opportunity
for winning distinction to minds of every race and to men
and women of every land?

If it were not patient beyond comprehension, how could it
go on for ever excusing the dull, the stupid, the dreary work
of so many seekers for place within its realm ? That it is a
charitable democracy, is very clear. If this were not so, how
could the sceptic, in his hopeless task of trying to measure the
infinite by the finite, win fame and fortune in a work which
succeeds in its professed aim of disproving all that satisfies the
soul, much as the boy succeeds who attempts to let light
through a mountain by throwing snow-balls at the rock? H
this democracy of literature were not charitable, how could

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752 A Citizen of the Democracy of Lit era ture. [Sept.,

the man who suddenly discovers that the citadels from which
have blazed the light by which countless millions of souls
have been guided through the ages to peace and rest are, after
all, but the towers of superstition in which flicker danger-sig-
nals or the will-o'-the-wisp's confusing lamp, leap to wealth,
fame, position, and respect in the democracy of literature? In
our political democracy a writer may attack nearly everything
and everybody. But there are limits to this freedom. If he
attacks the true, the good, the established, and that which is
proved and approved in government, he wins no laurels, no fame,
no wealth ; obscurity and failure are for him, be his attainments
those of an Arnold, a Burr, a Calhoun, or a Davis.

But in the democracy of literature, how different! A man
may reason Genesis into obscurity to his own satisfaction, and
leave it there, an exploded tale, an absurd narrative, and then
worry himself into •insomnia over the foolishness of people who
believe such things. Then he may saunter about among the
remaining books of the Old Testament, pick out such things
as suit him, believe them all or riddle them all, according to
his capacity for literary toil, and all the time push himself for-
ward and onward up the hillside of literary success. If he
finds a few gleams of reason in St. Paul, and admits it, he
will find remunerative work for his pen for months thereafter
in proving that Paul was not inspired, that a man may be
reasonable even as Paul was reasonable, that a man may live
in literature even as Paul lives in literature, without being in-
spired ; and that all this talk about divine inspiration is non-
sense. He may accept Mark, agree with Matthew, doubt Luke,
quarrel with John, and throw them all overboard ; edit the Ser-
mon on the Mount, and quit talking about the Wise Men. And
as he writes and reasons, then ponders, knits his brow and writes
again, he hears the demand for his literature come from far and
near. He is famous, he has won his way to the top in the
democracy of literature by attacking the moorings, the hawsers,
and the anchors of all the literature that has most served and
blessed the world.

The most striking feature of this democracy of literature is
its great freedom, and the countless avenues to fame and suc-
cess, industry and thrift which it affords. In glancing, for in-
stance, through the magazine literature of the day, we find that,
having settled it that Bacon wrote Shakspere, an investigator
is now on the verge of dipsomania, driven thereto by his labors
in proving that Schiller wrote the works of Goethe, and hopes
to prove it before the tremens set in. Yet sober people read his

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writings! If this goes on, I expect to read some day that Napo-
leon Bonaparte was an Englishman, and that he would never have
been whipped had he not been so foolhardy as to tackle a Celt
in the Duke of Wellington. Talk about a tolerant, charitable
world ! Why, in this democracy of literature, a young woman
of good family may write a mind-polluting, immodest, and
sin-fostering novel, become famous, rich, haughty, and suc-
cessful through it, and afterwards soar from the humdrum so-
ciety of an American husband to marry a count. Her novels
still find a lucrative market. In such cases one does not know
which to blame, the novelist or others. I am inclined, from
this distance, to blame the novelist and pity the others.

Talk about a world in which to venture on perilous under-
takings with impunity and success ! A man toils long and
assiduously, his hair grows gray and his face wrinkled. It is
plain that he has been thinking, thinking, thinking. The next
we hear of him, he sends forth a novel low in its conception,
licentious in its meaning, corrupting in its associations and its
characters, in its lines and between its lines. . But millions read
it, and the fame and the fortune which one such novel brought
to its author are said to have killed him. Just how much moral
disease and character-death the novel caused nobody knows, for
no vital statistics are kept in this democracy of literature. In-
deed, if we were to observe the results of bad novels, especially
in our day, I am sure we should look in vain for the author
of one who has become poor, or who has been repudiated and
refused admission to so-called society, so-called literary circles,
or who has not made a fortune by his labors. I do not mean
by this that the badness which the bad novel parades, suggests,
and scatters far and wide, necessarily weakens or poisons hu-
manity, or results in hopelessly tainting our world. In our
political democracy we cherish the freedom of the press, not
alone because we wish to see sound governmental doctrines
published, not altogether because we want patriots and states-
men to have full access to publicity for all the good sfnd in-
spiring things which they may do. The fact is, that the very
best work of a free press is its publication of the erroneous,
the fanciful, the vicious, the adroit, the dangerous views and
schemings of mistaken or bad meaning people, because in a
democracy the public tribunal before which the spurious so
surely fails is quickest and easiest reached by means of a free
press. The best way to destroy the baneful influence of a
knave or a dreamer in public life is to publish what he says
and all that he says. And so it may be with a bad novel. At

VOL. LXV.— 48

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754 A Citizen of the Democracy of Liter a ture. [Sept.,

least, let us hope that it is so with bad literature in general;
for here we are in the whirl and grind of a literary democracy,
in which suppression is not to be thought of, and in which the
boycott has fallen (to quote a democrat of more or less lite-
rary fame) into " innocuous desuetude."

We sometimes hear unthinking people express fear that the
gospel of unbelief is rapidly gaining ground in the world. But
I hold that we ought to be glad that the literary world is so
democratic as to give space and hearing to the writings of men
who would rather worry themselves gray and sink into intel-
lectual melancholia, or scientific blues, over the problem of
creation, than to admit that stars are wonderfully and myste-
riously made, or that it is somehow very remarkable how
tenaciously stick in our minds, no matter how much we seek
to forget or evade them, the words " The fool saith in his
heart there is no God."

Take our industrious friend, Professor Goldwin Smith ! I
am sure none of us would have prevented, if we could, the
publication of his latest work (at least I believe it is his latest,
although he is likely to destroy the Prophets and deny the
Flood at any minute, and in some new way). The work to
which I refer is entitled Guesses at the Riddle of Existence^ and
other Essays on Kindred Subjects, The other essays are "The
Church and the Old Testament " (wonderful how the rain-drops
of scepticism have found this rock the one exception to the
rule, " Constant dropping wears a hole in the stone " !) and " Is
there another Life?"

Just what was in the professor's mind when he wrote this
essay is more of a riddle to me than is the question itself. His
written conclusions, however, would seem to be rather in favor
of the existence of another life, and to express a hope that he
may have some existence there. Of course, the truly demo-
cratic mind will not blame an expounder of the gospel of un-
belief for preserving an after existence, and saving eternity from
being smashed into smithereens, if he can.

" You will be greatly fooled," said a sceptic to a saint, " if,
when you die, you find that there is no hell at all."

** Yes ; and you will be fooled still worse," said the saint,
" if, when you die, you find there is a hell in full blast."

So broad is this democracy of literature that, after we have
read the fluent chapters of a Goldwin Smith, we can turn to a
Cardinal Newman, who, with his superb mind, looked science
and history squarely in the face and remained a firm believer
in revealed religion ! Before leaving Professor Smith, I want

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to point out that, in spite of the fact that he gives up Genesis,
denies the Fall, the Redemption, and the Incarnation, and
argues against Abraham, Moses, and all the Christian fathers,
he admits in the end that morality could scarcely exist in this
world without belief in God. Of course he insists upon a God
without miracles. Nothing must be done which he does not
understand. To which harmless contention men are entitled
and welcome in this democracy of literature.

This world of literature is puzzling, to be sure ! Here comes
a writer who delights his readers as he tells how love blesses
the world.

" Does it ? " snaps out another. " I deny the statement.
Hate does more in this direction than love does. For instance.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was the result of Harriet Beecher Stowe's
hatred of slavery."

"No," retorts the other, "it was the result of her love for
freedom."

But there is much in it all. Hatred of error prompts the
search for truth. The best work done for temperance proceeds
from a sincere hatred of intemperance, rather than from a love
of sobriety. If we could plant the seeds of genuine hatred for
bad literature in the minds of our generation, how much less
would be the danger from its circulation. A thorough hatred
of intellectual sloth ; a complete hatred of the subtle reasoning
which would rob the half-educated minds of weak human na-
ture of hope and faith, and leave them dependent upon their
own poor selves ; a hatred of every book, every essay, every
pamphlet, every tract which would substitute chaos for peace,
and doubt for belief in the good, the pure, and the helpful —
such hatred now saves and must continue to save the world of
literature from the evil consequences of its unbridled democracy.
The ambition to rise in this democracy results in some of
the richest of humor. In a recent number of the Atlantic
a writer, who seems to have had access to the essays of sever-
al students in the schools of Boston, tells us of one bidder for
literary fame who sagely wrote that Mrs. Browning was "spiri-
tual" and "atmospheric," that Browning's plays were "very
interesting and ought to be dramatized," and that Meredith
was " deep on the outside " ; of another who declared that
Chaucer had absolutely no contemporaries ; of yet another who
referred to Wordsworth's ode as the " Ode on the Intimations
of Immorality felt in Childhood." One of these Boston students
spoke of Washington as " First in war, then in peace, and last
in the hearts of his countrymen." There was a serious writer

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among the number, and he wrote profoundly: " De Quincey's
mother was a stately woman moving in the best society, but
with her feet on the rock of ages '* ; then, taking a whack at
history, this coming novelist remarked that " King Charles did
not realize that anything important had happened until he was
executed." Now, the writers of these bulls never hoped to be
discussed throughout Christendom ; but, you see, so generous is
this democracy that even such trash finds ready sale and wide-
spread publicity in the magazines of to-day.

This world of literature is one great democracy in which
success is free to all who can win it. Genius and industry are
the passports to its most enduring honors. I have mentioned
John Boyle O'Reilly. His history is a striking exemplification
of that democracy of literature which I am trying to describe.
It is said of Beaconsfield that he began as a novelist who dab-
bled in statesmanship, and ended as a statesman who dabbled
in novels, in which rdle he is no less interesting than he is in
his other historic rSle^ the successful Jew in the politics of
England ; and through it all is a conspicuous figure in the
literature of the world.

Of John Boyle O'Reilly it may be said that he began as a
youthful rebel, sowing the seed of republicanism in the British
army, and ended a fugitive exile, an escaped prisoner from a
penal colony, whose literary work attracted the attention of
the whole world and won for him distinction in the New Eng-
land of Holmes, Longfellow, and Emerson. O'Reilly, who was
born in Ireland in 1844, was arrested for high treason in 1866,
in his twenty-second year. He had enlisted in the crack regi-
ment of the English army, Tenth Hussars (Prince of Wales's
own), and was detected in spreading democratic doctrines among
his fellow-soldiers. He was sentenced to death ; but his sen-
tence was commuted to imprisonment for life ; and later to twenty
years in the penal colony of Australia. This was in 1867; but
prior to that he, in his convict's garb in Chatham prison, formed a
party of fellow-prisoners who buried decently the bleaching bones
of some American prisoners who had died there half a century
before, and whose remains had been rooted from their shallow
graves by the prison swine. He escaped from Australia, and,
like many another penniless but hopeful one of his race, made
his way to the United States, landing in Philadelphia in Novem-
ber, 1869. Nobody knew him. He .was twenty-five years old.

There is a romance, a tale of adventure, a story of industry
in this life which is worthy indeed of a place in literature. He
had been trained for no profession save the setting of type,

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but had done some reportorial work on London newspapers.
He turned to the world of literature. He did not knock. He
plunged in. And in this free democracy nobody questioned his
right. His genius was his fortune. He worked for a small
salary until 1873, when he published his first volume of poems,
Songs of the Southern Seas. On reading these delightful poems,
it is not probable that anybody asked or cared whether the
author was a prince or an exiled stranger. Then he published
Moondyney a novel of strange interest ; In Bohemia, Statues in
the Block and other Poems, Stories and Sketches, and hundreds
of random verses and poems which live because of the strength
of thought and originality which mark them. When Wendell
Phillips died O'Reilly wrote these verses :

"What shall we mourn? For the prostrate tree that sheltered

the green young wood?
For the fallen cliff that fronted the sea, and guarded the fields

from the flood?
For the eagle that died in the tempest, afar from its eyrie's

brood ?
Nay, not for these shall we weep ; for the silver cord must be

worn,
And the golden fillet shrink back at last, and the dust to its

earth return,
And tears are never for those who die with their face to the

duty done ;
But we mourn for the fledgelings left on the waste, and the

fields where the wild waves run.

" Come, brothers, here to the burial ; but weep not, rather re-
joice.

For his fearless life and his fearless death ; for his true, un-
equalled voice.

Like a silver trumpet sounding the note of human right ;

For his brave heart always ready to enter the weak one's fight ;

For his soul unmoved by the mob's wild shout or the social
sneer's disgrace ;

For his free-born spirit that drew no line between class and
creed and race.

Come, workers, here was a teacher, and the lesson he taught
was good ;

There are no classes or races, but one human brotherhood."

Could democracy ask for any better picture for itself than
that of this refugee, this seeker for freedom, blessing the
memory of a Wendell Phillips with such a literary gem ?

O'Reilly's " Fredericksburgh " is not only one of the best-
known poems of our Civil War, but, it seems to me, one of
the most meritorious. Read the opening verses:

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758 A Citizen of the Democracy of Literature. [Sept.,

" God send us peace, and keep red strife away ;
But should it come, God send us men and steel !
The land is dead that dare not face the day
When foreign danger threats the common weal.

" Call back that morning, with its lurid light.

When through our land the awful war-bell tolled ;
When lips were mute, and women's faces white
As the pale cloud that out from Sumter rolled.

" Call back that morn : an instant all were dumb,
As if the shot had struck the Nation's life ;
Then cleared the smoke, and rolled the calling drum,
And men streamed in to meet the coming strife.

" They closed the ledger and they stilled the loom.
The plough left rusting in the prairie farm ;
They saw but * Union ' in the gathering gloom ;
The tearless women helped the men to arm ;

*' Brigades from towns — each village sent its band :
German and Irish — every race andifaith;
There was no question then of native land,
But — love the Flag and follow it to death ! "

In these lines is expressed sufficient of the true spirit of
democracy to sanctify the whole world of literature to which
the poem belongs :

"A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE.

" There once was a pirate, greedy and bold.
Who ravaged for gain, and saved the spoils ;
Till his coffers were bursting with blood-stained gold,
And millions of captives bore his toils.

** Then fear took hold of him, and he cried :

* I have gathered enough ; now war should cease ! '
And he sent out messengers far and wide,

To the strong ones only, to ask for peace.

"<We are Christian brethren!' thus he spake;

* Let us seal a contract, never to fight !
Except against rebels who dare to break

The bonds we have made by the victor's right.'

" And the strong ones listen ; and some applaud
The kindly offer and righteous word ;
With never a dream of deceit or fraud.

They would spike the cannon and break the sword.

" But others, their elders, listen and smile
At the sudden convert's unctuous style.
They watch for the peacemaker's change of way;
While his war-forges roar by night and by day.
Even now, while his godly messengers speak,
His guns are aflame on his enemies weak.

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He has stolen the blade from the hand of his foe,
And he strikes the unarmed a merciless blow.

" To the ends of the earth his oppression runs ;
The rebels are blown from the mouths of his guns.
His war tax devours his subjects' food ;
He taxes their evil and taxes their good ;
He taxes their salt till he rots their blood.

" He leaps on the friendless as on a prey,
And slinks, tail down, from the strong one away.
The Pharisee's cant goes up for peace ;
But the cries of his victims never cease.
The stifled voices of brave men rise
From a thousand cells ; while his rascal spies
Are spending their blood-money fast and free.
And this is the Christian to oversee
A world of evil ! a saint to preach !
A holy well-doer come to teach !
A prophet to tell us war should cease !
A pious example of Christian peace ! "

When O'Reilly died, men of letters and men of state, the
rich and the poor, the culture and the poverty of Boston
gathered at his funeral. I said to myself : " In our social demo-
cracy, presidents may develop from rail-splitters, great military
chieftains from unpromising youths. In our literary democracy,
the exile, the friendless, the penniless may die famed and honor-
ed." O'Reilly died August fo, 1890. A leading American journal
said of him whose genius Horace Greeley had first recognized :

"The death of John Boyle O'Reilly in the prime of his
powers is more than a great loss to literature and journalism ;
it takes away one of the manliest and most engaging figures of
the time, a man of rich physical and intellectual gifts and of a
singular perspnal charm. A true son and patriot of Ireland
and America, a hater of all tyrannies, snobberies, and shams, a
poet of robust imagination and virile style, an editor with a
great constituency, an orator, a lecturer, and an athlete, his
achievements covered many fields of activity, and his influence
was widespread. He will be long remembered and long
mourned in the country of his birth and of his adoption ; but
only those who have had the happiness to enjoy his friendship
can fully understand of what a rare and generous spirit his
death has bereaved the world."

Could tyranny, could snobbery, could poverty, could perse-
cution fetter genius, how stricken would our world be ! In spite
of these, and above them all, rise Burns, Richard Brinsley Sheri-
dan, Poe, O'Reilly, and a host of other democrats of literature.

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76o 57". Francis in Salvation Army Uniform. [Sept.,

ST. FRANCIS IN SALVATION ARMY UNIFORM.

BY REV. A. P. DOYLE.

HERE has come to us a charming little biogra-
phy of the sweet saint of Umbria, written by
Staff-Captain Douglas of the Salvation Army.
We took it up one Saturday afternoon, after
the week's work in the editorial office was
through, and though ordinarily we would be very loath to
add to the reading of manuscript and printer's proofs a further
reading of familiar biography, yet we frankly admit that so
entranced were we with the simple story, so simply and unaffect-
edly told, that v/e could not lay it down until we had read it
through.

There is, undoubtedly, something very drawing in the com-
plete consecration of life and energies to the service of God
and his poor at the Gospel invitation ; and in the life of the
sweet saint of Assisi this manifest consecration was so whole-
souled and made with such unconscious simplicity and humility,
while at the same time it endowed hiui with such wonderful power
over the tepid in the Lord's service, as well as the obdurate in
sin, that sluggish blood is stirred again at the recital, and one
is made to feel how half-hearted is one's service, and how very
short of the Gospel ideal is a life lived amidst pleasant sur-
roundings, while bodies are in need and souls perish for want
of the bread of life.

However, while we read the twice-told tale of the rich young
man, surrounded with abundant friends and all the luxuries of
life, readily braving the scoffs and jeers of his towns-people
and making himself a fool for Christ's sake, as related by a
Salvation Army lassie, we could not but feel that she was
plucking a flower from a garden not her own, pinning it to a
uniform that Francis himself would have repudiated, and, while
exploiting the beauties of color and delicacies of tints of this
purloined blossom, taking very good care not to tell her audi-
ence that this flower was not her own, but rather belonged to
a garden owned by the Pope and carefully tended by the
priests of the Catholic Church.

Nowhere in the volume is there a hint given to us of the

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inner devotional life which was the true source of all of St.
Francis's greatness. I doubt if the biographer, even in a little
way, appreciated the workings of divine grace in the soul of
the young man. One would imagine that he went through an
experience meeting and was induced to come up to the "peni-
tent's bench " and get " saved."

The reality was, he learned the true principles of the Catho-
lic faith, the same then as they are now. They were positive,
decided beliefs in God the Creator, in Jesus the Redeemer, in
the one only and true church established by Christ ; in the sac-
ramental system with its seven perennial founts of grace to
feed and nourish the divine life in the soul ; with its practice of
early sacramental confession to a consecrated priest, and frequent
reception of Holy Communion — the real body and blood of Jesus
Christ. In this way, cultivating purity of heart and blameless-
ness of life, he grew to man's estate, and with soul tender and
wistful of the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, was led to under-
take the literal, and hence complete, sacrifice of all things for the
love of his Master.

It is not difficult to find a good deal of the same enthusiasm
that made Francis the lover of souls he was, among many of
the adherents of the Salvation Army, as it is not hard to find
a practice of total abstinence among the Turks and a devoted-
ness to prayer among the Brahmans, which put many of thie foU
lowers of the Nazarene to shame ; but cannot one be mistaken in
imagining that the mere giving up of all the world holds dear
— of wealth and worldly honor — and the devoting one's self to the
washing away of. evil and the rescue of the fallen by itself, is a
real, true following of Christ ? A good pagan might do it and
find abundant self-satisfaction in the hardest and most austere
life, and in it all be only feeding his pride or carrying out a fad ;
even in other circumstances and with clearer light and better
knowledge, instead of performing a meritorious religious act,
be heaping up damnation for himself. Sometimes the prettiest
of flowers grow on the ash-dump or in the rubbish pile. It
does make all the difference in the world in what garden a
flower grows, and into what soil the plant has struck its roots,
and from what elements it draws its sustenance.

In the sketch, from the beginning to end, the author has not
said that her saint was a Catholic ; but in her effort to make him
a model of consecration to the followers of the Salvation
Army leads her less knowing readers to think that he was a
sort of mediaeval staff-captain, who went out in the highways

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762 St. Fhancis in Salvation Army Uniform. [Sept,

and the byways and with popular songs gathered the crowd,
and then lured them away to a barracks in order to exhort
them to come to Jesus.

St. Francis would have hated the red and blue uniform and
despised the hallelujah bonnet, because to him they would have
been the trappings of heresy, and with all the saints, and with
St. Francis most of all, devotion to the pope as the human repre-
sentative of Christ on earth, and love for Rome as the fountain
of pure doctrine, were of paramount interest. General Booth
is frank enough to say in his preface that there is a difference
between the spirit of St. Francis and that of a consecrated
member of the Salvation Army, while he implies that since the
results striven for are about the same, we should be satisfied. So
the manufacturer of Brummagem jewelry might say, so in fact
does Madame Tussaud. I will make, says she in effect, a
museum, and will place a policeman in wax at the door whose
naturalness is so striking that for very fear of arrest you will
not dare to be dishonest. I will put an attendant, made only
of wax, in the halls who will so deceive you that you will go
up to him and ask him whether he is a sure enough man or
not. I will place lovers on the bench who will be so affection-
ately life-like that they will seem to be settling the matri-
monial problem of their lives ; but it will all be only the simulac-
rum of what is real and honest. Oh ! how often are the elect
deceived, and how often are even very good souls cajoled into
security by the appearances of good work done, when all the
time they have the dreadful thought haunting them that they
are not in their father's house but are serving in the camp of
the enemy, and they wonder why God is not satisfied as long
as they are doing good to his creatures. St. Francis on his
death-bed would have reversed the whole tenor of his life,
would have counted all his marvellous works as worse than
nothing, if there had gone with them a denial of any one of the
doctrines which Christ taught ; or, to put it in a more practical
way, if the pope had not approved of his labors, and if holy
church had not put the broad seal of her commendation on
what he had accomplished.

It is passing strange that one who knew the spirit of St.
Francis so well as Miss Douglas did, should not, with a keenness
which belongs to her, have traced his actions to their sources
and pointed out the motives underlying them. Why, think you,
was St. Francis so anxious to rebuild the neglected church of
St. Damian ? Why was he so zealous for the cleanliness of the

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temples he visited as to take the broom himself, and sweep them
out ? It was not, we may be well assured, because he loved
cleanliness for its own sake — cleanliness for its own sake has
never been a Franciscan trait — but rather because of his belief
in the Real Presence of God in the church; because he knew
when the priest said Mass and consecrated the sacred elements
there was a substantial change in those sacred elements from
bread and wine into the real Body and Blood of our Lord, and
in the tabernacle there remained the living presence. And such
was his reverence for the awful power of the priest to whom
was given this privilege that in his humility he dared not
aspire to do such a tremendous act, but preferred to remain
a simple deacon all his life. So, too, with the conversion of
sinners. His scheme of salvation was not surely " to come to
Jesus '* and get " saved " ; but repent of your sins, go and show
yourselves to the priest, confess your sins every one of you
with sorrow in heart, and receive the sacramental absolution im-
parted only by a duly ordained minister. And all through his
blessed work was he sympathetic with the spirit of the church.
When St. Clare came to him, burning with the same desire to
convert souls to Christ which would not let her rest — though,
indeed, this was not a question of immutable faith which could
not be changed and which he would have sacrificed his life
rather than deny, but only a matter of discipline and a question
of methods — yet feeling that the church knew best because it
was inspired in its daily life by the Holy Spirit, so reverent was
he of traditions that he took her to a quiet home, where in
prayer and good works she could most effectually assist in his
great crusade. He did not give her a tambourine and set her
on a street corner. He believed in the efficacy of prayer.
Unless the Lord build the house, in vain do they work who
build. He believed that the best work could be done by
women through their fervent prayers that pierce the clouds ;
joined with such womanly work as becometh her who, as St.
Paul says, should be silent in the church.

Undoubtedly more of the spirit of St. Francis is needed,
and badly needed, in these days. The accumulation of wealth
in the hands of the few, and the consequent impoverization
of the many; the building up of walls of social barriers far
more impassable than the stony battlements of the feudal kings ;
the ever-widening gulf between the various classes of the peo-
ple ; the loss of the deep Christian sentiment of love for the
poor that comes with the acquisition of wealth — all these call

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764 St. Francis in Salvation Army Uniform. [Sept.,

for a social crusade as far-reaching as the one that St. Francis
inaugurated. Modern social reformers think to fix things up
by enacting laws. They will prevent men from becoming mil-
lionaires by a graded inheritance tax, they will think to break
up vast holdings by destroying the right of entail; but wealth
goes on accumulating just the same, and men of wealth drive
their coach and six through any law that is made. In it all
they forget that the true panacea is in the teaching contained
in the Sermon on the Mount, and its practical exemplification
in the lives of Christian men and women. He who will lose
his life for my sake shall find it. Seek first the Kingdom of
Heaven. If you will be my disciple, go sell all you have. A
few more earnest souls who will take the counsels of the Naza-
rene literally can easily become the leaders of men, as St.
Francis was, and it is marvellous to see how quick and ener-
getic is the power of this leaven among the hearts of men
case-hardened by avarice or sodden by sin. The cult of St.
Francis has been widely extended, due very much to the fact
that the modern world wants this kind of medicine. We shall
not find fault, no matter who it is that makes the most of the
remedies from the pharmacy of the divine church which Christ
has established foF the healing of the nations; only let them
be honest ! Let them say, " We have no remedy like this in
our drug-store, but we took this one from Rome.*' It is not
just to St. Francis, nor true to his spirit and teachings, to tear
off the labels and rub out the trade-mark as Sabatier did, and
as others are doing, and then say, " See the new remedy I
have."

In conclusion, let me commend to Staff-Captain Douglas and
other of her Salvation Army comrades a little incident which she
takes good care not to repeat in her life in its entirety. In the
beginning of the year 1210 St. Francis called his disciples
about him and said : " Our good and merciful Lord wishes to
extend our little family. We must now submit our way of
life to the most holy Pontiff of Rome. For without his con-
sent and approval it seems to me nothing can be stable or good
in matters of faith or in the religious life. Let us go, then, to
our mother, the Holy Roman Church. Let us make known
to the Pope what our Lord has begun to do for us. We will
then continue our work according to his will and his com-
mands." St. Francis saw no safety nor permanence in his
work except in perfect obedience to the Holy Father in
Rome.

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1 897-] 5^- Francis in Salvation Army Uniform. 765

As lovers of St. Francis, the members of the Salvation
Army may go and do likewise.

I should like to add a few more passages from the sayings
of St. Francis which ought to have been included in the Salva-
tion Army life in order to make it what it purports to be — a
real sketch of the life of the saint :

"I conjure you, my brethren, embracing your feet with all
the love I am capable — I implore you to show all respect and
honor to the Body and Blood of Christ, by whom we have been
reconciled with God the Father, and peace has been estab-
lished in heaven and on earth.**

Again, one of the root principles of his life was his extraor-
dinary devotion to and love for the Blessed Virgin. He calls
her " his lady and his queen, in whom is all fulness of grace
and every sort of good : the palace, the temple, the mother of
our Lord Jesus Christ.'* Again, says St. Frands : " We ought
to confess all our sins to the priest, that we may receive the
Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, because whoever
does not eat his Flesh and drink his Blood cannot enter the
Kingdom of Heaven." A complete life should have included
these, and a consistent follower of St. Francis should not stop
short of Rome and all that means. It is a pity to give up the
good things of life and undergo all the hardships that are in-
cluded in the life of a Salvation Army woman-officer, and yet
not accept the teachings of the Master in their entirety.

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766 Early English Church STRONGLY Roman. [Sept.,

THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH STRONGLY

ROMAN.

BY DAVID B. WALKER.

f LETTER from an eminent clergyman of the An-
glican Church in Australia to me contains the
following passage. I had written him telling him,
among other things, that I had made up my
\ mind, after much hesitancy and long considera-
tion, to be received into the Catholic Church. I felt it due to
our former very close relations of friendship to announce my
intention to him. Moreover, another reason lay in the fact that
for several years I was one of the wardens in his church. He
writes as follows:

" I suppose by this you are safe within the fold. If so,
may you have all good fortune and may God speed you ! If a
man makes up his mind that Jesus is Jehovah^ there is then no
resting-place short of Rome. And now that Pope Leo XIII.
will not recognize even a ground for negotiating about Angli-
can Orders, I see nothing else for High-Churchmen to do than
to go right over to Rome. Henceforth the Anglican Communion
must regard herself as having no history beyond that of her
founder, Henry VIII. He certainly started the organization,
as apart from and independent of Rome,- though the whole
thing was made right during Queen Mary's reign. I think the
schism is of still later date. Queen Elizabeth was her father's
daughter, and followed in his footsteps. Those Tudors made
a lot of trouble. However, I think it is very well as it is."

The writer of this letter simply states what is held and be-
lieved in this particular by a large number of the ministers of
the Anglican Protestant Church in Australia, and I think the
same may be said in regard to the majority of the ministers
of that church in England.

PRETENDED LINEAGE FROM ST. PAUL.

The High-Churchmen, however, have devised a theory where-
by they trace an ecclesiastical lineage from St. Paul, pretend-
ing that while St. Peter founded the Roman Church, St. Paul
established the Anglican Church, and that long before the six-

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I897-] Early English Church strongly Roman. 767

teenth century the Anglican Church had no relationship with
or dependence on Rome for jurisdiction. The movement to-
day, increasing as it is in volume and bearing so many along
with it, makes the discussion of this question one of peculiar
interest.

Until late years, or until the date of what is generally termed
the Catholic movement in the Anglican Protestant Church, that
church was always regarded as the church founded by Henry
VIIL, at the time of the so-called Reformation ; for this church,
as history distinctly tells us, had Henry and his son, Edward
VI., as her nursing fathers, and Queen Elizabeth as her nursing
mother, and was always spoken of and considered ''as the
Church of England as by law established," and her adherents
would as soon have thought (and the majority of them are to-
day of the same mind) of having an alliance with the Sultan
of Turkey in matters of religion as with the Bishop of Rome.
A study of her articles and teachings is sufficient to prove
this fact.

Now, if it can be shown by history that the Early British
Church was in close communion with the See of Rome, and
regarded the bishop of that see as head of the whole Catholic
Church, then every candid person is forced to conclude that
the Anglican Protestant Church cannot be her descendant, or
be connected with her in any way. A careful inquiry into the
history of the Early British Church will show to whom, under
Almighty God, it was indebted for its existence, and what au-
thority it acknowledged, and what were its relations, with the
See of Rome.

CLAUDIA AND GRCECINIA, BRITISH CHRISTIAN WOMEN.

History tells us that two British Christian women, Claudia
and Groecinia, both living in the first century, may have been
instrumental in Christianizing Britain. St. Paul, in his second
Epistle to St. Timothy (v. xxi. c. iv.), speaks of Claudia and
Pudens being then in Rome. And Martial, in his history, states
that Claudia, the wife of St. Pudens, was a Briton. The claim
of Groecinia is not so strong. She is supposed to have been a
Briton because her husband, Plautus, was a governor of Britain ;
and a Christian, because she was accused before the senate of
practising some foreign superstitions. But even with these
proofs there is nothing to show that, though they embraced
Christianity in Rome, they established a church in Britain. At
the same time, having regard to the fact that, throughout all

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768 Early English Church strongly Roman. [Sept.,

ages of the church's history, women have ever played a most
prominent part in the spreading of the Gospel, and suffering
for the faith — witness St. Agnes, St. Cecilia, St. Fabiola, St.
Catherine, and a host of others. Consequently we can well
conceive with what earnest zeal Claudia and Groeeinia, both of
whom had seen the apostles of our Lord, would endeavor to
impart to others, whether in Rome or Britain, the glorious
truth that had been made known to them ; for rest assured
that they, like all those early Christian saints, were ever ready
to confess, or even die for, their Blessed Lord.

In the year 43 Rome obtained a footing in Britain, and
there established her colonies, and probably travellers were,
even in those remote days, in the habit of passing from Rome
to Britain, and amongst them there may have been some who
professed the new faith, and were only too glad to let their
priceless gift be known. For, according to history, the early
Christians were ever anxious to impart to others the great truth
that had been revealed to them.

POPE ST. ELEUTHERIUS SENDS MISSIONARIES TO BRITAIN.

The Christianizing of Britain during the first, and we may
say almost to the close of the second century, is merely a
matter of conjecture, and we have nothing definite on the sub-
ject until the year 177 or 181. The writings of the Venerable
Bede inform us that, during the reign of the Emperor Aurehus
and the pontificate of St. Eleutherius, the Gospel was brought
to Britain. At this time a British king, named Lucius, sent
messengers to St. Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome, with the
request that he might be admitted to, and instructed in, Chris-
tianity. The request was joyfully received. Missionaries were
ordained and sent forth ; King Lucius was baptized, and the
new religion was propagated throughout his kingdom. The
same facts are recorded in the ancient acts of the Roman pon-
tiffs, as well as by the tradition of the British Church in Nin-
nius, the Triads, etc. ; and the Book of Llandaff states that
*• the pope received a letter from Lucius, a King of Britain, in
which the writer intimates that he might become a Christian
through his command.** According to Mr. Rees, in his work on
the Welsh saints, the missionaries sent by Pope St. Eleutherius
to King Lucius established themselves in the neighborhood of
Llandaff, in Wales, which no doubt formed a part of the king-
dom of Lucius. Lucius is honored with public devotion on
December 3.

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1 897-] Early English Church strongly Roman. 769

the early fathers speak of christianity in britain.

After the conversion of King Lucius, continental writers
numbered the Islands of Britain as amongst the conquests of
Christianity. Tertullian, Origen, and Arnobius each speak of
the establishment of Christianity in Britain, and affirm that the
religion of Christ reached from India in the east to Britain in
the West.

For about one hundred years the church in Britain enjoyed
peace and tranquillity, and was not attacked until the general
persecutions which were waged against Christians under the
Emperors Diocletian and Maximian (a. d. 303). Historians
tell us that on the promulgation of the sanguinary edict of
Diocletian the churches in Britain were demolished, the sacred
writings publicly burned in the streets, and a multitude of
priests and laics put to death, so that the forests and caverns,
which served as places of refuge to the Christians, seemed to
have more inhabitants than the cities.

ST. ALBAN, THE PROTO-MARTYR OF BRITAIN.

The historians Gildas and Bede give us only the names of
Alban of Verulan, and Julius, and Aaron of Caerleon, among
the many faithful soldiers of the cross in Britain, who suffered
martyrdom at this time (a. d. 305). In regard to the martyr-
dom of St. Alban, who is styled the proto-martyr of Britain,
we are told that at the time the persecutions were raging
against the Christians a priest of the church, fleeing from his
persecutors, sought refuge in the house occupied by Alban, who
was then not a Christian, though he had visited Rome. Alban
admitted the priest, and he so admired his guest that on the
retreat of the refugee being discovered, Alban, to save his friend
and teacher, arrayed himself in priestly vestments and de-
livered himself up to the soldiers, and in the presence of the
governor of the province acknowledged his belief in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and refused to sacrifice to the gods. He was
scourged, and then beheaded on a small eminence outside the
walls of the city —

"Self-offered victim for his friend he died, and for the Faith."

When the persecutions ceased a church was erected over

his remains, and though it was afterwards destroyed by the

idolatrous Saxons, the ruins were long visited by pilgrims, and

in the year 793, on the same spot, Offa, King of Mercia,

VOL. Lxv.— 49

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770 Early English Church strongly Roman. [Sept,

founded the great Abbey of St. Alban. Is it to be wondered
at that this saint should be held in such veneration, and that
even to-day his memory should be held in benediction, when
we consider that, in the delivering himself up to death for his
friend, he truly followed in the footsteps of his Blessed Lord,
who gave his life for others, and, like him, suffered death with-
out the city? Truly, such heroism sheds the brightest lustre on
the early British Church.

BRITISH BISHOPS AT THE COUNCIL OF ARLES.

The elevation of Constantine to the Empire of Rome, which
brought peace to the church, and the conversion of his son
Constantine to the faith, gave the Christians everywhere a title
to imperial favor. Of the intercommunion in faith and dis-
cipline of the British Church with the continental churches,
during the fourth and fifth centuries, we have good proof from
ecclesiastical documents of that age. We find it recorded that
a deputation of British bishops sat as representatives of their
brethren at the Councils of Aries, in 314, of Sardica, in 342,
and of Rimini, in 359. The deputation to the Council of Aries
consisted of three bishops, viz., Eboribus of York, Restitutus
of London, and Adelphius (supposed to be of Lincoln). The
bishops attending the Council of Rimini were the guests of
the emperor. At the Council of Aries, Pope St. Sylvester pre-
sided by his legates, and its decrees, at the unanimous request
of the assembled bishops, were forwarded to Rome for his con-
firmation. There is no evidence, however, of British bishops
being present at the General Council of Nicaea in 325, but it is
recorded that copies of its decrees for the British bishops
were consigned to the priests Vitus and Vincent, who with
Hosius were representatives of the pope in the council. At
the Council of Sardica, over which Hosius presided as the
representative of the pope, he, together with the Roman priests
Archidamus and Philoxemus, took precedence of the other
bishops in signing the decrees of the council. At this council
we find that three canons dealing with the subject of "Appeals
to Rome'* were passed; they were substantially as follows:
In case a bishop considers himself unjustly condemned, one
canon gives him the right to appeal to the pope. Another
canon orders the see of an appellant bishop to remain un-
filled ^^ till the Bishop of Rome has judged and decided there*
on.'* A third canon declares that the pope may retry the case,
either through the bishops nearest to the province in ques-

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1 897-] Early English Church strongly Roman. 771

tion, or by priests of his own sent to constitute, with the ap-
pointed bishops, the court of second instance. St. Athanasius
is witness to the fact that the British bishops accepted all the
decrees of this council, showing thereby that they were in full
communion with, and acknowledged the supremacy of, the See
of Rome. And writing again in the year 363, this same saint
further attests that the British Church was loyal to the Catho-
lic Church 'notwithstanding the Arian and Pelagian heresies,
which prevailed at this time.

VICTRICIUS, BISHOP OF ROUEN, VISITS BRITAIN.

In the year 390, at the request of the British bishops, Vic-
tricius, Bishop of Rouen, proceeded to Britain to heal the dis-
sensions that had arisen there, and - to restore religious peace,
showing thereby the close bond of union that existed between
the church in Gaul and the church in Britain. The letters of
Victricius to Pope St. Siricius on this occasion attest his com-
munion with the Holy See, and his devotion to the Catholic
faith.

POPE ST. CELESTINE SENDS ST. GERMANUS TO BRITAIN.

It was not until about the beginning of the fifth century
that the Pelagian heresy obtained a foothold in Britain, and in
all probability this was brought about by Pelagius himself, who,
being a Briton, went to reside there. About the year 429 Pope
St. Celestine, at the request of the British bishops, commissioned
St. Germanus of Auxerre to proceed to Britain for the purpose
of dealing with the Pelagian heresy. At the conference held
at Verulan, to which the Pelagian leaders came with a large
following of dependents, and in all the pride of wealth and
rich attire. Catholic truth prevailed, no less by the prayers and
miracles than by the arguments of St. Germanus. He applied
to the eyes of a blind girl the case of sacred relics which he
always wore suspended from his neck, and her sight was in-
stantly restored to her. The bishops and faithful proceeded to
St. Alban's shrine to return thanks for the triumph of truth.
St. Germanus took away with him as a precious treasure a little
of the clay saturated with the martyr's blood, and left in its
stead some relics of other saints.

St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Martin of Tours, two great
saints of the Catholic faith in Gaul, were held in the highest
veneration by the Early British Church, and their feasts were
observed with all solemnity.

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^^2 Early English Church strongly Roman. [Sept.,

ST. PATRICK, THE APOSTLE OF IRELAND, VISITS BRITAIN.

Before the close of the fourth century armed predatory
bands of Irishmen began to occupy the western coast of Bri-
tain, and it was here, on the shores of this sister isle, that the
first-fruits of Irish faith were offered to God, some receiving
the light through the preaching of St. Ninian, who was conse-
crated a bishop by Pope St, Siricius. Others, through the be-
nign influence of the Welsh clergy, became devoted children of
the cross. When the great Apostle of Ireland, St. Patrick, ac-
companied St. Germanus of Auxerre to Britain, in the year 429,
he met with many Irishmen in Wales, and being familiar with
their language, he applied himself with devoted earnestness to
their instruction in the truths of religion, and so enamoured
was he of the missionary field there opened to his zeal that he
desired to remain permanently amongst them, but at the sum-
mons of Pope St. Celestine he was compelled to forsake this
chosen flock, and to gird himself for the more arduous task of
the apostolate of Ireland.

THE UNITY BETWEEN THE CHURCHES OF BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

During the fifth and sixth centuries many Irish saints flocked
to Britain, and oftentimes seemed to make its monasteries their
own, while the great saints of Wales reciprocated this affection,
and when in search of wisdom often chose the centres of piety
in Ireland as their homes. This shows how close were the bonds
of unity and affection that existed between the Early British
Church and the ancient Church of Ireland, and there cannot be
• even a shadow of doubt regarding the attachment and devotion
of the latter to the See of Rome.

Almost all the great saints of the Early British Church made
pilgrimages to Rome to visit the tombs of the apostles St. Peter
and St. Paul, as we read in the lives of St. David, St. Cadoc,
St. Byrnach, St. Lampson, St. Dubricius, and St. Kentigern, and
others. St. Byrnach, during his visit to Rome, was invited by
the pope to preach there ; and St. Cadoc made the pilgrimage
to Rome no less than seven times, and received precious gifts
from the Holy See.

The great monasteries of Britain attest the faith of the people.
The monasteries of Glastonbury, Bardsey Island, Llanbardain,
and Bangor Iscoed, and many others were, for piety and regular
observance, famed throughout Christendom.

The Church of Llandaff was dedicated to God under the

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iSg/O Early English Church strongly Roman. 773

special invocation of St. Peter, and the privileges granted to
it, and to its holy founder, St. Teilo, were confirmed by the
authority of Rome. As it is written in the Book of Llandaff :
" This is the law and privilege of Teilo of Llandaff, which the
kings and princes of Wales granted to the church of Teilo, and
to all its bishops after him for ever, and was confirmed by the
popes of Rome."

THE DOCTRINES AND TEACHINGS OF THE BRITISH CHURCH.

The Holy Mass, Purgatory, the Invocation of Saints, Con-
fession, and other distinctive doctrines of the Catholic Church
are all met with in the British monuments of those times. St.
Cadoc calls prayers, alms-deeds, and fasting the "three physi-
cians of the soul."

The Book of Llandaff sets forth that " the Church of Rome
has dignity above all the churches of the Catholic Faith." The
laws of Howell the Good at every page bear the impress of
Catholic teaching. For instance, it is enacted regarding an ab-
sconding culprit, that if he seeks reconciliation, he shall, before
his patrimony be restored to him, proceed to Rome and obtain
from the pope a certificate of having been absolved from the
censure which he had incurred.

Gildas the historian, who wrote during the sixth century,
and at the time when all the then civilized world was overrun
by barbarians, while he speaks of the great deterioration in
morals amongst the faithful throughout the British Church,
nevertheless recognizes that they clung to the faith, and also
" that they looked to St. Peter as the Prince of the Apostles,
and the source of all priestly authority in the church."^

THE MISSION OF ST. AUGUSTINE. — WHY WAS IT ORDERED ?

Some may say. If the Early British Church was in such close
communion with the See of Rome as has been herd set forth,
what necessity was there to send St. Augustine for the pur-
pose of converting the people of Britain ? The mission of St.
Augustine was in particular for the conversion of the pagan An-
glo-Saxons, who lived in Kent and the surrounding country, and
were far removed from the kingdom of Wales, and furthermore,
the Britons of that period were as opposed to the Saxons as
the French and Germans are to each other to-day. And again,
when we remember the story that is narrated of Pope Gre-
gory — how, seeing the boy slaves in the market-place at Rome,
and inquiring who they were, they were represented to him

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774 Earl y English Church strongl y Roman. [Sept.,

as Angles J not Britons^ and he, struck by their beauty, ex-
claimed, " Not Angles, but angels," we perceive that he regard-
ed them as a people separate and apart from the Britons.

Some controversialists lay great stress upon the speech
which, it is alleged, was addressed to St. Augustine by Dunod,
Abbot of Bangor, protesting against the assumption of papal
authority ; but this has been proved to be a mere mediaeval
fable. Dr. Bright, professor of ecclesiastical history in Oxford,
does not hesitate to pronounce it "spurious." Hadden asserts
that it was first related long after the Norman invasion. A
distinguished Cymric scholar, examining the original Cymric
text, affirms that it could not have been composed before the
twelfth or thirteenth century.

ST. AUGUSTINE AND THE BRITISH BISHOPS.

The conference of St. Augustine with the British bishops
has given occasion to another difficulty. There does not ap-
pear, however, to have been any diversity of faith between the
British Church and those sent from Rome, although they dif-
fered in small matters of discipline. The special object of
Augustine's conference with the British bishops evidently was
to invite them to co-operate with him in the work of evange-
lizing the Anglo-Saxons. Venerable Bede expressly attests that
St. Augustine "tried to persuade them, by brotherly admoni-
tion, to undertake in conjunction with him the work of preach-
ing the Gospel to the heathen for the Lord's sake." The fact
that he made such an appeal to them is the best proof we
could have of their unity with him in the teaching of the
divine faith. The Saxons at this time pursued the Britons with
relentless enmity, and no doubt the British bishops realized how
futile would be their preaching to such inimical neighbors, and
how displeasing such an enterprise might be to their own
spiritual flocks.

THE EARLY BRITISH CHURCH PLANTED AND NURTURED BY THE

HOLY SEE.

The foregoing facts will, it is presumed, suffice to illustrate
the doctrine and discipline of the Early British Church, and in
particular her close connection with the See of Rome. And in
the face of what has been shown one may well ask. How, by any
reasoning, can the " Anglican Protestant Church," which is as
far removed in doctrine and discipline from the Holy See as

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1897 •] Early English Church strongly Roman. 775

one star is from another, lay claim to be a lineal descendant of,
or in any manner connected with, the Early British Church,
which it must be admitted was planted and nurtured by the
See of Rome, and which in after years merged into and be-
came one with the Anglo-Saxon Church, which was founded,
under God, by St. Augustine, at the direction of that great
and holy pontiff, St. Gregory the Great, and was ever subject,
to the Holy See ? In support of this last assertion I will quote
a short passage from the work published by Henry VIII. in
refutation of the doctrines of Luther, and dedicated by him to
Pope Leo X., for which he received from the pontiff the title of
" Defender of the Faith." Henry writes : '* If any one will
look upon ancient monuments^ or read the histories of former times ^
he may easily find that, since the conversion of nations^ all churches
in the Christian world have been obedient to the See of Rome,*'

THE ANGLICAN PROTESTANT CHURCH, THE CHURCH OF
HENRY VIII.

It may be considered harsh to say it, but it is undeniably
the truth, that the Anglican Protestant Church cannot in any
way, especially in the face of the historical facts adduced, be
considered as a lineal descendant of the Early British Church,
or a part of the Catholic Church, but is without doubt the
church of the so-called Reformation, founded by Henry VIII.,
and established and maintained by law, and having the reign-
ing monarch of England for its spiritual and temporal head.

In concluding, I would state that I have read with much
pleasure and profit the various writings of his eminence. Car.
dinal Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, New South Wales, Aus-
tralia, treating of the early churches of Britain, Ireland, and
Scotland, and they show that he has made a most exhaustive
study of this subject. As an Australian, I always entertained,
even while an Anglican, a most profound respect and admira-
tion for his eminence, as he seemed to me to be ever doing
battle "for the faith once delivered to the saints," and to my
mind well may he be regarded in Australia as that great pre-
late, John of Tuam, was regarded in Ireland, viz., " as the Lion
of the Tribe of Juda, and ever ready to defend the church
from attacks by schismatics."

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The Mercy Hospital, Chicago.

THE STORY OF A GREAT WESTERN HOSPITAL

BY P. G. SMYTH.

STAS of long, cloister-like corridors, where, in the
dim distance, the slanting sunbeams sift through
bright-colored geraniums and casually flash on the
coif of a passing nun, the snowy cap and apron
of a nurse ; glimpses of cozy bed-rooms, scrupu-
lously clean and neat as to their appointments ; the sight of spa-
cious wards with a stretch of polished floor gleaming between
long rows of white cots ; of handsomely furnished alcoves, bright
with vases of flowers and adorned with pictures of Madonna
and saints, alternating with busts and portraits of modern and
still mortal patrons of the institution ; the flash through the win-
dows of emerald boughs swaying under a blue sky, giving the
idea of rural surroundings ; a sweet pervading air of peace,
tranquillity, and sanctity — all these produce an impression which
has impelled visitors to exclaim, on passing through Mercy
Hospital, ** One almost longs to be sick, so that he might
spend some time here ! "

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1 897-] The Story of a great Western Hospital, yjj

But amid all this attractive daintiness in flowers, pictures,
and statues, spotless walls and shining floors, hovers the grim
shadow of human suffering and disease. There is a depressing
vision of faces pallid and drawn with pain, of forms bent and

Dr. Nathan Smith Davis.

wasted, of shattered wrecks from life's stormy ocean, tempora-
rily anchored in a friendly haven, but fast yielding to decay.
A dumb appeal is in the air, an inarticulate cry of agony, a
dread hush as of suspense for some soul fluttering towards the
great mystery. The silence is broken by the rumble of an am-
bulance. A maimed, bleeding form is borne in, an atom from
Chicago's great daily grist of accidents. Here is an object-
lesson on the cause of this noble house's existence ; here is its
forcible raison (titre. And with honor and devotion we kiss the
strong, broad, gentle hand of Mercy.

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778 The Story of a great Western Hospital. [Sept.,

The story of the Mercy Hospital of Chicago — one of the
grandest achievements recorded in the short but spirited annals
of the Sisters of Mercy — goes back to the days when the pre-
sent vast, swarming, octopus-armed Garden City was a grimy
village on a swamp by Lake Michigan.

The history of Mother McAuley's Sisters of Mercy is prac-
tically coeval with the reign of Queen Victoria. It was in 1843
that the young, tall, robust Bishop Michael O'Connor, of Pitts-
burgh, visited Carlow and eloquently requested that some mem-
bers of the Mercy Order accompany him to America. Bishop
England, Bishop Clancy of Demerara, and other prelates had pre-
viously made a similar appeal to the Carlow nuns, but in vain.
In support, however, of Bishop O'Connor's plea. Dr. CuUen —
afterwards cardinal — wrote to the nuns ; his nephew. Father
Dwyer, argued with them. Cardinal Cullen and the English
government held at least one belief in common, viz.: the more
Irish deported from their native land the better — the cardinal
from motives of piety, under the conviction that wherever the
expatriated Celts went the Catholic faith would be spread and
propagated ; the English government from motives of policy,
being anxious to get rid of subjects discontented through op-
pression, and to see Ireland " the fruitful mother of flocks and
herds." A few years later the Black Famine, fostered and fo-
mented by the authorities, swooped down upon the country and
cleared out the Irish in a way that brought joy to the English
government, but which must have caused considerable doubt and
dismay to Dr. Cullen.

Eventually, seven sisters volunteered to accompany Dr.
O'Connor to the New World, They were headed by Mother
Warde. On the arrival of the party at New York, after a
stormy winter passage in the three-master. Queen of the West, an
energetic, dark-eyed, low-sized clergyman of thirty-seven came
on board and cordially welcomed Mother Warde, saying :

" As I have been the first to welcome you to the shores of
the New World, I trust you will grant my first request, and
promise to establish in the new diocese of Chicago a house of
your excellent institute."

It was the Right Rev. William Quarter, Bishop-elect of
Chicago, a native of Kings County, Ireland. On his subsequent
arrival in his wild Western diocese, Dr. Quarter found himself
with a poor congregation, an unfinished church, and a debt
of $5,000, some of it bearing twelve per cent, interest. He first
paid the debt out of his own private resources. Inspired by

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this liberal act, his congregation rallied enthusiastically to his
aid. William B. Ogden, first mayor of Chicago — the swampy
village had been incorporated as a city in 1837 — presented him
unconditionally with a large tract of land. He built a new

Chapel of Mercy Hospital.

church, topped with a spire surmounted by a glittering cross —
the first spire built in Chicago — and in the old church he estab-
lished "St. Mary's College," from which sprung the now de-
funct university known as St. Mary's of the Lake, in which
many of the present citizens of Chicago received their educa-
tion.

On a raw, cold evening in the fall of 1846, after a weary
six days' journey from Pittsburgh, the Sisters of Mercy reached
Chicago. Sick and shivering after their voyage across the lake
from St. Joseph, they landed on the shore in front of the
bishop's cottage and viewed the town of frame houses, some
bright in white paint and green shutters, many mere dingy shan-
ties. The bishop's ** palace " was a one-story wooden cottage
at the corner of Madison Street and Michigan Avenue, a primi-
tive building wkh board partitions and utterly innocent of
" modern improvements." Kind Dr. Quarter at once gave up
his humble home to the sisters and went to live with one of
his priests in a still more wretched hovel. In their new abode,

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78o The Stor y of a grea t Western Hospital. [Sept.,

which was described as ''a sieve in summer'and a shell in win-
ter," the young community had a dreary time of it. The roof
let in the snow and rain. In the morning they often found
their clothing saturated, and some of them contracted consump-
tion, from which they afterwards died. They were extremely
poor, having to depend on charity for their daily food. They
opened a school in an old frame building at the rear of the
cottage, and here the children of many of the early Chicago
settlers received their primary education. In the following year
the bishop built a good brick convent for these sisters. It
stood at No. 131 Wabash Avenue, corner of Madison Street,
and was known as St. Xavier's Academy.

In ecclesiastical as well as social matters a rugged and primi-
tive standard prevailed, of which illustrative instances are hand-
ed down. In the fearfully cold winter of 1847, on the occasion
of the religious profession of Sister Mary Vincent McGirr, in
the presence of a congregation of rugged settlers, bordermen,
trappers, and sailors, while Father Kinsella, in lieu of a regular
sermon, was reading from a spiritual book an explanation of
the episcopacy, the religious state and the married state, mak-
ing comments on each that were not less amusing than instruc-
tive, Bishop Quarter suddenly laughed out loud. The preacher
looked astonished and seemingly felt indignant, thinking that
this singular mirth was on his account ; whereas the fact was
that the worthy bishop was unable to resist laughing at the
figure presented by Father McLaughlin, who, coming in out of
a few feet of snow with woollen socks worn over his shoes,
floundered, slipped, and fell on the wet floor in an attempt to
make his genuflection.

The original Mercy community of Chicago numbered only
five, namely. Sisters Agatha O'Brien, Vincent McGirr, Gertrude
McGuire, Josephine Corbett, and Eva Schmidt. Of these the
superior. Mother Agatha, in the world Margaret O'Brien, was a
fine young Irishwoman, aged, on her arrival in Chicago, twenty-
four, handsome, robust, cheerful, zealous, and energetic. The
poor daughter of poor parents, she had joined the order as a
lay sister in her native Carlow, and had been one of the first
to volunteer for the American mission. Soon her sterling ability
shone as a brilliant star. Bishop O'Connor described her as a
woman " capable of ruling a nation." She was heartily devoted
to the sick, the poor, and the children. She founded a branch
convent of the order at Galena and a flourishing academy in
Chicago.

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In THE Wards.

By this time the Garden City, whose population had now
grown to thirty thousand, severely felt the need of a good hos-
pital. In 1850 the leading medical men of Chicago secured the
best hotel in the city, the Lake House, and fitted it up as a
hospital under the name of the Illinois General Hospital of the
Lfikes. Twelve beds were purchased and placed therein, chiefly
through the efforts of Dr. Nathan Smith Davis, a very able
physician and devoted philanthropist, who delivered half a dozen
lectures for the purpose of raising funds for the institution.
After some time the Sisters of Mercy were asked to take charge
of the hospital, which they did, doubling the number of beds.
The hospital soon occupied half the Lake House. It was thence
removed to the Tippecanoe House, afterwards to a house built
by the sisters for an orphanage, and again, after several years,
to a fine edifice originally intended for a young ladies' semi-
nary.

In 1854 cholera made havoc in Chicago, carrying off one
thousand four hundred and twenty-four persons. Among those
who succumbed was the brave young Mother Agatha. She fell
valiantly at her post, stricken down while ministering to the
victims of the disease, and with her in the convent chapel, in
the robes of their order, lay the bodies of three other noble

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782 The Story of a great Western Hospital. [Sept.,

women who had died to save ; namely, Sisters M. Bernard
Hughes, Louisa O'Connor, and Veronica Hickey.

At length, on the afternoon of Sunday, July 25, 1869, was
laid the corner-stone of the present magnificent Mercy Hospital
Away out on the prairie south of Chicago, about three miles
distant from the convent at Wabash Avenue and Madison
Street, at a point called Carville, on account of the location
there of the Illinois Central car-shops, a piece of land had been
bought by Mother Agatha for $600, out of the money saved by
Sister McGirr when in charge of the old hospital. On this
land was erected, in 1853-54, * fine academy, called St. Aga-
tha's in memory of the beloved foundress. At this academy
the daughters of many of the most prominent people of Chicago,
of all denominations, were educated. The Sisters of Mercy
used this " red house on the prairie,'' unapproachable save
by foot or by private conveyance, as a novitiate for eight
years.

In the immediate vicinity of St. Agatha's, Twenty-sixth
Street and Calumet Avenue, was laid the foundation of the new
hospital. The ceremony was attended by the chief civic, mili-
tary, and religious authorities of Chicago. The orator of the
occasion — and indeed the practical founder of the Mercy Hos-
pital — was the sterling friend of humanity. Dr. Davis. A por-
tion of his address on the occasion may be cited, as showing
the character of the man,, and the noble nature of the work
he proposed to accomplish. Speaking of the divine injunctions
as to charity, he said:

" However much the world of mankind may be divided in
reference to religious creeds and ceremonies, there can be but
one sentiment in regard to the universally binding character of
these injunctions. They are broad in their scope as the brother-
hood of man, and as binding as the divine impress can make
them. Then let every thoughtful man who has an abundance
of this world's goods reflect that for every dollar he will be
called to render an account — not as to whether he obtained it
honestly or by fraud ; not whether he expended it for the
gratification of his pride or passions, or hoarded it in his safe ;
but in that great day of final judgment we are told the ques-
tion will come : Did ye clothe the naked ; did ye feed the hun-
gry; did ye visit the prisoner; did ye minister to the sick?
Christianity demands of its votaries not negative virtues merely,
but positive acts of charity and human kindness."

A fine old character is this Dr. Nathan Smith Davis, who

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still lives, and still practises medicine, albeit arrived at the
patriarchal age of eighty. He was born in 1817 at Greene,
Chenango County, N. Y., received his medical education at
Fairfield, same State, practised in 1837 at Binghamton, and re-

Martin Ryerson. Conrad Seipp. Edmond Andrews, M.D.

moved in 1846 to New York City, where he was appointed lec-
turer on medical jurisprudence in the College of Physicians
and Surgeons. In 1849 ^^ came to Chicago and accepted the
chair of .physiology and pathology offered him by the faculty
of Rush Medical College. In the following year he lectured
upon city sanitation, and the plans he suggested for the water
supply and the sewerage system were those which were afterwards
practically adopted in Chicago. Dr. Davis is the founder of the
influential American Medical Society (which idea occurred to
him in 1846). He was one of the first movers in the origin of
the Chicago Medical Society, a member of the board of Reform
School Commissioners, and one of the earliest trustees of the
Northwestern University. An intense total-abstinence man, he
has never been known to prescribe a drop of alcoholic stimu-
lant of any kind for his patients, yet, even in cases of typhoid
fever and pneumonia, although running contrary to the general
rule of other physicians, he has met with immense success. He
was o/ie of the first founders of the Chicago Washingtonian
Home for the cure of inebriates.

For many years the rugged yet kindly face of Dr. Davis,
crowned with a great mane of white hair, was a notable fea-
ture of Mercy Hospital. His directions to the sisters were not
to spare him night or day, whenever he was needed. Never

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784 The Stor y of a grea t Western Hospital. [Sept.,

has he (or, indeed, any other doctor) accepted a professional
fee from them. A genuine poor man's doctor, he takes special
interest in the sick poor; he has been frequently known to
hand back his fee to friends or relatives of his patient, with
the request to get the latter better nourishment. There is
no place for human respect in his sturdy democratic com-
position, and wealth cannot buy any special privileges of
him.

One morning, while a line of patients sat in his outer office
waiting their turns. Dr. Davis, on arriving, was accosted by a
gentleman who seemed desirous of consulting him at once. "I
am — " and he mentioned the name of a prominent citizen. The
doctor made his peculiar stiff bow and spoke in his usual de-
liberate way.

" Very well ; take a chair, sir."

** I am — *' and the distinguished citizen gave more emphasis
to his name of might and influence.

"Oh! well, then, you may take two chairs, sir."

And the unbending non-respecter of riches and dignity
passed into his consultation room.

Another name prominently connected with the history of the
Mercy Hospital is that of McGirr. Dr. John E. McGirr, only
son of Dr. Patrick McGirr, of Youngstown, Pa., and brother
of Mothers M. Vincent and Xavier McGirr, was a sincere and
practical friend of the Sisters of Mercy in Chicago. He and
his father, who was a physician of the old school, were among
the first to volunteer their services to the convent and the
Mercy Hospital. When the elder McGirr was no longer able
to practise, he and his wife, a pious lady, made their home in
the old hospital, where they spent most of their time praying
in the chapel.

The younger McGirr, Dr. John E., was one of the most
progressive physicians of his time. In days ere Pasteur's theor-
ies and practices were yet unheard of. Dr. John E. McGirr was
trying inoculation for black measles, and his views and experi-
ments were attracting much attention among medical men. He
also had a taste for literature and wrote a Life of Bishop
Quarter. He taught chemistry, physiology, and other branches
in the sisters' schools, and his attendance at all their institu-
tions was given gratuitously, he furnishing medicines as well as
professional advice free. This generous philanthropist had to
leave Chicago on account of failing health. He died in Pitts-
burgh, October 23, 1870. His sister, Mother M. Vincent

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1 897-] The Story of a great Western Hospital. 785

McGirr, still lives, the only survivor of the original Mercy
community of Chicago.

Among other eminent physicians whose services were,
always gratuitously, conferred upon the Mercy Hospital, were

Sister Ignatius Feeney, the first Woman to take a Diploma in Phar-
macy IN THE State of Illinois.

Drs. Brainard, Herrick, Blaney, Boon, Johnson, Andrews, By-
ford, and Nelson.

In May, 1870, the Mercy Hospital was dedicated by Bishop
Foley. A timely and providential opening it proved, for in
the following year the Fire King unfurled his red flag in Chica-
go, making it a city of ruins and ashes, and cutting out plenty
of work for the hospital.

It was about 9 P. M., on the memorable night of Sunday,
October 8, 1871, when, louder than the voices of the nuns
uttering the responses to the Litany of the Saints, read by
Mother M. Vincent in the chapel of the old convent on Wabash
Avenue, came a confusion of distant sounds, gradually increas-
ing to a bewildering roar. The good mother closed her book
and left the chapel, and just then the court-house bell rang out
rapid notes of alarm — its very last sounds. Most of the sisters,
not anticipating any serious danger, retired to rest as usual,
but presently arose and gazed forth upon the lurid approach
VOL. Lxv. — 50

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786 The Story of a great Western Hospital. [Sept.,

of the destroyer— a great trail of fire, momentarily growing
wider and leaping higher. About eleven o'clock carriages were
sent for to convey the inmates of the two Houses of Mercy to
the distant hospital, and off they went, the smaller children
first, then the larger, then the inmates of the Mercy Houses
And most of the sisters, the vehicles plunging and swaying
through streets strewn with household effects and filled with
homeless women and children crying in dismay and terror, men
running to and fro as if crazy, in the useless effort to save their
belongings, thieves pursuing their avocation openly on all sides
with impunity, drunkards revelling at whisky barrels with the
heads burst in, all making a general pandemonium. Some of the
sisters remained behind, endeavoring to save what they might.
Men came to their assistance, and pianos, sewing-machines,
cases of serge, nuns' veiling, and linen were brought out and
loaded on trucks, only to be overtaken by the fire and burned.
At length the remaining sisters had to flee before the flames,
which seized the convent from the State Street side. Sixty
sisters, fifty boarders, and forty young women from the Indus-
trial Home reached the Mercy Hospital in safety.

The building, which was far out of range of the fire, was
soon filled to overflowing with refugees and sufferers. Fortun-
ately a fine addition of one hundred and fifty feet front, with
two deep wings, had just been made to it, making it the finest
institution of its kind in the city. But now there was no waste
room in it, no yard of space unoccupied from attic to base-
ment. Of the one hundred thousand people of Chicago ren-
dered homeless by the great fire a large number crowded for
shelter to the Mercy Hospital. Then there. was the sad stream
of those who had been injured by the flames. Man}'^ of them
were in excruciating pain. The wards rang with the piteous
cries of the burnt victims. Some of them had had their sight
seared away for ever in their rush through the flames for
safety ; some had cruelly scorched faces ; some had lost the
use of their hands in endeavoring to protect their faces. One
poor woman, so fearfully burned that her flesh came away in
strips when an attempt was made to remove the sheet in which
she had been borne in, died in great agony, reconciled to her
fate by the gentle ministrations of the sisters. A Dr. Hess
was brought in with a bullet wound in his lung ; over-
wrought at the loss of his entire property by the fire, together
with domestic troubles, he had attempted suicide, but without
immediate success. He lived for three months afterwards, which

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1 897-] The Story of a great Western Hospital. 787

The Laboratory.

time he spent in (strange to him) spiritual preparation, and died
an exemplary death. His case resembled many others brought
to Mercy Hospital at a time when large numbers of persons,
rendered temporarily crazy and demoralized by grief and loss,
attempted self-destruction. Mr. John Devlin, an old and re-
spected citizen of Chicago, returned to the city after a brief
absence only to find his wife and residence burned. He res-
<:ued her charred remains and deposited them at an under-
taker's shop, but that night the place was consumed and the
remains finally cremated. The stricken man, ruined beyond
hope, having lost his all at one blow — even to his life insur-
ance, on which he was unable to make payments — sought and
obtained refuge in the Mercy Hospital, and there, after six
years, he died.

The Relief and Aid Society now efficiently helped the hos-
pital with gifts of mattresses, bed-covering, etc. The gas-works
were destroyed, but fair old-time substitutes for the missing
light were had in lamps and candles. The water-works were
also a thing of the past, but the necessary fluid was obtained
in barrels from Lake Michigan. From every part of the world
relief in money, food, and clothing began to pour into Chicago.
-** Little Phil " Sheridan and his troops speedily restored the

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788 The Story of a great Western Hospital. [Sept.,

reign of order. People began to run up temporary shanties on
the sites of their burned buildings, and even to talk of rebuild-
ing on a magnificent scale. The big Phoenix began to flutter
in its great arena of smoking ashes.

A number of sick sailors were suffering for lack of proper
care and shelter. Their hospital, the Marine, had been burned,
leaving the poor fellows in a sad state. The officer who had
been in charge of the Marine Hospital called at the Mercy and
asked for consideration for the suffering mariners, and asked
not in vain. He offered to employ private policemen to keep
order among the ailing explorers of the stormy "unsalted
seas " ; but this arrangement the superior declined as unneces-
sary. ** We will take them and accommodate them as well as
the house permits in its present crowded condition," she said;
" they will not be unmanageable with us." Rugged of aspect
and unfastidious of speech, as is said to be characteristic of
those who go down to the sea in ships, the horny-handed hand-
lers of ropes were lambs in gentleness and Chesterfields in
courtesy in all their dealings with the sisters. The efforts of
many of them to obtain and practise religion and to demon-
strate their affectionate reverence for the sisters might be
amusingly grotesque, but they were admirably sincere. From
October, 1 871, to November, 1872— when their own hospital had
been rebuilt in splendid style on the lake front — the sailors re-
mained at the Mercy. Those who were very sick, those con-
fined to bed, and those who were not expected to recover,
were allowed, on their own pleading, to stay; the remainder,
who had to go, were very sorry at the parting.

Returning from a visitation tour of his diocese. Bishop Foley
found his episcopal city practically wiped off the map. Cathe-
dral, churches, convents, and his own residence lay in ruins.
Having found shelter with the Jesuits, on the West Side, he
purchased a Protestant church, at the corner of Wabash Avenue
and Eldridge Court, and converted it into a Catholic one under
the name of St. Mary's. The sisters opened school in the
basement of the building, and the work of education, temporar-
ily interrupted, was resumed. The fire had been a tremendous
financial blow to them. Just the day previous to the great
conflagration they had made nearly all arrangements for the
sale of their property on Wabash Avenue, which, on account of
the growth around it of the chief business centre of the city,
had become unsuitable for their purpose. The contract of sale
was completed on Saturday ; on the following Monday, at 9

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1897-] The Story of a great Western Hospital. 789

A. M., the deeds of the property were to be delivered for the
sum of $160,000; but when that hour arrived the place was a
tottering shell and the sisters had fled, as described, to the
Mercy Hospital, away out on the prairie. Later they were

A Class in the Training-School.

forced to part with the site for $60,000, which, when a mort-
gage of $50,000 was deducted, with legal expenses, interest,
taxes, etc., left them $375 !

It was necessary, however, to provide the nuns with shelter
in lieu of that which had been swept away by the conflagration.
A determined effort was made, and on September 24, 1872, the
corner-stone of the present mother-house of the Order of Mercy
in Chicago was laid at the corner of Wabash Avenue and Twenty-
ninth Street — a short distance from the Mercy Hospital — on
a site which cost $75,000. By this time the temporalities of
the sisters had fallen into a desperate condition. All their
property was mortgaged to every cent of its value, even to the
house which sheltered them, and the furniture of their rooms.
Fifty acres of land, which with admirable foresight had been
bought by the late Mother Agatha for $10,000, had become of
enormous value — it is now worth over $350,000; but on account
of the heavy mortgages on it, and the taxes levied on account

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790 The Stor y of a grea t Western Hospital. [Sept.,

of the Park bills (for the purpose of improving the parks of
Chicago), the poverty-stricken community was compelled to let
it all go, with the exception of a square of five acres, situated
near the lake, within a block of South Park. At this crisis,
in May, 1873, a superior who might be called an ecclesiastical
queen of finance was fortunately appointed, in the person of
Mother Mary Genevieve Granger, a native of Canada and a
trained veteran of the Mercy Order, she having held the posi-
tion of assistant superior away back in 1855. In the first year
of her office as superior Mother Granger managed to pay the
large sum of $90,000, debts and interest due by the order.
She continued to make an energetic struggle ; but nevertheless,
in the winter of 1876, the accumulated debt having reached
$125,000, the Mercy Hospital and St. Xavier's Academy had to
be sold. Bishop Foley held the deeds. He was particularly
interested in the Mercy Hospital, which he frequently visited.
"You may have recreation till you see me again," he said one
day, on leaving, to the sisters. It was his last visit to any
institution in Chicago. He died a few days afterwards of
typhoid fever. On Bishop Foley's death the deeds of the
hospital and academy passed to his successor, Archbishop
Feehan, who returned them to the sisters.

The venerable Mother Mary Genevieve Granger, who has cele-
brated the golden jubilee of her fifty years* membership of the
Order of Mercy, still, by papal dispensation, worthily holds the
office of superior of the mother-house of the order in Chicago.
"To her we owe our preservation from financial ruin," writes
Mother M. Vincent McGirr, the only survivor of the original
Mercy community of Chicago, "and the peace, union, and
good order that reign in our community. I know it is not
well to praise people while- they live, although I am aware that
praise and censure are the same to her, except where God is
concerned, provided she can do her duty alike to all."

The Mercy Hospital has always been specially distinguished
for its brilliant corps of physicians. Though often pressed by
his friends to give it up on account of his advanced age, the
sisters* staunch old friend, Dr. Nathan Smith Davis, Nestor of
his profession in Chicago, still in a desultory way maintains his
now historic connection with the institution. His son. Dr. N. S.
Davis, Jr., and Dr. J. H. HoUister are the present consulting
physicians. The chief surgeon is Dr. Edmond Andrews, who
has been connected with the hospital since 1855, and who has
acquired high fame by his remarkable and successful operations.

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1 897-] The Story of a great Western Hospital. 791

**An Atom fkom Chicago's great daily Grist of Accidents."

Associated with him on the visiting staff are his son, Dr. E.
Wyllys Andrews, Dr. Christian Feneger, and Dr. William E.
Morgan, very skilful surgeons. The remainder of the hospital
staff consists of : Gynecologists, Drs. Frank T. Andrews and E.
C. Dudley ; Obstetricians, Dr. J. C. Hoag and J. B. De Lee ;
Pathologist, Dr. Stanley P. Black; Eye and Ear Department,
Dr. Horace M. Starkey. Besides these there is an efficient
home staff.

Sterling ability, rectitude, and honor have ever been the
characteristics of the medical gentlemen whom the Mercy
Hospital has attracted as a magnet. As for the sisters, well,
it need scarcely be explained that, unlike the salaried officials
and nurses of other hospitals, their earthly pay merely consists
of food and clothing, and that of the plainest kind.

It is a distinctly modern hospital, strictly up to date in
all its furnishings and equipments. It was the first institution
to provide itself with a complete apparatus for the taking of
X-ray pictures. Its laboratory, whither the microbes of disease
from the different patients are daily brought and identified as
accurately as a criminal is by the Bertillon system, is a marvel-
lous establishment in itself. The chapel of the establishment
is a gem. A convalescent patient may take an interesting

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792 The Story of a great Western Hospital. [Sept.,

stroll through about half a mile of well-lighted and nicely
furnished corridors.

In her office, to the left of the entrance, is usually found
Sister Raphael McGill, tall and robust, with a face full of
strength, energy, and kindness. She is in charge of the institu-
tion. Sister Isidore Perrigo has charge of the first floor. Sister
Anthony Grant of the second, Sister Margaret Shephard of the
third, Sisters Edmund Carey and Vivian Ryan of the fourth,
and Sister Helen of the basement. The surgical department is
allotted to the care of Sisters Norbert Ryan and De Pazzi
Lenahan, the medical male department to Sister Ethelreda
O'Dwyer, and the operating room to Sister Veronica Ryan.
The drug department is ably presided over by Sister Ignatius
Feeney, one of the best pharmacists in the United States.
Sister Ignatius, who came from Longford, Ireland, entered
the order in 1859, ^1"^ after some time became head of
the pharmaceutical department. A . complaint having been
made that prescriptions were being made up by persons who
had never been declared competent by the proper authorities,
Sister Ignatius, in 1882, presented herself for examination
before the Illinois State Board of Pharmacy, with the result
that she distanced the fifty-seven other licentiates, male and
female, who were examined on the same occasion. She was the
very first of her sex to receive a diploma in pharmacy in the
State of Illinois ; this development and assertion of female
ability being peculiarly startling and significant when the "new
woman " in the case was a humble and unassuming Sister of
Mercy.

An admirable feature of the Mercy Hospital is its training
of young women as nurses. Candidates for the profession,
whose moral and physical qualifications are satisfactorily guar-
anteed, are taken for a month on probation, being boarded
and lodged free during that time. Then, if found suitable, they
enter upon a two years' course of training, consisting of prac-
tical work in wards, operating rooms, private rooms, general
surgical dressing, and special treatment of cases, the whole
aided and accentuated by class study and a complete course
of lectures. For the first year they serve as assistants in the
wards; during the second they act as nurses in the wards or
in private cases among the rich and poor, according to the
direction of the superintendent. They reside in comfortable
rooms, and wear a uniform of striped light blue, with white
cap, apron, collar, and cuffs. A sum of $8 per month is al-

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1897.] The Story of a great Western Hospital, 793

lowed each nurse, not as wages — the liberal education given
being considered full equivalent for their services — but for dress,
text-books, and other matters of personal expense. The day
nurses are on duty from 7:15 A. M. to 7:15 P. M., with an hour

A Glimpse of a Private Room.

off for rest or recreation. Each gets an afternoon off each
week, and a two weeks' vacation each year.

Illness is practically impartial as to the calling or profession
of the generality of its victims, yet a glance at the list of 1,785
cases treated in the Mercy Hospital last year is interesting as
showing where thickest fall the random strokes of the unwel-
come visitor. The greatest number of classified patients, 336,
were housewives ; next to them, on the female list, were domes-
tics, 127. Of the males 235 had no calling; there were 202
laborers, 130 clerks, 70 merchants, 57 farmers, 44 railroad men,
35 saloon-keepers, 36 teachers, 37 teamsters, 28 students, and
27 police officers. All other trades and callings averaged about
four, only one patient from each occupation being sent in by
artists, athletes, boiler-makers, builders, bridge-builders, cattle-
dealers, cigar-makers, detectives, gasfitters, gripmen, livery-
men, motor-men, musicians, photographers, roofers, shoemakers,
steam-fitters, hostlers, and tinsmiths. Over five hundred of the

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794 The Stor y of a grea t Western Hospital. [Sept.,

patients, people without means, were received and treated free
— ^such being the character of the institution.

The sum of $10,000 endows a room in Mercy Hospital in
perpetuity; $5,000 endows a bed in perpetuity; $300 supports
a bed for one year. Unfortunately, not many rooms or beds
have been endowed. During its growth from a humble frame
structure to its present magnificent proportions the hospital
has received but little aid from the class of citizens who might
be supposed to be most interested in its prosperity. Its chief
financial benefactors may be easily counted. The late Martin
Ryerson, a much-respected, philanthropical, and wealthy Chica-
go citizen, endowed the Martin Ryerson ward for aged men, a
cheerful and handsomely furnished apartment on the first floor,
accommodating eight patients. Conrad Seipp left by his will
$10,000 to the hospital, and James Casey, a smaller sum.

The want of means, however, has been a bitter, depressing,
disheartening obstacle to some of the noblest of human under-
takings. Had not such obstacle existed, the merit of accom-
plishment would be but slight. As it is, triumphantly erected
by the efforts of the good sisterhood amid all manner of diffi-
culty and discouragement, the Mercy Hospital of Chicago stands
to-day one of the noblest monuments of practical religion in
the United States or in the world.

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1897.] Science as a Detective. 795

SCIENCE AS A DETECTIVE.

BY ERNEST LAGARDE, MOUNT ST. MARVS.

|OU cannot understand how the bacteria that kill
also feed, and make the most ordinary edibles
at once toothsome and highly flavored. It is
so, however.
'•Let me tell you that the flavor of that much-
sought-for butter which the Pennsylvania housewives of Lan-
caster prepare, and which always commands a very high price
in our markets on account of its delicious aroma, is due almost .
wholly to the growth of bacteria. The fragrance, not only of
butter, but of cheese, smoking tobacco, snuff, vinegar, milk, beer,
and a great number of products which are necessary for the
nourishment of man, or for the gratification of his capricious
tastes and habits, are, if not entirely, at least in a large measure,
the result of the development and growth of bacteria, in the
products I have mentioned."

These were the words of Dr. Clemson, a learned scientist
and professor of biology in one of the great universities of
the country. For years he had sought with sedulous inquiry
and unwearied patience the causes of disease and the myste-
rious results of micro-organisms in what modern science calls
evolutionary processes. He had directed his researches, most
particularly, toward finding out the gruesome progress of the
" conqueror worm," the " ubiquitous germ " which, like a ruth-
less army, invades the hut of the poor and the gilded retreat
of the wealthy. The revelations of the microscope showed him
that water — of which the conscientious temperance professor
tells us in rhythmic measure,

"Good pure water docs for me, makes none poorer, makes
none worse " —

was an ocean tenement of life, in which strange, fantastic,
medusa-like organisms disported themselves, having the while
their loves and their keen hates which lead to battle and to
fierce struggles for perpetuity. He had scanned the bread
which popular ignorance and delusion call the staff of life, and
in its crust and dough had found a spreading forest or green-
wood, a mould which escapes the naked eye, but which, under
the "all-seeing" lens of the microscope, becomes an extensive

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796 Science as a Detective. [Sept.,

area of greenery, with veritable woods and tree-like growths.
On the leaves or trunks of this dwarf forest the microscope
reveals a world of animated beings, moving, squirming, at times
engaged in deadly strife, in which the parent micro-organism,
Saturn-likc, devours its uncanny progeny ; or worse still, in
which the progeny itself, like the hellish brood of sin, kennelled
in the womb that bears them, turns upon its source of life and
by fierce ravenings destroys the parent-stem of being; then, by
a startling change, becomes, through an evolutionary process
which escapes the grasp of even modern science, at once pro-
geny and ancestor. But let us give way to Dr. Clemson him-
self, and let us bide our time while he speaks.

" Gentlemen," said the doctor, addressing his class in his
laboratory, "you know that in previous lectures I have shown
the important rdle which micro-organisms play in the spread of
zymotic diseases. I have told you how the researches of former
scientists led them to the very verge of the discovery of the
world of the infinitely small ; yet such has been the progress
of modern science that the great variety of forms of micro-
organic life, as we know them at present, constitute really but
a discovery of recent date.

In putting before you the paradox that the bacteria that
kill also feed and sustain life, I merely step aside to call your
attention to a line of investigation which is carried on with
food products, and which, exploited on practical lines, is giving
such results that we may hope, perhaps, for more hygienic sys-
tems of food production. I will simply add on this subject that
the evolution theory, in this particular, is very fittingly illustrated
by the fact that life is the result of death or decay ; for the
butter to which I referred a while ago is, as you know, made
from ripened cream — or, to use an unscientific term, live cream.
Now, this ripened or live cream is but the effect of bacterial
growth, a step in the process of decay; for the heat to which
the milk is exposed, before the cream rises, causes the decay,
the death, so to speak, of the sweet milk. And this death is
followed by the birth of micro-organisms whose number astounds
us as we discover them, for it has been found by searchers in
that line of investigation that a cubic centimetre contains eight
hundred million bacteria. The rate of growth is not less as-
tounding. It is held theoretically that the increase of a single
bacterium may be sixteen million within twenty hours ; and
thus, giving scope to the imagination, we may fancy that the
number of bacteria generated, theoretically, is a sum which in-
creases in geometrical progression.

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1 897-] Science as a Detective. 797

Returning to the subject of this day's inquiry, the part
which micro-organisms play in the propagation of disease, we
will first take a rapid glance at the history of the theory itself.
Let me tell you that the first who caught a glimpse of germ
life is said to have been the Jesuit, Anastasius Kircher, who,
in 1671, discovered bacteria in the sloughing of sores; but there
is no doubt that the first to write scientifically on the subject was
the old Dutch naturalist, Leeuwenhoek, one of the earliest inves-
tigators who made his researches with the help of a microscope.

The micro-organisms that he discovered were the bacteria
found in the saliva. But he failed to discover whether they
were the product or producing cause of disease.

The first disease traced to bacterial life was the dreadful
one, so common in portions of Louisiana, among cattle, and
popularly known as charbon — the anthrax or splenic fever —
caused by the bacillus anthracis. As early as 1849 such inves-
tigators as Cogniard and Latour, among the French, had
detected in the blood of animals affected with anthrax the
presence of bacteria, which the later investigations of writers
like Pollender finally fixed as the bacillus anthracis.

As the subject for this day's investigation will take several
lectures to develop, I will consume the balance of the time
allowed me by narrating a most interesting incident which oc-
curred in the course of my practice and which belongs to a
subject we will develop later on. I refer to the immunity from
disease when there have been generated in the blood organisms
which are capable of nullifying the disease-producing toxines.

In the early days of my biological researches I was called
upon to attend an old professor who had been my teacher in
my youth. I found him suflFering with anthrax on the neck.
He was a Southern man, and during his vacation it was his
habit to visit the scenes of his childhood; he would travel
through the South, extending his visits at times into Mexico.
I diagnosed the case, and from the information afforded me by
the professor I felt satisfied that he had contracted the disease
by actual contact with the bacillus anthracis, as he had fre-
quently visited the abbatoirs and the contiguous cattle-yards.
After applying the usual antiseptic remedies, the old professor,
who was a man of good constitution, soon rallied, and the ulcer
began to show healthy granulations.

In the hospital to which the professor had been trans-
ferred for treatment, a sailor had been sent for reduction of a
compound fracture of the arm. This sailor belonged to a
steamship engaged in the fruit trade with the West Indies. It

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798 Science as a Detective. [Sept.,

was never satisfactorily known how the sailor had broken his
arm. After following the case of the professor to its healing
point, I concluded that the safest way to cause the ulcer on
his neck to heal rapidly was to do some skin-grafting. I sug-
gested the treatment to one of the house surgeons, who directed
one of the students to procure a healthy skin for my purpose.

Shortly after the skin-grafting I noticed that the professor
was taken with spells of deep, and at times stertorous, sleep. In
a few days very marked indications of what is called Sleeping
Sickness set in — ^violent spasms preceding a deep, lethargic
sleep. I became alarmed, as I knew that this disease is due
to the filaria loa^ a bacteroid that has been described in this
country very learnedly by Matas, of Louisiana, and De Saus-
sure, of South Carolina.

In my early experiments I had tried, in various ways, the
antitoxic treatment for cases which had come under my hand.
Interested in the then very recent Pasteur system of inocula-
tion for rabies, I had in my biological experiments tried many
ways to produce antitoxines, for various forms of disease.
What that is, in a strictly scientific sense, I must tell you that
we do not as yet exactly know. But this element that is im-
pacted to the blood, either to counteract the impress of disease
or to give immunity before attack, is some organism that re-
sides in the blood serum — the yellow portion of the blood in
which the blood corpuscles float, as you have already learned.

The ''scientific imagination" of some has fancied that
there is a battle royal between the myriads of animalcules that
inhabit the blood and those that are last injected, the former
representing and causing the disease that possesses the patient,
the latter their natural enemies ; and just as a plague of mos-
quitoes is destroyed by a swarm of swallows, so the bacteria of
one disease are routed and exterminated by those of another,
which must then themselves be expelled from the subject. In
but two diseases, so far as the published results of experiments
are known, has the antitoxic treatment been applied with any-
thing like success — that is, in diphtheria and tetanus, or lock-
jaw ; for, in rabies, the Pasteur system is even now undergoing
its crucial test.

Yet some claim to have discovered the antitoxine of typhoid,
and a young Italian physician declared very recently that he
had discovered the antitoxine of yellow fever. However, it
will be some time before the body of physicians will know the
true value of antitoxic treatment. I must admit that the entire
question is, still involved in much mystery. But, as I said

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1 8970 Science as a Detective, 799

before, I had made experiments in the line of discovering im-
munity from disease or counteracting the effects, the disease
having once made its invasion, and, although I am not satisfied
with most of my experiments, yet in this particular case of the
sleeping disease I think I have discovered an antitoxine.
Whether it is at all times reliable I cannot at present declare,
but in the case of the old professor I had the great happiness of
securing the surprising result of a cure by the antitoxic treatment.

There is something else connected with this incident of my
practice which, although it has no scientific value, has, how-
ever, enough of interest about it to entitle it to be paraded
among the sensational items of the so-called advanced journal-
ism of the day.

It is this. On the steamship on which the young sailor
worked a robbery of jewelry from one of the passengers had
been made. The case was reported on the landing of the ship
in port, and the detectives had failed to find the least clue to
the robber. I read the account of the robbery in the morning
papers, and I felt satisfied that the professor, through the
bungling manner in which the young student had cut the skin
— having possibly taken a portion of the flesh with the integu*
ment — had been inoculated with the filaria. I therefore went to
the Detective Bureau and begged the superintendent to inquire
as to the place where the sailor had broken his arm. No one
could tell me. I stated my reason for this, saying that if I
could get some of the blood from the sailor's wound I could
investigate to find out whether he was affected with the filaria
loa. It was ascertained that blood had been found on one of
the towels of the cabin of the passenger that had been robbed.
After awhile, the stewardess of the vessel was found to have
bound the arm of the sailor with one of her handkerchiefs.
The towel had not been turned over to the laundry. I got the
handkerchief, which was stained with blood, and after taking from
it and the towel enough to put on the slides I distinctly discov-
ered a number of filaria loa. A hunt for the sailor led to his
discovery at the house of the stewardess, where he was found
suffering with the sleeping sickness. A further search led to
the discovery of the jewels, which were secreted among the
effects of the stewardess."

We said in the beginning that while the doctor lectured we
would bide our time ; it has come now. It only remains for us
to say that our part in this narrative has been that of reporter.
We have given the lecture in its original form.

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THE FOOD OF ELIJAH.

{AN ARMENIAN TRADITION.)
BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY.

HREE nobles of Byzantium, the fair.

In days of eld, when things of Faith had share
In all men's thought, discussed in warm debate
The present life, in wondrous heavenly state,
Of blest Elijah, who, untouched by death,
Upwafted on the fiery whirlwind's breath.
Entered the crystal portals of the sky:
But most of all their great debate ran high,
Twixt grave distinctions of elaborate plan,
As to what food sustained the holy man.

Dikran contended that, as he was still
Of earthly frame, with human blood and will.
He surely must, to meet his nature's pleas.
Be nourished by the fruit of earthly trees.

But Aram said : " No, no ! the good Lord must
Have shaken off these claims of mortal dust,
And given him — he stands beside the Throne —
The power to live by heavenly joy alone " !
" Not so," cried Ashod, " for the Lord hath stored
A special manna for the Prophet's board.
Such as He gave — in Holy Writ 'tis told —
To feed His children in the days of old ! "

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1 897-] The Food of Elijah. 8oi

Thus strove they in an ever-widening round —
Now over-keen, now pompous and profound —
Until cried Dikran : " We can never reach
Peace and agreement by our length of speech :
Come, there is one in sacred learning rich
Beyond all others — Patriarch Mugerditch !
Let us to him this great contention bring
And learn, in truth, how doth our Heavenly King."

Aram and Ashod from their strivings ceased
And the three nobles sought the great high-priest.

He, with a grave, unruffled spirit, heard
The question deep that had their parley stirred :
Then lifting up his voice : " Methinks," he said,
" My noble sons, your thoughts are far misled :
You seek, with many phrases vain, to find
A knowledge emptier, vaguer than the wind ;
Seek not to know what blest Elijah ate —
That question ask the beggar at your gate ! "

VOL. Lxv.— 51

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8o2 Michelangelo Bvonaskoti as a Poet. [Sept.,

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI AS A POET.

BY THOMAS B. REILLY.

**. . . quel ch' a par sculpe e colora

Michel, piCi che mortale, Ang^el divino." — Ariosio,

ERYTHING is beautiful to the one whose soul
is susceptible to pleasures that spring from
works of art and the fairer forms of human life
and nature. A man thus fashioned does not
live on an earth of commonplace existence ; he
stands aside from busy throngs, in a vague sort of twilight,
catching from behind the material veil ideals of the world be-
yond. He drifts out into the ways of contemplation, forgetting
the dust of the journey, remembering only the scent of the
wild-rose that drifted upward from the wayside. He looks at
the red-barred sunset, which burns above the green sea-marsh
or flames behind the blue hills, and he sees, as few men ever
do, that half-retreating spirit of the beautiful which lurks in the
glowing depths of light. Many of us have never seen a sunset.
The arrowed light that glances from a sea-bird's wing, or glistens
along the whitening wave, silvering the line of snow on gray
sands ; the star on fire in the west ; the low fluting of a bird
among the reeds — all of these have for him a subtle charm and
beauty which few men understand.

Such a man is not sentimental; he makes wings of material
types, that he may soar through the deeps of spiritual order.
He writes, and around the thought plays a halo, drawing us
away from the noise and glare of city streets ; leading us out
to the hillsides flecked with sheep, along the winding brook
where wearied cattle stand knee-deep in the cool water, up
through the meadow-land and pasture, into the depths of sha-
dy woodlands, there to lie and dream of ideal worlds and ideal
men and women. He catches the fragrance of the past ; but
he also plants new shrubs along his foot-path, watching them
break into blossom, knowing that the scent thereof will be the
richest burden on time's drifting breeze. His woof is made
from the hearts of men, and from the loom of imagination he
weaves the story of their dreams.

Such a man was Michelangelo Buonarroti. His life was
nearly full, for its better qualities were rounded out under the
touch of time. Some natures never unfold ; for want of care,

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1897O Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet, 803

Uke withered buds, they sink to the roadside, sere and brown —
unoptned spheres that might have been the fairest flowers of
all. The Florentine, however, was strong and sturdy, as the
pure of heart must be; like those yellow flowers of autumn,
his life was golden in its purity, its work, and its purpose.

As a painter and sculptoc he is the one solitary figure stand-
ing between us and the golden 9g« of Greece. With a mind far
beyond his hour, he knew and felt that the highest object of
art for thinking men was man. The masterpiece of God gave
inspiration to his brush, life and warmth to the chiselled forms,
a depth of purity, thought, and beauty to the work of his pen.

Angelo is best known as an artist, yet it seems to me are
we to know him fully, to see the color, space, and shape of his
world, we must read his verse. It is there especially that we
find his aspirations and his fears. Some writers have charged
him with obscurity of thought; Angelo simply went beyond
their depth. Power and ingenuity are perhaps the two most strik-
ing marks of his poetry. Now and then the form is bold and
rugged, but vitality, fervor, and a hidden sweetness permeate
every line. Just as his half-emergent forms are held to the
cold block by a few uncut edges of stone, so do we often find
his words and thoughts, ready at a touch to spring into life
and action. We find in his poems a wealth of beauty, spiritual
not human, which for years has withstood the extravagant
drain of criticism. We of the younger generation, perhaps,
may see the full development of his worth; but even those who
are now at life's turn can partly understand the depth of his
ideals, his keen perception of the beautiful, and some of the in-
nate truths of his bold, lofty nature.

STYLE IS THE MAN.

Some one has said that style is ^' all that makes for the form
in which thought of any kind is cast." I think it is greatly
determined by the tendencies of one's nature, and the influen-
ces with which one may be surrounded. Style must, above all
else, be a reflection of the writer's character. For Michelangelo
this shadow of self increased in clearness and strength, spring-
ing as it did from his association with the pious Vittoria Co-
lonna,* who was for him " quella luce che fu guida della sua
vita e lo trasse ad operar grandi cose " f (that light which was the
guide of his life, and which drew him on to the accomplish-

* She was the Marchioness of Pescara, who, after the death of her husband on the battle-
field of Pavia, went into retirement at the convent of •' San Silvestro in Capite."

t Vide Saltini*s preface to Rime e Lett ere di Michelangelo Buonarroti^ scritta da Asca-
nio Condivi.

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8o4 Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet. [Sept.,

ment of nobler works). Her love for art and letters, together
with her deep-grounded faith, served to draw the soul of the
poet under her influence ; giving rise to a friendship, I am
tempted to say to love, that became stronger as the lives of
each turned into the sere and yellow leaf. Religion, art, and
philosophy were subjects dear to both; they tasted, as Pater
says, ** the sunless pleasures of weary people whose hold on out-
ward things is slackening."

The restless activity of the poet's heart and mind was stilled
by the power of woman's soul, just as a child is soothed by the
cradle song of its mother. A calm and thoughtful spirit seized
him, and his powerful emotions were drawn towards the realm
of idealism, whose charm and potency were discovered in the
higher affection of his friend.

It was during those quiet talks behind the white walls of
San Silvestro that Angelo sounded the depths of Plato and of
Dante. It was there he reached out beyond the material veil
and caught up the high ideals contained in life and death.
Dante must have fashioned the mould of his verse, yet a Platonic
touch is seen in many of his thoughts. He did not seek the
color, form, nor composition of beauty, but he loved to catch
the subtle spirit that moved behind it. His half-emergent forms
in marble beautifully show to us this same spirit, chained and
complaining, ready at a touch of his fingers to stand forth a
breathing personality. The same strange element drifts through
his poetry ; " where the brooding spirit of life itself is and
where summer may burst out in a moment."

If we would see Michelangelo's nature struggling to attune
itself aright, we must read the verse rather than gaze at the
material work. There are moments when he comes so near
Dante that we imagine it is the latter himself who speaks.
This is especially felt when he sings of love and death, or
when speaking of Florence and the political life of his country.

HIS POETRY THE LONGINGS OF HUMAN LIFE.

In the vigor and boldness of his lines is a hidden sweetness,
as one critic aptly calls it, " ex forte dulcedo." We can almost
siee the poet's soul in the expression of his thoughts ; it lingers
for a moment, vanishes, comes stealing out from the black type,
retreats into darkness, and leaves us standing in a sort of twi-
light, uncertain of our thoughts and powerless to fathom his
greatness. Not Art alone, as some one has said, but especially
Poetry was the ladder upon which the " angels of his fancy
were ever ascending and descending."

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1897-] MlCHEl^ANGELO BUONARROTI AS A POET. 805

We should know that at the time in which the poet lived
nearly all educated persons in Italy wrote in verse ; the son-
net was the favorite form. What could be more natural than
for a soul that saw beauty in everything to set free in words
the drifting thoughts ^nd cares, and the thousand longings of
a human life? He seemed to feel that he could never express
in material work what he felt and saw in his mental concep-
tion. He could not bring himself to things of earth : "Non
abassava gli occhi alle cose mortali " (he did not bend his eyes
to mortal things),

HIS INSPIRATIONS FROM DANTE.

Michelangelo nourished himself with readings from Dante
and Savonarola; yet through all his work we see only himself,
for in the light of his own personality, which streamed through
all he said or did, no other presence could live. He lingered
in a dream-world of thought, and his work is shot through
with contemplations of a high ideal. He was not simply an
artist, not a mere dreamer of dreams, but a man whose heart
was eager in sympathy and love for his fellow-man. A brood-
ing twilight of melancholy, sorrow, and sadness clung to him
throughout his whole life. His brighter self was always in
shadow I peace was seldom his. I doubt if the light of con-
tentment ever broke upon his soul ; if it did, he saw it only as
through a mist, as sometimes we see the burning west veiled
by the downpour of summer showers. The fact that he suf-
fered gives a charm to his verse, for it makes us feel that he
was after all a man ; and who of us will deny that from lips
that have tasted sadness the sweetest and purest songs of life
shall fall ?

I like to think of a poet as one who dwells among the
people of his own land, singing the song of their lives, and
dreaming in glow of their hearthstone. I would have him draw
from the vibrant strings of his art such melody and charm as
would lead me beyond the confines of material life, open for
me a higher sphere, where the contemplation of a soul's tu-
mult, the pangs of regret, and the nameless longings of a
thousand hearts may come in the peace and quiet of an in-
finite world. Let him draw from the gloom and darkness, from
the suffering and misery of human life, ideals of faith and
love which may, in the calm light of hope, reach out into
eternity. From his hand must come the storm and lightning,
the rain and thunder of our lives; even the silent touch of an
atmosphere should be present ; but he must suggest also the

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8o6 Michelangelo Buonafroti as a Poet. [Sept.,

blue of summer skies, the greening spring, and the sunshine
that is again to come.

Shakspere did this, but he did more, for he seemed to have
held in his hand a living heart ; he felt its weakest beat, he
breathed upon it, bruised it with love, crushed it with despair,
tore it apart with passion — making of its life a transcription,
at all times wonderful, now and then rising to the sublime.
He was a child of nature; Michelangelo was a lover of m>sti-
cism. The creator of Lear took love as a theme and sounded
every key ; touched weird chords in minors, or rang out the
full, deep tone of major strains. The hand that fashioned the
*' Pietk " sometimes struck such chords as might have come from
"sweet bells out of tune," for they were made up of the
philosophy of the Ccmmedia^ the dreams of Plato, and the
vagaries of a four-fold genius. The truest and most touching
strains came from notes of piety, melancholy, and an intense
love of art. How truly has it been said that Angelo stands
like his own grand Jeremias, " bowed down with the contem-
plation of human wickedness and woe " — weary, sad, patient,
sublime !

THE MAN OF FOUR SOULS.

The echoes of that so-called Reformation had drifted across
the Alps, and had given rise to religious talks between the
poet and her whom he calls " the force " that urged him on to
heaven — Vittoria Colonna. The result of these conversations
was the budding of his thoughts into blossoms of poetry. The
fires of youth had long since been chilled, yet as an argument
in many of his poems we find the sort of spiritual love which
comes only from a holy affection, and to those alone who are
pure of heart.

In Italy they call him " Uomo di quattro alme " — the man
of four souls. The nation dearly reveres his name, for he
proved to be a worthy son ; and I think it is a characteristic
of his people to love with a strength as deep as the bitterness
of their hate ; and still they allowed his reputation as a poet
to rest for over two centuries on the work of an inferior mind.
This is due to the classical spirit that came stealing out of the
twelfth century.

That ever-recurring period of the Renaissance, so complex,
so interesting, and so little understood, gave rise, by its ten-
dencies and achievements, to a rapid movement in every walk
of life. Art became beautiful in the concrete, strange individu-
alities arose, and intelligence and imagination strode forward

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i897-] Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet. 807

into the gloom of the future. The law that seemed to govern
all work was the search for aesthetic charm. People were ele-
vated to and supported by those higher planes of thought
and existence that sprang from a closer realization of ideals.
The culture of the day had gathered itself into one complete
and almost faultless type. The products of that movement,
whether material or spiritual, were dignified and unique ; and
we find them, even in our age, exercising a direct influence
upon the world of fine arts.

Men felt, in the subtle touch of a classic atmosphere, a
keen sense of the beautiful, and this feeling served to bind
them closer in the relations of life. One art drifted into the
realm of another, and from the diffusion of many excellences
a more perfect type of civilization stood forth. The dreams of
the philosopher were echoed in the songs of the poet ; new
lights and shadows flitted across the canvas sheet; the sculp-
tured form took to itself fresh lines of grace; the influence of
the Germans, the Lombards, and the Franks wore away, and
the spirit of Greece and Rome again directed the hand of
genius. The bold thought and rugged line were rounded off
until they became refined and polished, even as Horace would
have them — ad unguem facta.

Men, looking on life with clearer minds and with a more
liberal spirit, sought hidden sources of intellectual enjoyment.
The narrow channels of Art and Poetry were broadened, al-
lowing the tide of revival to sweep into other ages, catching
in its current the loosened work of genius.

GILDING THE LILY.

It was owing to this spirited movement, which shone through
the Italian nature, that the great-nephew of Angelo deemed a
reformation of his ancestor's literary work an absolute neces-
sity. " He rewrote," says Pater, " the sonnets in part, and
sometimes compressed two or more compositions into one,
always losing something of the force and incisiveness of the
original." Indeed, the true lines are to the false what dia-
monds are to broken quartz ; the one flashes with all the lights
of a setting sun, the other scarce reflects the subdued glow of
twilight. In the two texts there is a great difference of ex-
pression, strength, and boldness of thought. In one we see a
rugged, stern, manly touch ; the expression of ideas is per-
sonal, the flashing thought is caught and held. The false lines
are weak, shallow productions, moulded to suit the sentimental-
ism of the age ; they are soft and over-elegant, and all thoughts

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8o8 Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet. [Sept,

that might offend politically are left out. We see the poet as
through a heavy mist ; we can never fully know him, for the
work is not consistent with his character. We must look at
Angelo in the light of sun-touched mountains, not in an at-
mosphere that is burdened with the scent of exotic plants or
loaded with the heavy odor of the locust-tree. He loved the
pure, fresh air of his native hills ; his thoughts were drawn
from the blue deeps over his head, and were as bold and
* rugged as the white cliffs of the quarry wherein he worked.
In one of his early sonnets Angelo says :

'^ L'amor mi prende, e la beltli mi lega.
La pietli, la merc^ con dolci sguardi
Ferma speranz' al cor par che ne doni."

" Love takes me captive ; beauty binds my soul ;
Pity and mercy with their gentle eyes
Wake in my heart a hope that cannot cheat/'*

HIS SOUL TOUCHES THE INFINITE.

This love, however, was far from the worldly type ; it was
the enchantment of an ideal which dwelt in the sheer depths
of his soul. The beauty that bound his heart with its golden
chains was not of the sensual order ; it was above all orders,
it was infinite. Love and Beauty were for him a blending of
truth with perfected goodness, and from this union sprang Art.
He thought, as Guasti says, that the beautiful was nothing
more than " a flowing out of the Eternal Beauty, as a river
from a fountain." He felt that the nearer man approached
God, the closer he was to perfection ; the more intimate his
knowledge of the Creator, the better would he understand the
scattered beauty of the material world. As Angelo became
more sensitive and responsive to those higher forms of human
life and nature, his mind soared upward in search of the infi-
nite, which alone could quench its thirst. The accidents of na-
ture bound down his spiritual self to things of earth, vainly
trying to satisfy its cravings by feeding it with reflections of
that '^ eterna belleza " which Guasti calls the fountain head of
beauty.

The spiritual natures of some men are so highly strung that
a single strain of music will draw them away from all that is
human, make them forget their surroundings, place them amid
fields of snow and ice, or in the luxuriant growth of a Southern
clime : sunrise and morning light ; the heat of day, the cool-

* Translation by J. A. Symonds.

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1897O Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet. 809

ing showers ; sunset and starless night, — all these come stealing
across such souls, when trembling notes from a master-hand
ring out the song of life, or cry in the agony of death. Other
natures, whose susceptibility to impressions has been deep and
varied, catch the gleam and gloom of a life-time, the joys and
sorrows of a day, to send them out again after many years in
some work of art. It was to both classes that Angelo belonged.
He saw beauty everywhere, his soul seemed to lean out into
eternity that it might feed itself with contemplations of the in-
finite.

What Michelangelo thought of Art may be found in this
sonnet,* which is the only one that has not suffered from the
touch of a lesser mind:

"Non ha T ottimo artista alcun concetto,
Ch' un marmo solo in s6 non circonscriva
Col suo soverchio; e solo a quello arriva
La man che ubbidisce all' inteiletto.
II man ch' io fuggo, e' 1 ben ch' io mi prometto.
In te, donna leggiadra, altera e diva,
Tal si nasconde ; e perch' io piu non viva,
Contraria ho 1* arte al disiato effetto.

" Amor dunque non ha, nh tua beltate,
O durezza, o fortuna, o gran disdegno,
Del mio mal colpa, o mio destino o sorte ;
Se dentro del tuo cor morte e pietate

Porti in un tempo, e che '1 mio basso ingegno
Non sappia, ardendo, trarne altro che morte."

" The best of artists hath no thought to show
Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell
Doth not include : to break the marble spell
Is all the hand that serves the brain can do.
The ill I shun, the good I seek, even so
In thee, fair lady, proud, ineffable,
Lies hidden: but the art I wield so well
Works adverse to my wish, and lays me low.

"Therefore, not love, nor thy transcendent face.
Nor cruelty, nor fortune, nor disdain.
Cause my mischance ; nor fate, nor destiny :

* Vide sonetti xv., Le Rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti^ da Cesare Guasti.
A complete exposition of this sonnet is found in the Lezione di Benedetto Varchi, which
is included in Guasti's edition, page Ixxxv.

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8io Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet, [Sept,

Since in thy heart thou earnest death and grace
Enclosed together, and my worthless brain
Can draw forth only death to feed on me."

There, is music, thought, and feeling in every line. Varchi,
in speaking of this work before the Academy at Florence, said :
" Per maggiore e piu agevole intelligenza del soggetto di questo
grave e dotto Sonetto, avemo a sapere, nobilissimi uditori, che
niuno affetto, o vero accidente (qualunche egli sia), h tanto
universale, e tanto comune a tutte le cose, quanto V Ainore."

The lines addressed to Dante are as rich in poetic thought
and beauty as any in the literature of Italy. It may be inter-
esting to note the difference in the two texts. The first quat-
rain of the original is :

^* Dal ciel discese, e col mortal suo, poi
Che visto ebbe V inferno guisto e *1 pio,
Ritorn6 vivo a contemplare Dio,
Per dar di tutto il vero lume a noi."

'• From Heaven his spirit came, and, robed in clay,
The realms of justice and of mercy trod,
Then rose, a living man, to gaze on God
That He might make the Truth as clear as day."

Condivi has it thus:

'' Dal mondo scese ai ciechi abissi, e poi
Che r uno e V altro inferno vide, e a Dio,
Scorto dal gran pensier, vivo salfo,
E ne di^ in terra vero lume a noi."

It is in this sonnet that the poet says :

" N^ sare' *1 premio tutto '1 mondo rio :
Tu sol, che la creasti, esser quel puoi."

" Not all the wicked world reward could be :
Alone canst Thou who hast created him."

Some critic has justly compared this thought with the one
found in Saint Augustine's works : " Tu fecisti nos ad te ; et
inquietum est cor nostrum donee requiescat in te." The idea
is also found in the Imitation : " I am able to reward thee
above all measure and degree."

Michelangelo, like his great countryman Dante, sang in
exile. Both men loved their native city. When the siege of
Florence was raised by the treachery of Baglioni ; when Ales-

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1897O Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet. 811

sandro de' Medici marched through the Roman gate, and ene-
mies had conquered, then it was that the poet, brooding in
silence over the wrongs of his city, turned wholly to Art and
Poetry, seeking rest and finding none. If you would fully
know him, gaze at his Thinker of San Lorenzo^ and repeat with
its creator :

" Ohimfe, ohim6 ! pur reiterando
Vo '1 mio passato tempo, e non ritrovo,
In tuttOy un giorno che sia stato mio.
Le fallaci speranze e '1 van desio,
Piangendo, amando, ardendo e sospirando,
(Ch' effetto alcun mortal non mi h piii nuovo)
M' hanno tenuto ; ond' il conosco, e provo."

''Alas, alas! when I, retracing,
O'er the drifting past bewildered go,
I do not find in all one day my own,
False hopes and vain desires enchained me so.

" Weeping, loving, burning, sighing.
No mood upon a human heart can call
That will to mine appear an utter stranger.
Since I, for long, have known and felt them all."

Turn to his Day^ upon the sarcophagus below, and watch, in
the spirit of a chiselled form, the undying energy of a genius
struggling against despair. Stand before the figure of Nighty
that seems asleep in dreams — for its maker thought :

" 'Tis well to slumber, best to be of stone.
While shame endures and Florence is not free " —

and see therein the longing of a soul to be at rest. And still
we read :

" Destala, se nol credi, e parleratti "; *
" Wake it, if still in doubt : 'twill speak to thee ";

as though the poet longed for Florence as he once knew her,
longed for his youth, his steady hand, and the brighter dreams ;
but in vain, for the flowers of one year die for ever, and the
thrush that now sings in the tangled copse will never return.
We feel that in those days, for him, sunshine never fell; and
that already the creeping shadows of night were lengthening out
into the blackness of death.

* From a quatrain found near Ang^elo*s statue " La Notte."

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8i2 Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet. [Sept.,

It was not in Art alone that the exile left his thoughts;
all the regrets, indignations, hopes, and fears that touched his
heart found an outlet in the trembling song that passed his
lips. His madrigals are tinged with the sufferings of a human
soul.

'' Ritorni a' nostri pianti
II sol degli occhi tuo*, che par che schivi
Chi del suo dono in tal miseria h nato."*

'' Give back to streaming eyes the daylight of thy face,
That seems to shun those who must live defrauded of their
bliss."

Such was the plaintive appeal that his heart made to its lost
Florence.

The music of the Italian tongue is almost denied to our
ear. We can no more catch the full strain of a terza rima in
the Divina Commedia than we can justly appreciate the full
harmony of a Ciceronian period. The English language is
strong and expressive, and wonderful effects have been pro-
duced by it in the hands of Shelley, Keats, and Shakspere. It
is full of life and motion. Dante, who completed the work of
Saint Francis of Assisi in the formation of a national language,
uses the Italian tongue more like a sturdy Goth of the North
than a native of Florence. Michelangelo is equally as strong,
though at times less clear and polished. His mind outstrips
his pen, leaving the thought to be rounded out by the reader
himself.

In speaking of the death of his father the poet says :

" Non 6, com* alcun crede, morte il peggio
A chi r ultimo di tranciende al primo.
Per grazia, eterno appresso al divin seggio ;
Dove, Die grazia, ti prossummo e stimo,
E spero di veder, se '1 freddo core
Mie ragion traggie dal terrestre limo."

This poem is especially beautiful for its Christian thought
and belief. It may be freely translated :

" No. Death is not, as some think, the worst of evils, if, by
God's goodness, our last day on earth goes to join itself to
eternal life in heaven ; where I believe you are by the mercy
of God, and where I hope to see you once again, if reason
draw from the mud of earthly passions my chilled heart."

♦Vide Guasti's edition, page 297, capitolo 3, '* In morte di Lodovico Buonanx>ti."

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i897-] Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet. 813

The mind of the poet often turned to religious subjects,
and his thoughts, drifting out into the ways of God, filled his
soul with aspirations, loaded his heart with sorrow, and lifted
his mind from things of earth to changeless dreams of eternity.
" Touching and beautiful,'' says one writer, " are the religious
sonnets of Angelo, for they show how, in the light which
streamed from the other world as he neared its confines, he
judged rigorously of the failings and imperfections of a life
which, in its purity and austerity, appeared to his contempor-
aries severe and holy and exemplary, as indeed it was/' What
is there more touching than this prayer, coming from a once
strong and sturdy nature, which is now broken beneath the
weight of sorrowing years?

'' Non basta, Signor mio, che tu m' invogli
Di ritornar Ik dove 1' alma sia,
Non come prima di nulla, creata.
Anzi che del mortal la privi e spogli,
Prego m' ammezzi 1' alta e erta via,
E fie piu chiara e certa la tomata."*

Even in the translation, which rubs off much of the pristine
beauty, the thought is high and noble, worthy of the heart from
which it came :

"'Tis not enough, dear Lord, to make me yearn
For that celestial home, where yet my soul
May be new made, and not, as erst, of naught ;
Nay, ere Thou strip her mortal vestment, turn
My steps toward the steep ascent, that whole
And pure before thy face she may be brought."

When old age had come upon him, and the gales of a stern
life had wrenched the spars, and had torn in shreds the sails
of his little bark, then it was that he turned to his Maker to
find protection and a peaceful harbor :

" Scarco d' un' importuna e grave salma,
Signor mio caro, e dal mondo disciolto,
Qual fragil legno, a te* stance mi volto
Dair orribil procella in dolce calma." f

" Freed from a burden sore and grievous band.
Dear Lord, and from this wearying world untied,

♦ Vide Guasti's edition^ page 238, sonetti Ixx,
t Ibid., sonetti Ixxiii., pag^e 241.

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8i4 Michelangelo Buonarroti as a Poet. [Sept.

Like a frail bark I turn me to Thy side.
As from a fierce storm to a tranquil land."

The prayer that trembled on his lips in old age ,was :

'* Teach me to hate the world, so little worth,
And all the holy things I once did prize,
That endless life, not death, may be my wage."

When his hold on outward things was loosened, and he
drew nearer the light of another world, he said:

" The impassioned fantasy that, vague and vast,
Made Art an idol and a king to me.
Was an illusion, and but vanity
Were the desires that lured me and harassed."

It is while studying the works of such a genius as Michel-
angelo that the reader feels the flight of time, and understands
the expressionless formula of beauty. He is drawn aside from
the pushing, surging crowds in commonplace life, and stands in
a world of dreams, where the silent touch of atmosphere is no
more ; where thought alone can live ; where all types are
gathered into one being ; where all beauty rests in a single
point — the centre of the rose of Dante — where " all the good
that will may covet there is summ'd ; and all, elsewhere defec-
tive found, complete."

Although living in an age of moral dissolution and religious
apostasy, Angelo kept his heart pure and clean ; a man of
charity and piety, mindful of his last end, for he often said:
" Bisogna pensare alia morte. Questo pensiero h solo quello
che ci fa riconoscere noi medisimi, che ci mantiene in noi
uniti " (We ought to think of death. This thought is the only
one that makes us remember what we are, that keeps us at
unity with ourselves). He was like to Euphranor, of whom
Quintilian writes: ''Admirandum facit, quod et ceteris optimis
studiis inter praecipuos et pingendi fingendique idem minis
artifex fuit." Angelo, however, was more than this; he was,
in the words of Guasti, the " grandi assertori del domma catto-
lica nella poesia, nella scienza, e neir arte." He was a Chris-
tian philosopher and poet, to whom beauty and excellence
were things of another sphere ; a man that rose by means of
material .agencies, which are but steps, to the contemplation
of the great Ideal Himself — the Changeless God.

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1 897-] An Indian Clergy Impossible. 815

AN INDIAN CLERGY IMPOSSIBLE.

FREDKRIC EBERSCHWEILER, S.J.,
{^Fort Belknap Indian Agency,)

•HE anonymous writer of the article "Native
Indian Vocations" in The Catholic World,
June, 1897, shows the wondrous courage of a
knight who arises alone against a whole army,
when he boldly declares the missionaries of the
last four hundred years guilty of having disregarded the practice
of the apostles and of the church regarding native vocations.
I do not indignantly exclaim that such a judgment is a rash
and insolent calumny against a venerable body of apostolic
workers among whom are heroes, saints, and martyrs, but will
prove only that it is a theory which evaporates into the clouds
before the dry reality.

Both parties admit that the Indians have not, and never had,
a native clergy. The missionaries living among them assert
that the cause of this fact is a deficiency of Indians called to
the priesthood, and give their reasons for such lack of vocations.
But the far-distant theorist, sitting at his desk, considers the
missionaries color-blind in regard to native vocations and as
stubbornly opposed to them, and proposes, by recent theories,
founded on the scientific investigations of our more enlightened
and less credulous age, to prove infallibly that there are and
must be a sufiScient number of Indian vocations for an
Indian hierarchy and clergy.

THE MISSIONARIES THE FRIENDS OF NATIVE VOCATIONS.

I desire to show that the missionaries are not the enemies
but the friends of native vocations^ and that nobody, without
presumptuously hoping for the miracles of an extraordinary pro-
vidence, can but expect a great scarcity of Indian vocations.

"Our Holy Father, Leo XIII., says in his encyclical on the
church in India : * The Catholic faith in the Indies will never

Note. — The article is published in answer to a paper on '* Native Indian Vocations "
printed in the Jnne number of this Mag^azine. We are only anxious to have the question
thoroughly discussed. — Ed. Catholic World Magazine.

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8i6 An Indian Clergy Impossible. [Sept.,

have a sure defence, its propagation in the future will not be
sufficiently guaranteed, as long as there is a lack of ministers
chosen from the natives of the country.' . . . Leo XIII.
points out the danger of entrusting anywhere, to a foreign
clergy, the spiritual direction of those whose character and
environment none but natives can rightly understand. . . .
None of the force and appositeness of the lesson is lost when
it is applied to the church in America."

These passages, cited from the mentioned article, express
the convictions of all missionaries.

But, strange to say, although our author writes: "All mis-
sionaries agree that the establishment of a native clergy, had it
been possible, would have produced the most satisfactory
results, and it has been evident from the beginning that with-
out it success would not be possible " ; he nevertheless clings
to the theory that the founding of a native clergy amongst the
Indians would have been possible but for an established policy
of their missionaries against it.

He might just as well discover a like pernicious policy in
the bishops in whose dioceses the Indian Reservation lie, and
in the American hierarchy which, for the last four centuries,
found it impossible to establish a native clergy for the white
Americans and was obliged to adopt priests born in foreign
lands. Who could refrain from smiling at a theorizer who
should accuse miners of an established policy against gold-find-
ing, because they* could not find any gold in a certain distant
place which his beloved theories proved to be full of the
precious metal ?

THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN INDIA DID FOSTER A
NATIVE CLERGY.

The religious orders which sent the missionaries to the
Indies always, by their very nature, fostered higher vocations,
and their colleges furnished numberless native candidates for
the priesthood to every civilized land. But, behold, their
members lose this apostolic spirit as soon as apostolic zeal
carries them into uncivilized countries ! *' They never encourage
their converts to rise above the path of the precepts," but
oppose native vocations, frustrating the establishment of any
native hierarchy and clergy. For four hundred years, then, they
have failed to notice the terrible sinfulness of resisting God's
grace in any person in whom it works, and its disastrous efifects
in ruining their own missions.

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I897-] ^^ Indian Clergy Impossible. 817

The priest is appointed by God to discern and favor the
works of grace, and is therein assisted by the sacramental
effects of his ordination. He is also the most competent natural
judge in whatever relates to vocations, since he is not only
taught all about them in his course in moral theology, but has
also experienced the working of a higher calling in himself.
Through all Christian ages he has been able to discover them
without having to wait for the light emanating from the latest
theories regarding the qualifications of the respective nations
to which those called of God belonged. The missionary priest
knows the Indians, not only by theory but by such expe-
riences with them as show him clearly what they are in reality.
Theories about the qualifications of the Greeks would have
seemed to show that they could not possibly fail to drive the
new Xerxes, the Sultan, over the Hellespont into Asia! The
Indians, unlike the Greeks, have not even a history from which
conclusions can be drawn. Is it not, then, rather child-like
credulity to believe that the Indian missionary priest is want-
ing in ability to find vocations through want of the light
thrown by the discoveries of our proud age?

The missionary priest is not only the most competent judge
of the vocations of the persons before him whose natural and
supernatural dispositions he examines, but, being their most in-
terested seeker, he is also their surest finder and fosterer. What
else could keep him in the wilderness with the savages, in hard-
ships and privations, but his desire to establish Christ's all-saving
religion amongst them on the best foundation ? Seeing more
clearly than anybody else that a native clergy, secular and
regular, according to God's calling, would be the surest safe-
guard of their faith, he will, in defiance of the greatest obsta-
cles, seek after vocations and guide them to the priesthood.
What jubilation would fill his heart if he could leave his tribe
to a priest of its own blood, and like an apostle go on to
carry the gospel from nation to nation. But, alas! what he
eagerly seeks is wanting. He must quell his aspirations and
stay with the same few Indians in an exile-like reserve forty
miles square, more or less, and be very glad if he succeeds
in getting a few native catechists.

The natural and the established policy among missionaries is
to favor native vocations. Only a miracle could have changed
it into the contrary; a miracle which the Holy Ghost would not
and the devil could not have performed,

VOL. Lxv. — 52

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8i8 An Indian Clergy Impossible. [Sept.,

THERE HAVE BEEN NO VOCATIONS TO FOSTER.

But vocations are a special work of God's natural and super-
natural providence : " Neither doth any man take the honor to
himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was " (Heb. v.
4). And God does not work in vain and leave unfinished what
he commences ; qui dedit velUy dabit et perjicere. Who does
not, then, shudder at the following statement, really the logical
outcome of our adversary's theory : During four centuries the
Holy Ghost called many natives of heathen lands to the priest-
hood, and in the meantime made it impossible for them to
follow his call and become priests, by sending them missiona-
ries who were opposed to native vocations, instead of men en-
lightened enough to find and favor these inestimable gifts of
his grace ! Could the Holy Ghost, during that long period,
have failed to guide his church at work among the heathen in
a most serious matter, in which its effective help would have
been absolutely necessary ? Never !

11.
Whoever opines that there could have been anything but a
great want of vocations amongst the Indians must suppose a
miraculous, extraordinary providence of God toward them in
the last four centuries.

THEY GROW ON THE HEIGHTS OF CIVILIZATION.

Although even the most correct theory as to the natural
qualifications of a nation cannot conclusively prove the exist-
ence, scarcity, or abundance of vocations, since these are free
gifts of the Holy Ghost, qui spiral ubi vult^ nevertheless these
presuppose the highest endowments of nature in their subjects,
of whatever nation they may be. God's natural and super-
natural providence will, in his own inscrutable ways, provide for
the sufficient number of vocations for the priesthood which
Christ instituted ; and the church, obeying the precept of the
Holy Ghost, given her by the apostles, who. themselves ob-
served it perfectly : " Impose not hands lightly on any man,
neither be partaker of other men's sins '* (I. Tim. v. 22), is ex-
ceedingly careful not to ordain unfit and unworthy subjects,
but men of whose vocation and preparation for her Holy
Orders she is thoroughly satisfied. What an admirable show
of a lengthy preparation of the chosen ones does that magnifi-
cent Titulus v., De clericorum educatione et instructionc^ of the

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1897.] An Indian Clergy Impossible. 819

Third Plenary Council, require from the church in America !
To be fitted for the almost divine office of priesthood, whose
requirements the Bible and the holy fathers extol so highly,
candidates must, after the long studies in the schools and col-
leges, finally complete a difficult course of philosophy and
theology in the seminaries, and must also have acquired such
virtuous habits that they will preach Christ not only by word
but also by example. Is the ordinary vocation to the priest-
hood not a flower that grows only on the heights of civil-
ization ? Can it reasonably be expected to be plentiful in the
depth of savagedom ?

Want of money also made the founding of colleges and
seminaries amongst the Indians impossible, and now has even
caused the closing of some of their Catholic schools, so indis-
pensable for the Christian education of the children. Want of
money has made it impossible for many a talented white boy
to visit higher, institutions. Does that reason not also hold
good for the poor Indian boy, who had to be transported to
a far-off college of the whites ?

But neither the foundation of all the necessary lower and
higher schools and seminaries in the United States, nor the
sending of American* students to the universities of Rome and
other European cities, could, up to this day, have made the
establishment of a native clergy for the negroes and whites of
America possible. Who would, then, not consider the mission-
aries as visionaries if they earnestly believed in the possibility
of the establishment of a native clergy for the red men?

The author of the article we dispute takes all difficulties
out of the way by miraculously changing the four last centu-
ries, wherein a long natural preparation has had to take place,
into the first century of the apostles, wherein a short, wonder-
ful, extraordinary preparation often occurred.

IN APOSTOLIC TIMES.

At the time of the foundation of the church the Holy
Ghost wonderfully provided for her hierarchy, because without
it she could have no existence. He called numbers of converts
to the priesthood and prepared them for it at once, as far as
needed, so that they suddenly possessed all the knowledge
and virtue which can now only be gained by much lengthy
preparation ; as he did pre-eminently with the apostles and
disciples on Pentecost. The apostles, requiring the same quali-
fications for the priesthood which the church requires to-day,

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820 An Indian Clergy Impossible. [Sept.,

had still the established policy of not imposing hands lightly
on any men, but of ordaining only " men of good reputation,
full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom '* (Acts vi. 3). Such men
could easily be found among the numerous faithful of whom
it is written: "The Holy Ghost came upon them, and they
spoke with tongues and prophesied " (Acts xix. 6, x. 44, iv. 31).
How quickly and gladly would the missionaries of the four
hundred years passed have established a native hierarchy and
clergy in all their missions, if God had made it possible by
miracles ! But he did not send that extraordinary help, because
the church's very existence no longer depends on the miracu-
lous multiplication of her hierarchy. The foundation of the
priesthood was effected by an extraordinary providence, but
its multiplication has to follow the natural course of an or-
dinary providence.

Our missionaries go to savages, the apostles went chiefly to
nations more or less civilized. The apostles, travelling without
steamers and railroads, could in their short life scarcely have
found the time to found the church except in the civilized
world. The Jews were highly civilized, the civilization of the
ancient empires had not died out, and that of the Greeks and
Romans was far spread through the world-empire of Rome.
Thus, while the Indian missionaries found only savages, the
apostles found highly cultivated men, in Rome, Athens, and
numberless other places, whose final preparation required but
little time. This holds good in particular for the Jewish priests,
of whom "a great multitude obeyed the faith " (Acts vi. 7), and
for the Jews in Palestine and all countries of the then known
world, and for their foreign proselytes studying in Jerusalem.
" Now there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out
of every nation under heaven ; . . . they were all amazed
and wondered, saying: How have we heard, every man our
own tongue wherein we were born ? Parthians, and Medes, and
Elamites, and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappa-
docia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and
the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews
also and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians " (Acts ii. 5-1 1). Three
thousand of those who witnessed the wonders of the Holy
Ghost on Pentecost were baptized on that same day ; many
more of the proselytes must have been converted in Jerusalem
before its destruction. One might say that God's providence
gave the apostles the very best opportunity to provide, from
Sion alone, " every nation under heaven " with a native clergy.

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1 897-] A^ Indian Clergy Impossible. 821

It scarcely needs to be remarked that the apostles did
not exclusively aim at establishing a native priesthood every-
where, but also sent their disciples as foreigners to foreign
lands, just as they themselves were by Christ sent as foreign-
ers to all nations.

THE GOVERNMENT TREATS INDIANS AS CHILDREN.

Again, none of the Indian tribes has been destined to be-
come a real civilized, Christian nation. During the last four
centuries the whites deprived each and all of independence.
How many were exterminated! In the United States the re-
duction of the reservations will go on until all Indians will
have become American citizens and amalgamated with the
white men. The remnant parcels of the tribes are now kept
in reservations as children under age, whose guardian, Uncle
Sam, is accountable for his guardianship to but himself. No
Indian can leave his reserve for a visit without a permit ; the
chiefs are stripped of even the shadow of authority. No town
in the world is so thoroughly dispossessed of self-government
as a reservation. With all its show of fostering natural bents,
the government does not dream of such a thing as holding the
best civilized Indian in the United States fit for any responsi-
ble office in his own agency. From this policy of a govern-
ment whose wisdom its admirers extol to the stars, we might
also infer that no Indian could have a vocation for any eccle-
siastical office of the priesthood.

The unity and order of the church government admits but
one hierarchy for the United States over all its nationalities,
the Indians included. He who would vainly theorize about an
Indian hierarchy, has also to defend Irish, German, French,
Polish hierarchies in our country.

The author will insist that the policy and principle men-
tioned in the Pope's encyclical to India must at least be put
in practice so far as it possibly can be done, and that conse-
quently the Indians, though they are ruled by the United
States, must have their native priests, of which those who are
fit for a bishopric must have the same chance to be admitted
into the American hierarchy as the white ones. Indeed, only
a perverse policy, contrary to native vocations, can refuse this
favor as a right to any nationality of any color! The only
practical question in our case is this : Can the red race pro-
duce its own clergy ? It is impossible.

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822 An Indian Clergy Impossible. [Sept.,

INDIAN TRIBES TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

It is as fundamental a mistake to hold the Indian race
one nationality as to consider the Caucasian race as one single
nation. The red tribes of America are as different one from
another, or as hostile one against another, as the nations of
Europe are. St. Piegan — priest — would be as far from being a
native priest to the Sioux as a French abbe is from being a
native to the German Catholics of Berlin,

Nations are ordinarily distinguished by their language.
Now, the divers Indian tribes speak as many divers tongues as
do the European nationalities, and will not adopt the language
of their conquerors. Here in the Fort Belknap Reserve are
two dissimilar tribes, the Assiniboines of Canadian and the
Gros-Ventres of Mexican origin. Their languages differ more
from each other than does German from Italian. Gratia non
destruit naturam. The Holy Ghost uses the natural conditions
of his own creatures as the very best means for his higher
ends ; therefore he does not reduce the languages to a greater
union, but wills that all people praise and worship him in
their mother-tongue so long as it is the dearest to them, and,
as the prayer of the church expresses it, uses the diversity of
languages {per diversitatem linguartini) as the very means to
unite all nations in the unity of faith. Therefore, he worked
the great miracle of giving the apostles the gift of all lan-
guages ; he did not give them only that of the Latin tongue
for the Roman Empire, but also that of the diverse tongues of
the nations under the Roman government. Therefore, the
church prescribes in this country, n. 147, Third Plenary Coun-
cil Baltimore, that each candidate for the priesthood must,
besides the English, learn at least one of the foreign languages,
namely, that whose use his bishop judges to be the most needed
in his diocese. Therefore, parishes for the different nationali-
ties are established wherever it can be done, and Rome docs
not, where a choice is possible, acknowledge the right of joining
parishes in which the language of the country is in use, except
to such American-born children of age and immigrated families
as know the English and freely desire it themselves. There-
fore, the Indian missionaries, far from having the un-Christian,
exasperating policy of being hostile to the mother-tongue of
those confided to them, teach them in their own beloved
language, and would be overjoyed if native priests, who could
do it so much better, should ever replace them. Vain desires!

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i897-] A^ Indian Clergy Impossible. 823

In order to get a priesthood and sisterhood speaking its na-
tive tongue, each reservation would have to have its own native
vocations. For, each reserve is a caste of its own, surrounded
by whites, is one hundred miles distant from the others, and the
nationality and language of the one is absolutely different from
that of the other.

An Indian reserve and the United States have each propor-
tionately the same number of heathen, but the reserve is
naturally a hundred times less fertile ground for the flower of
a priestly vocation than is America with its boasted civiliza-
tion, riches, and institutions. Now, in the United States there
are, in round numbers, ten thousand priests against seven mil-
lion inhabitants, or one priest against seven thousand Ameri-
cans. Perhaps much less than ten per cent, of the priests are
native citizens ; that would be one native priest against more
than seventy thousand inhabitants. The expectation, then, of
finding one single vocation in a reservation of seven thousand
Indians were already utterly exorbitant. But there does
not even exist a reservation with such a great number of
Indians.

Suppose my Assiniboines and Gros-Ventres asked me to help
them to get each a priest of their own tribe. I should answer
thus : " My dearest friends, I cannot make black-robes out of
nothing. * You must seek for some clever Assiniboine and Gros-
Ventres boys who would like to become black-robes. Each of
your two tribes counts only seven hundred Indians ; if you can-
not find more such boys as will finally become black-robes than
the big white tribe finds on this side and on the other side of
the great water, you will only find one-tenth part of such a boy.
But pray to the Great -Spirit ; perhaps he will let you find
two whole boys, and you bring them to me; I will send them
away to a school, and hope that after some years they will be
your black-robes." They will reply: **No; we cannot let them
go away ; our boys are not strong as we were when we hunted
the buffalo that is gone for ever. We . and they will become
sick when we do not see each other, and they will die ; they
cannot live in a strange land with strangers.*'

If anybody still dreams of an Indian clergy, let him apply
the proportion of one vocation among seven thousand Indians
to each reserve — it should be one amongst seven hundred thou-
sand — then he will awake and wonder to discover what strange
views imagination can produce when the eyes are closed to the
realities of life.

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824 An Indian Clergy Impossible. [Sept.

I will not further discuss Utopian impossibilities, but finish
by briefly discussing real possibilities.

The buffalo being extirpated, the Indians are no more the
nomadic hunters whom the missionaries could find together in
camps or villages, grouped under chiefs. A reservation has no
cities or towns; it is, for the missionary, a parish of would-be
farmers irregularly spread oyer an area forty miles square, more
or less. The necessity of a parish church, where the Indians
can assemble, and of a parish boarding-school, in each reserve
is self-evident. The Protestant sects do not need to build and
sustain Indian schools for their purposes ; they cannot have
better ones than the government schools which are under their
influence. But, since it is not allowed to Catholics to send their
children to the public schools, except in cases of necessity and
on the condition that there is no danger to their children's
faith and morals, and that they themselves supply the failing
religious teaching and training, how indispensable are Catholic
schools for Indian children, who, only collected in them, can be
rightly prepared for Baptism, Confession, Communion, and
Confirmation !

The white Catholic American can materially and spiritually
help himself in his religious wants, but the red Catholic Ameri-
can is absolutely helpless and entirely dependent on the help of
his brother. Would it not be criminal to dampen the apostolic
charity of the faithful towards the Indians, especially in our
days, in which our archbishops exhort them to greater generos-
ity in assisting the mission-schools, of which some already had
to be closed for want of money ?

The ten million Catholics of America should be able to bet-
ter sustain the apostolic work for the conversion of heathens in
their own country. The missionary's work, so highly appreciated
by the church, is that of the shepherd who leaves the ninety-
nine sheep in order to find the one lost in the desert. If he
is so generously assisted by benefactors that his little parish
can flourish as well as the great ones of the numerous white
flock, he also may, like some pastors of the whites, become so
happy as to find and foster " Native Vocations."

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Antwerp from the River Scheldt.

IN CATHOLIC FLANDERS.

BY REV. J. D. O'DONNELL.

BOUT the first sight that presents itself to the
eye as the boat skims through the yellow waters
of the Scheldt is the spire of the far-famed Ca-
thedral of Antwerp ; it can be seen at a distance
of some twenty miles down the turgid waters,
clearly outlined against the blue sky.

It was our first trip from home, and we suffered miserably
from that unspeakable sickness, mal de mer. It was nearing
six by the clock as we arose after a restless sleep. The even-
ing previous we had left the romantic old port of Harwich
brimful of good humor and thoroughly enjoying the cool sea-
breeae that swept over the deck. But as we crept further and
further into the choppy waves of the North Sea, and the vessel

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826 In Ca tholic Flanders. [Sept,

heaved and plunged like a frightened thing, now breasting the
seething surge, again diving through the trough of the waves, we
felt how completely we were at the mercy of that rolling, sound-
ing, God-obeying sea. It soon blew a perfect gale, and we had
perforce to abandon the deck and retire to our apartments for
the night. The journey from Harwich to Antwerp generally
takes about twelve hours, but despite the gale we made it in
less than that time.

The refreshing breeze blowing in from the Belgian meadow-
lands completely recuperated our drooping spirits in the morn-
ing, and the drive down the river in sight of the old town of
Antwerp turned our thoughts to other days, when its quays and
harbors were filled to overflowing with the merchandise of the
world, and its streets wore a more cosmopolitan aspect than
they do to-day. . Those were the days of which Longfellow so
beautifully sings :

" I beheld the pageant splendid, that adorned those days of

old;
Stately dames like queens attended, knights who bore the

Fleece of Gold ;
Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and

ease."

Belgium, which derives its name from the old inhabitants,
the Belgae, possesses one of the most checkered histories of
any country in Europe. For a time it belonged to Spain, then
to Austria; in 1795 it was conquered by the French, and at
the peace of 18 14 was joined to Holland, and finally declared
an independent kingdom in 1830. Belgium may be said to
be divided into two great parts, the Flemish and French-
speaking provinces. A great rivalry exists between the Flem-
ings and Walloons, or French {patois) speaking race. The Flem-
ings rather despise the Walloons and treat them as an inferior
race. This often leads to stormy scenes, as was the case a few
months ago when the Flemish party demanded equal rights,
and justly so, in the Senate for the Flemish language as the
French.

The Flanders of the present day is but a portion of a once
extensive territory, parts of which now belong to France, others
to Holland. The Flemings are fond of tracing their origin to
the ancient inhabitants of that part of Europe, the Nervii, the
bitterest and most stubborn foes of Caesar, whom he was wont

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1 897-] I^ Catholic Flanders, 827

to style "for-
tissimi in ar-
mis." It was,
however, on-
ly in the
seventh cen-
tury that the
name Flan-
ders appear-
ed for the
first time.
Towards the
end of the

fourteenth and at the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, Flan-
ders exercised a powerful influence on the world. Such was its
splendor and prosperity that when Philip the Fair, King of
France, visited the city of Bruges, his queen was so astonished
at the magnificence of its ladies that she exclaimed : ** Je croyais
etre seule reine ici, mais il parait que ceux de Flandre qui se
trouvent dans nos prisons sont tous des princes, car leurs
femmes sont habill^es comme des princesses et des reines."

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth, and even the nine-
teenth centuries Flanders suffered considerably from the hostile

armies that plundered its

d
d

their battle-field, that it has been aptly styled the ** cockpit
of Europe." Its streets and meadows, from Antwerp to Ypres,
from Courtrai to Ghent, from Fontenoy to Waterloo, have been
reddened time and again with the blood of foreign nations, all
striving for mastery.

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828 In Ca tholic Flanders. [Sept.,

Christianifv wa«; vprv lif-tl^

H6TEL DE ViLLE, BRUSSELS.

true God. Churches were erected ; monasteries were built ;
towns, plains, isles, forests were peopled with saints ; in a word,
idolatry was abolished and the reign of Christ proclaimed."

Flanders, like all countries of Europe about this time, was
much harassed by the incursions of barbarians. They bore down
from the North, pillaging and plundering, uprooting and chang-
ing the face of the earth, so that in a short time the seeds of
Christianity set by St. Victricius began to wither away and the

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I897-] I^ Catholic Flanders. 829

people needed another teacher and guide. He came in the
person of St. Aim^e, or Amandus. St. Amandus is another of
the many saints whom the Flemings specially honor and in-
voke. Although consecrated bishop, he was not attached to

H6TEL DE ViLLE, BRUGES.

any particular see, his office being rather to preach the Gospel
to unbelievers. Accordingly, we find him in the territory around
Ghent preaching the truths of Christianity, and with so much
success that crowds came to receive baptism at his hands. St.
Amandus built several churches, some of which still survive the
ravages of time ; he also founded two monasteries at Ghent, one
of which, St. Peter's, has been erected into a cathedral since
1559, when Ghent became an episcopal see.

But it is principally to St. Eloi that Flanders owes its con-
version. St. Eloi was consecrated Bishop of Rouen in 640. St.
Amandus had planted the faith in the neighborhood of Ghent,
but St. Eloi did not confine his attention to any one place ;
he travelled through the length and breadth of the land, guiding
and teaching, and we are told that though the people were of
so savage a nature that at every instant they were ready to
tear him in pieces, yet by his noble self-sacrifice, his patience.

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830 In Ca tholic Flanders. [Sept.,

his kindness and zeal, he won their fierce hearts, and lived long
enough to see them all truly Christian and truly Catholic.

Contemporary with these two saints were Sts. Livin and Omer.
Besides these, numerous other saints are honored in Flanders;
this can be seen from the many shrines scattered through
the country, by the wayside, in the depth of the forest, in the
quiet valley. These little shrines attest the fervor, the piety
and devotion, of this thoroughly Catholic people, who hold them
in the greatest veneration, no one ever passing them by with-
out saying a silent prayer or raising the hat with reverence and
devotion. Numbers of these shrines are erected to the Blessed
Virgin, for Flanders seems to be especially devoted to the
Mother of God. The lines of the American poet are equally
applicable to this fair land as to Italia of the blue skies:

''This is indeed the Blessed Mary's land,
Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer!
AH hearts are touched and softened at her name;
Alike the bandit of the bloody hand,
The priest, the prince; the scholar and the peasant;
The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer.
Pay homage to her as one ever present."

A strange feeling of sadness comes over the pilgrim on
meeting with these mementos of a people's love. The mind
instantly goes back to the ages when the spirit of faith and
devotion to the Vicar of Christ were the characteristic marks
of all the nations of Europe, and the ** light *' of the Reforma-
tion had not beamed on poor misguided and misgoverned Europe.

What impresses one also with the thoroughly Catholic spirit
of this people is che number of large crosses and statues of the
Blessed Virgin, and of well-known saints, that meet the eye
at the corners of streets and over private houses; and in the
halls of the rich or cottages of the poor are generally seen
some of those beautiful old religious paintings for which Bel-
gium has become famous.

But it is in the daily life of the people that one truly sees
•that grand, ennobling spirit of Catholicity that shines through
all their work. Young and old attend Mass on Sunday, and if
there is an opportunity of hearing a week-day Mass, all who
can assist with a fervor and devotion worthy the early ages of
the church. At the noon-tide hour and vesper eve, when the
Angelus bell rings out through the dreamy air, hearts and
minds are raised up to God in silent prayer.

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1 897-] I^ Catholic Flanders, 831

There is no danj
spect to the Blcsse<
in Flanders ; it is «
licly to "sick-calls **
crowded streets.*
robed in surplice, st
bearing the Holy
walks with uncovered
sick-room, preced-
ed by two acolytes
with lighted ta-
pers, one of them
at intervals ring-
ing a little bell to
warn the people.
The sound is well
known, and at its
first tinkling all
work ceases ; peo-
ple come to their doors, wagons, carriages are stopped, and all
bow down to adore the passing Saviour. Often has the writer
seen a company of soldiers halt and salute as the priest passed
by, and at the great processions during Corpus Christi week a

battalion of soldiers, the
city police, the garde civic,
and the various societies
form into ranks and march
at the side of the clergy and
religious orders. These pro-
cessions are attended by
thousands. At the great
procession of the Precious
Blood, held in July of last
year at Bruges, it was esti-
mated that over fifty thou-
sand people took part in
the line of march.

With possibly two excep-
tions, Flanders is the most
moral country in the world,
and that, too, surrounded as
it is by irreligion and infi-
delity ; still, the enervating

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832 In Ca tholic Flanders. [Sept.,

breath blowing in on its fair plains has no influence on its peo-
pie. A cry has lately gone forth in Belgium to stop the flow of
immoral novels flooding the country from France ; but Flanders,
true to its old teaching, has no part in that so-called literature.

Ancient Cloth Hall of Bruges.

With the evil examples of other countries about them, the
people ever respect and revere the Catholic priesthood. The
priest's influence is all-powerful, his hold on the people's hearts
and affections is constant and unchanging. He is the guide,
the advance-guard and leader of the people. This is the case
through the length and breadth of Flanders.

And yet, despite their deep spirituality, the Flemings are an
ardent, light-hearted race, quick at repartee, faultless singers,
devoted musicians. A curious custom prevails in the countr}\
When a band parades the streets at any festival or national holi-
day, numbers of boys and girls precede the musicians and dance
till the perspiration rolls down their cheeks ; this sort of dance
they can keep up for hours, evidently with the greatest delight.

With all their loyalty to their country and the government,
the Flemings regard King Leopold with something bordering
on contempt. Leopold is a shrewd politician, a clever intriguer,
but his schemes have not helped to make him popular ; on the

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I897-] ^^ Catholic Flanders. 833

contrary, his Con-
goese policy has
been sharply crit-
icised and opposed
from its very in-
ception to the
present time by his
Catholic subjects.
And yet, instead
of trying to con-
ciliate or win the
affections of his
people, they are
becoming more
and more estrang-
ed from him every
day.

Perhaps there
is no other coun-
try that longs to
dwell on thejpast, to
its memories, to gua
as Flanders. How
related the story c
of the gallant De
Bredel — how they s^
before them at C
history as the " Bat

from the number of guiucii bpurs luunu un mc
field. In the twilight hours, when the nightingale wakes the
echoes with its sweet, wild melody, fond memories are awakened
and hearts are stirred with honest pride, and the old men will
tell how they fought the Dutch oppressor at Brussels, where
the dead and dying lay thick as autumn leaves upon the streets
and parks, or how they crushed the foe at Diest and Antwerp.

And those relics of the past ! There is not a town or a vil-
lage where one does not meet with them, apparently untouched
by the rude hand of time, so jealously have these monuments
been preserved. Churches that vie with any in Italy or Ger-
many in point of architectural beauty, stately majesty, or quaint
picturesqueness, stand yet in their old-time perfection, though
some of them, alas ! have been desecrated arid despoiled by
the marauding soldiery of the French Revolution.
VOL. Lxv. — 53

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834 I^ C^ THOLic Flanders. [Sept.,

The greatness of a country may be gathered from its monu-
ments, and certainly if any country can lay claim to greatness
on that score Flanders ought to be one. Its remarkable town

H6TEL DE ViLLE, OUDENARDE.

halls and romantic feudal castles are specimens of a most
perfect style of building. What more beautiful or more noble
architectural work than that old tower of Bruges, whose caril-
lon has long become famous all the world over?

The music of those sweet bells seemed to touch the inmost
soul of Longfellow when he sang :

" In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown ;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the

town.
As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I

stood,

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I897-] aN Catholic Flanders. 835

H6TEL DE ViLLE, GHENT.

And the world threw ofif the darkness, like the weeds of widow-
hood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded and with streams and
vapors gray,

Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the land-
scape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and
there,

Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished ghostlike
into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour.

But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

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836 IN Ca tholjc Flanders. [Sept.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild

and high,
And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than

the sky.

^ r •

Hotel de Ville, Louvain.

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,
With their strange, unearthly changes, rang the melancholy

chimes.
Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in

the choir ;
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a

friar.
Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my

brain.
They who live in story only seemed to walk the earth again."

There is no country in the world so well provided with rail-
roads as Belgium ; it is a complete network of lines. For the
very moderate sum of thirty-five francs (seven dollars) a pass
for four weeks can be obtained on all the railway lines in the
country. To travel through beautiful Flanders, where there is
not a handful of waste earth, where nature usKers in her choicest
fruits and flowers in wild profusion, where every town has its
monuments and every village its history, with a people honest,
thrifty, and devoted to their religion, is a pleasure and a joy.

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do not mean to dispute. " We shall see what we shall see ** is
one of those verbal propositions which good dull men are fond
of using. But Dr. Savage is not a dull man and we hope he is
a good one ; and when he sends out his work under the shield
of a non-committal pronouncement, he is not to be supposed
really doubtful of the duty he has taken up or of his capa-
bility for discharging it. His duty appears to be to defend
religion against Christianity. He does not say this in so many
words. What he himself would say was the work he has not
only aimed at but accomplished, is to vindicate the cause of
truth against the pretensions of the sects. The mission he
has received, as we understand him, is to show that Chris-
tianity is not religion. We are not going to assert the claims
of Christianity against religion. We are not prepared to play
into his hands by permitting him to pose as a champion of
religion against the assaults of Christianity, because all Chris-
tians, whatever may be their doctrinal and ceremonial differ-
ences, regard the latter as the highest expression of man's rela-
tions to and with God, and therefore as the most perfect reli-
gion. We do not ask him for the credentials of his mission,
because, however aggressive he is, he has ingeniously assumed
the status of an assailed party. No doubt he attacks Chris-
tianity on the principle that sometimes the best parry is a
thrust ;t but his posture is that of defence.

The polemical value of this attitude in our age is plain to
any one who thinks a moment. Unfortunately, the majority
will not pause a moment. There is a respectable sentiment

* Religion for To-day. By Minot I. Savage, D.D. Boston : Ellis.

t " All of them ag^ainst us poor liberals, who claim the right to be free "—meaning all
Christian bodies attack him and his (''What is Christianity ?" p. 6i).

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838 Talk about New Books. [Sept.,

which draws men to the side of one valiantly contending
against odds ; and there are certain superstitions of cultured
people which hurry them to a sympathy with any one who
says he is suffering persecution for the cause of truth. Dr.
Savage claims on behalf of the poor liberals "the right to be
free" and to "accept the results of modern study and investi-
gation.** He includes in his claim Spencer, Tyndall, and Hux-
ley — those martyrs to science or truth who have wetted with
their tears the black bread of their rayless dungeons, who have
endured stripes, cold, nakedness, contumely for truth, and
finally expiated their guilt upon the gallows. It does not mat-
ter that one of the interesting martyrs is still alive, and in a
comparatively recent paper displayed what in any one but
a martyr to science or truth we should call insolence, men-
dacity, and scurrility. If we accept our author*s showy generali-
ties, Spencer was "crucified,** like the rest. And Dr. Savage
himself claims the crown — he is not yet dead, but he has
walked along the road of sorrow trodden by every man who has
been wiser and better than his age. Since the sacred principles
of liberty and reason first drew down the vengeance of despots
and priests upon the few great spirits whose lives are the star-
paths of humanity, down to the hebdomadal hour of the suc-
cessive Sundays when Dr. Savage repeated them from his pul-
pit in the Church of the Messiah, religion has been crushed,
truth has been extinguished. But resistance to the powers of
darkness shall go on. Generations may pass away, but the cause
shall live ; and the mysterious moment shall arrive when the
soul of the universe, with a new, irresistible activity, shall infuse
itself into mankind. Then shall the lion lie down with the
lamb, the universe-modification labelled the soul of Huxley link
itself to the like effluence called Pius the Ninth, and that of Dr.
Savage fold itself like a harmony round the spirit of Dr. Gard-
ner Spring, " formerly of the Old Brick Church in this city.***
In saying what we have said, we really entertain a feeling
of the most profound indifference toward the utterances in
these sermons. We are in no way responsible for Dr. Savage
as a religious product — any more than we are for his cast of
thought. His views of science lead him to a pantheism which
he endeavors to hide from himself by insufficient reservations,
as if his thinking were done by words solely ; but taking him
as a religious product, we ask the Protestant divines whom he
names in a manner by no means complimentary, to ask them-

* " Present Religious Conditions," p. 11.

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I897-] Talk about New Books. 839

selves whether or not his religious attitude is not as consistent
with the right of private judgment as their own? When he
says that he "does not believe there is any difference in kind
between our souls and the world's soul,"* he is perfectly
justified in citing Dr. Lyman Abbott as an authority to sup-
port the view, just as the latter is justified by the principle of
his interpretation in effacing the Bible as a part of the revealed
will of God and seeking his revelation only in the bible of
nature. Of course the " works of his hands " reveal our God,
but the sense of the psalmist is not the sense in which we
speak of the direct revelation by his angels, his prophets, and
his Eternal Son. The specious use from the suggestion of
the noble passage beginning Cceli enarrant gloriant Dei with
which the hearers of Dr. Savage are familiar, reminds one of
those processes of intellectual jugglery by which advocates
obscure the issue. It is not consistent with his claim to be a
martyr for truth, to be held like "those simple and great ones
gone," whose majrtyrdom did not consist in a comfortable
house, a well-appointed table, a recognized place in society, or
at all resemble the court paid by ladies of refinement and
gentlemen of social standing to Dr. Savage — people whom he
" does not know personally," but " who prefer his spiritual
advice to that of their own ministers," — it is not consistent
with such a claim to make merchandise of martyrdom.

This little book f is a selection from the remains of the Ro-
man satirists from Ennius to Apuleius, and is intended for the
use of college instructors who offer courses of lectures and
readings in the historical development of Roman Satire. The
student's acquaintance with Roman satire is usually limited to
Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, and the work before us is intend-
ed to be something of a guide to supplementary reading in
the rest of the field of that department of Latin literature.
The editor is Rich Professor of Latin in Wesleyan University,
and we take his work as evidence of a return to a taste for
classic learning in American colleges. It is by the satire that
the Roman's originality is to be judged. At the moment when
contact with Greece softened the severity of Roman manners,
the taste for a polished literature began to exercise influence on
the higher classes; but all the fields of literary activity had
been occupied by the Greek masters except that of satire, and
to this such Romans as desired to link their fame to work

* "Is God Incarnate in One Man Only ?" p. 169.

^ Fragments of Roman Satire. Selected by Elmer Truesdell Merrill.^ New York: Amer-
ican Book Company.

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840 Talk about New Books, [Sept^

which was not liable to be called imitation were, to some ex-
tent, forced to betake themselves.

We have some specimens from Ennius, who may be said to
belong to the period when Roman satire was not an art, and
succeeding him in the selections we have Lucilius, who has
been described by the highest authorities as the man who raised
it to that dignity. Mr. MerriU's plan precludes him from giv-
ing any information on the rise and quality of Roman satire;
he has confined himself to selection and arrangement from ap-
proved texts, and so his readers must apply to other sources
for knowledge on these interesting points. We regret this, for
we have incidentally, in his little introductory note to the " Last
Will of the Little Pig,"* proof that he could have given valu-
able prelections to guide and interest readers not intended to
be college teachers.

The Latins had a command of vigorous and pointed prose
to which may be attributed their success as satirists. Satire is
not the highest form of poetical composition. Accordingly,
those gifts which manifest themselves in Greek poetry, and to
which it owes its unrivalled excellence, were not needed to a
great degree in the production of that species of composition.
It is not meant that the satires of Horace and Juvenal would
be as perfect if these accomplished writers employed prose;
all that is meant is that a highly polished and barbed satire in
prose can approach closely to the best satire in verse, while
there is a world as wide as from heaven to earth separating
the higher forms of song from any prose whatever. When
Demosthenes makes such a transition as he does in the speech
on the Crown, carrying the imagination of the people to the
memory of a great disaster to their country, so that in their
passion they forget the present, he is a poet, as every great
orator must be. But the moods of selfishness and weakness,
the indulgences of vice and folly, the vagaries of fashion, and
the inexplicable influences that move multitudes are not by
themselves subjects for the higher gifts, but such as these are
the subjects of satire. Satire without numbers or in numbers
could deal with them.

Here we possess the reason for the success of Roman satire,
coupled with what we have said of the discernment that some
Romans possessed, that in that form of poetic literature alone
could they attain an ** original *' excellence. " Satira tota nos-
tra est *' is the observation of Quintilian ; and in it that emi-

* Testamentum Porcelli,

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1897.] Talk about New Books. 841

nent critic expressed in a word what we have taken paragraphs
to convey. Horace, as a very distinguished critic once pointed
out, said that the Roman satire bore a resemblance to the
lighter comedy of the Greeks, and this he pronounced a most
correct comment. The common notion that the Roman satire
had its origin in the Greek satiric drama is so utterly wrong
that they have nothing in common but the sound. How judi-
cious Horace's suggestion is, will be perceived by one or two
passages from the " Satyricon " which we offer to the reader,
premising that the editor prints his extracts as taken from a
work by Petronius Arbiter. This is not excused, in our opinion,
by his plan, which does not profess to be critical beyond guar-
anteeing the text. He links the fragments by very short but
sufficient explanatory notes, like the " arguments " prefixed to
the books of an epic. If this were not an infringement of his
plan, neither would it be to tell the readers not intended to be
college teachers who should gfve lectures on the historical de-
velopment of Roman satire something about the author covered
under the name of Petronius Arbiter.

Our readers will perceive that a first-rate novelist of our
day would present the life of the wealthier classes of New
York or London, as witnessed in their entertainments, very much
as Petronius reports the conversation which followed when the
host, Trimalchio, leaves the room for a time :

" As his departure freed us, we began to draw out our fellow-
guests. Dama, as soon as he had called for a goblet, 'What
is a day ? ' he says. * Nothing ; you have night before you have
time to look about you. The fact is, one should go straight to
the dining-room from his bed-room. And we have had such a
cold time of it, that the bath could hardly warm me ; but a
hot drink is additional clothing ; well, I have sucked the ten-
drils [staminatas duxi] and am distinctly sprung [plane mains
sum]. On this Seleucus rejoins : * I don't believe in bathing
every day ; daily washing melts the very heart, as cleaning
does the clothes ; but when I have polished off my glass of
mead I defy the cold. In any case I could not bathe to-day,
for I had to go to the funeral of Chrysanthus, a charming
fellow — so amiable ! He has gone over to the majority [animam
ebulliit]. Why, it was only this moment, as it were, he stopped
to speak to me — in fact, I seem to be speaking to him now :
sad ! sad ! We are moving wind-bags, more fleeting than the
summer-flies — nay, they have some tenure of life, but we are
only bubbles. And he tried fasting ; for five days bit or sup

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842 Talk about New Books. [Sept.,

did not pass his lips; and it was not that he did not consult the
doctors ; they did for him \medici ilium perdiderunt]. However,
he was well buried — splendid coffin and all that kind of thing;
tiptop mourners saw him off, though his wife spared her tears.'"
He was about moralizing when another of the characters,
Phileros, interrupts him, utterly bored, and gets in his innings
without regard to the, pro verb which will only allow good to be
spoken of the dead. He gives a history of the dead man in
which are double-barrelled shots hitting hard, while prais-
ing his brother, and hitting Chrysanthus hard without praising
him. The brother could behave like the fine fellow he was be-
cause, among other strokes of fortune, "he got more out of an
inheritance than had been left to him/' He is interrupted in
his turn by Ganymedes, who pitches into the ^Ediles as the
cause of the bad weather, and complains of the decay of religion.
He is stopped by Echion, whose business can only be trans-
lated by " Manchester-cotton-merchant " [centonarius], who lays
the blame of the bad state of affairs not on the country, but
the men that live in it. " If you were anywhere else, you would
say the pigs at home ran about ready cooked." The conversa-
tion then passes to a gladiatorial show ; thence a chronique scan-
daleuse emerges, and in all we have, a very good specimen of
the sentiments of the new rich, their manners and their mor-
als, and are bound to say there is nothing new under the sun.

This book* is issued by the managers of the Catholic Sum-
mer and Winter School Library, and consists of three lectures,
one on English Literature, one on French, and one on Span-
ish. It is hardly necessary to say that they bear the impress
of accurate scholarship, since they are the work of the gentle-
man whose name stands below. We should have been better
pleased if he had given us a fuller account of Spanish dramatic
literature — an account as full as that he gave to the Elizabeth-
an drama, for instance. There is not a single scene from Cal-
deron, although we have ample materials in what the late Arch-
bishop Trench and the late Mr. Denis Florence McCarthy have
translated to enable the English reader to form a sound esti-
mate of his greatness. Numbers have tried their hands on
parts of those plays with varying degrees of success, but
critics indubitably place the translators we have named in
the first rank as exponents of Calderon. It would have been
very interesting if in this lecture we had, from so competent

* Lectures on Literature. By Richard Malcolm Johnston. Akron, Ohio : McBride
&Co.

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I897-] Talk about New Books. 843

a man, some suggestion concerning the influences to which the
Spanish drama owed its national character. In no province
of the Roman Empire did the characteristics of Latin thought
and sentiment more distinctly assert themselves than in Spain ;
yet the Spanish plays are as national as those of England.
They grew out of the soil of the Spanish mind, as though no
classical models in the parent Latin were there to tyrannize
over the freedom of the fancy and compel the imagination to
bow before the unities. At the same time, what he has said of
the Spanish drama is good so far as it goes.

We think him an excellent guide in catching the marvel-
lous significance of Cervantes' wit. Wit of the highest class,
in which healthy humor is an element, is wisdom, or so allied
to it that the man who possesses this gift must also possess
wisdom. The conception of Don Quixote, with his comple-
ment, Sancho Panza, as the instrument to laugh knight-errantry
out of Spain, illustrates in the most admirable manner the com-
bination we speak of. Although Mr. Johnston does not bring
out this, he evinces the clearest appreciation of the relation of
the knight to the squire, and the counter-relation of the latter
to the knight. That Cervantes believed he was discharging a
sacred duty to his countrymen in this work is clear. He pos-
sessed in an eminent degree the true spirit of chivalry, which
would prompt the man of his age to lay on the altar of duty
every prospect of success in life, all the rewards to be looked
for in the pursuit of an honorable ambition. His noble ancj
touching reply to the sneers of malignant scribes, who flouted
him as a one-arme4 pauper who had not the hand to write at
all,* or the independence, if he had the hand, to write for
fame, establishes this. Admiration for a wild assortment of ad-
ventures furnished idle minds with fantastic images. The Span-
iard of all ranks above that of the niost exacting labor lived
in a world of paladins and queens. The freeholders in their
fields and the tradesmen behind their counters belonged to the
Five Hundred, just as the grandees who, like the Duke of
Medina Sidonia, could bring armies of forty thousand men to
the standard of the king. The ordinary relations of life were
reflecting this half-frenzy to a degree certain to become perni-
cious in the business of the people and the action of the state.
We are not sure that something of it has not survived by trans-
mission, though Don Quixote and Rosinante, Sancho and Dapple
drove it from conversation and avowed authority. We should

* It was the left hand he lost, as a matter of fact.

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844 Talk about New Books. [Sept.,

have been pleased had the lecturer told us something of that
Catholic atmosphere in which we find ourselves so unmistakably
whenever the one-handed soldier of Lepanto leads us to the
presence of his immortal knight and squire.

Equality is the title of a work by Edward Bellamy,* the
author of Looking Backward. He has a command of taking
titles. People would be drawn to Looking Backward under the
impression that they were going to read a tale of a man pur-
sued so hotly that he kept " his chin on his shoulder," as the
Spaniard says. Equality is a sounding title which is interpreted,
in French social science, according to the gospel of Jean-
Jacques — one noble savage is as good as another. Julian West
awakes in the year 2000 with his ** brain in a whirl," so the
author informs us, and he writes what he sees about him in that
condition of mind. We consider the explanation satisfactory.

A Rose of Yesterday is by F. Marion Crawford.f Mr. Craw-
ford is a man of uncommon ability, with the power of analyz-
ing character and telling the result clearly. His people talk
well, but know that they do so. He has some satisfaction in
their performance, dashed with the suspicion that they are talk-
ing their best ; that, as English people say, they have their
company manners on and are talking for effect. From an
artistic point of view this is defective, for it is self-conscious-
ness ; but, as may be inferred from the way we put it, it is
not of a very exasperating character. Our meaning may be
well illustrated by a reference to Sheridan's plays ; the dia-
logue is too brilliant for perfect enjoyment — too much sunlight
unrelieved by shade. At the same time no one would lose a
scene of Sheridan's for the world. There is no dramatist of
the eighteenth century, except his countrymen, Macklin and
Goldsmith, who can be compared with him. And talking of
Macklin, we are just reminded of what will bring out the point
of our criticism of Mr. Crawford's excellent dialogue somewhat
more distinctly than in what we said above. The cynicism of
Sir Pertinax is perfect wit, but the vulgar old man is uncon-
scious of it; Mr. Crawford's people, even the accurate Miss
Wimple, say their epigrams with the premeditation of the men
at a supper in Holland House, or at the Priory, where the
Monks of the Screw corruscated, or sitting in that little cabi-
net where the Regent Orleans entertained his flatterers and
masters with sallies worthy of the wine* he gave them.

* New York : D. Appleton & Co. f New York : The Macmillan Co.

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1897.] Talk about New Books. 845

Disunion and Reunion^ by W. J. Madden.* This work treats
of the subject indicated by the title under five heads. The
first, which is called " Signs and Symptoms," deals with " efforts
to unite," such as the Chicago Parliament of Religions and the
Eucharistic Congress. It is an interesting chapter. In Part II.
we have the causes of ** Christian Disunion " as the title of the
separation of the Greeks from the Holy See, and in Part III.
** The Protestant Defection," as he calls the revolt of Luther
and the so-called Reformers ; Part IV. contains the church's
answer to them, and Part V. what the author names by the
distinguishing title of "The Church's Final Answer to .the
Reformers." We think the book a handy summary of the
question : What led to the disruption of Christendom ? The
causes are stated in a plain and easily understood manner and
without a breath of passion.

That this is so Protestants who may read the little book
will admit. Taking the chapter on the movement which took
place in the sixteenth century, they will find everything stated
with what must be regarded as conspicuous fairness, even from
their point of view. We are not quite too ready to admit that
the author's local coloring is faultless. In his desire to con-
ciliate, he sits in a nineteenth century study in a Protestant
colonyf of the British Empire, and arranges his light in the
conditions of his own environment and not with regard to
those which governed the Scandinavian kingdoms, and Northern
Germany, and Britain. The two nations foremost at the time
in every walk of intellect, Italy and Spain, remained Catholic.
The boast of Englishmen is that their drama is superior even
to that of Greece. For a hundred years before it emerged
from the crude outlines of the old Mysteries and Moralities, the
drama of Spain had attained an excellence hardly surpassed
when Shakspere finished his last play, or the last touches of
his plays, amid the quiet of the little country town where he
was born. Three centuries before Luther was born the Holy
Scriptures had been translated into Castilian by order of the
court. Admirable as the old ballad poetry of England is, it is
rude in comparison with that of Spain ; while the latter possesses
every excellence, whether of spirit or scenic effect, fondly claimed
for the former. A century before Chaucer put into that verse
" drawn from the well of English undefiled " his characters, that
arc the perfect mirror of the time, a poetic literature existed

* New York : Benziger Brothers.

t New Zealand. He was rector of the cathedral at Auckland.

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846 Talk about New Books. [Sept.,

in Spain composed of names not inferior to Chaucer's. Every
student knows the place Italy held in letters, art, policy, when
in the Northern nations the achievements of the pencil and the
chisel were on the same level as those of the deeds of the
house-painter and the mason, when great lords thanked God
they could not write, when statesmanship meant taxation or a
foreign war. We confess we are a little tired of this injustice
to the South, this idolatry of the North.

Of course Father Madden is right in saying that reforms in
discipline were needed. Abuses had found their way into many
relations of the clergy with the people. Such abuses are to be
found to-day ; but no one except an Irish Protestant or an
English Nonconformist would discover in individual scandals in
South America, or even in this country, reason to deny the
promise of our Divine Lord to be with his church until the end
of time. That an unhappy priest shocked the conscience of his
people would not of itself, in our opinion, be an explanation of
the latter's action in shaking off the authority of Leo XIII.,
and calling him Antichrist. But if that people preferred the
freedom of their passions, and had fastened their eyes upon
church property and exemption from tithes, we should consider
their action somewhat intelligible, although we might not call it
love of truth, independence of mind, the protest of reason
against tyranny, or by any other of the mouth-filling epithets by
which Protestants still try to delude themselves.

We hope that the successive sociological canvasses of the
" Federation of Churches and Christian Workers of New York
City," whose second report* is just issued, may result in the
production of a series of maps setting before philanthropic
people pictures of the social and moral state of this city as
vivid as those given to Chicago workers by the Hull House
maps.

Last year, the Federation made a house-to-house investiga-
tion of the Fifteenth Assembly District. This year, while
selecting the Nineteenth Assembly District, it confined its work
to what it calls the " tenement section," extending from Sixtieth
to Sixty-eighth Streets and lying between Columbus Avenue
and the Hudson River.

Since this canvass is avowedly in the interests of religion as
well as of morality and sociology — the inquiry reaching to a
somewhat delicate discrimination between church attendants

* The Federation 0/ Churches and Christian Workers in New York City. Second Socio-
logical Canvass. The Nineteenth Assembly District.

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1 897-] Talk about New Books. 847

and church members, and to the consideration in the report
of a distinction between "confirmed " and "communing chil-
dren" — we regret that it should have been limited to dwellers
in technical " tenements." Moreover, from Columbus to Am-
sterdam Avenues, it did not compass all tenement-houses, but
only "the greater part of them." Hence, although its statistics
may throw light on certain aspects of the relationship between
the sanitation, education, and religion of small wage-earners, it
can, as the compilers themselves admit, be only " directive " of
the investigations of clergy and pastors whose interest in the
spiritual geography of the neighborhood is practical and vital
rather than theoretical.

The Federation aims at securing such information as will
enable it at any time to furnish what may be desired by any
church or philanthropy in the city, while protecting families
from the intrusion of " a series of different canvassers, employed
by as many societies, and annoying the people by importunities."
This will be a boon to a community on which the law already
inflicts seven censuses every ten years !

Only 82 out of 4,882 families refused to answer a most ex-
haustive series of questions, ranging from their rent and the
exact mode of their water-supply to the number of children
baptized and regarded as church members, and their amount of
Sunday work. The form used provided, at first, for tabulation
of membership in political, educational, and recreative clubs ;
but the membership in the district proved so small that this
tabulation was dropped. Possibly part of the fault lay in the
classification. The large Temperance Guild of St. Paul's Church,
with its club-house and its regular series of meetings and enter-
tainments, while both educational and recreative in scope, would
not fit into the schedule as either.

A striking feature of the district is its great number of
colored people — 2,614 out of 19,717 persons canvassed. These
are massed in three blocks, and charged from $1 to $2 a month
more rental than whites. Their men are also the smallest
wage-earners, which fact compels their wives to work to such
an extent that colored women form 53 per cent, of the wage-
earning wives of the district. In view of the biting poverty
and grinding toil indicated by these facts, it is not surprising that
372 of these colored families are connected with no church, and
that the percentage of their children who attend church is smaller
than in any other nationality. Moreover, there is no colored
church in the district — and in what white denominational church

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848 Talk about New Books. [Sept.,

is a colored man ever made really at home? He may not be
taxed for his color on his pew as on his house. But it is a
question whether he would find any desirable pew diseng ':

Educational statistics are alarming. One-fifth of the dif
children between 8 and 16 attend neither public, private,' i.or
parochial schools. More American children between 8 and 16
are in school than those of any other nationality — fewer be-
tween 3 and 7.

Out of the 4,882 families, 3,449 contain church members. Of
these, 2,214 are Catholic — 74 per cent. The remainder are
divided between 18 denominations, plus one Buddhist. Hap-
pily, the district is not fashionable and Buddhism is not likely
to increase. Congregationalism has adherents only among the
Americans ! It appears to be an essentially non-missionary sect.
The committee generously ascribe the preponderance of Catho-
lics to the " splendid parochial system and spirit of service in
the Church of the Paulist Fathers, at Sixtieth Street and
Columbus Avenue."

Nothing can be stronger than the language used throughout
this report as to the superiority of the Catholic parish system
over any machinery which can be devised by the Methodists,
with their " class " system ; the Presbyterians, with their theore-
tical oversight by the members of the "session"; or by all the
sects together through the zealous use of such interlock-
ing agencies as the Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., and the
Society of Christian Endeavor. While only 22 Roman
Catholic families claim any "church home" other than the
Paulist Church, the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, or the
German Church in Forty-ninth Street, the Protestant families are
lightly scattered among 102 churches, lying all over the city,
rendering any systematic pastoral oversight impossible.

"Is it not apparent," asks the committee, "that Protestant-
ism needs something approaching the Roman Catholic parish
system ? . . . To continue the present Protestant parish
methods on this island is to limit the blessing of God upon his
church's labors, and to have and deserve the condemnation of
business men."

We heartily agree. But we do not regard the Federation's
suggestion that each church in a district should be responsible
for the systematic visitation of the families in a given block as
workable. Even if the Protestant pastor made thft visitation in
person, he would go with no universally recognized credentials.
He plays no essential part in the every-day life of even his

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1 897-] Talk ABOUT New Books, 849

own people. Where baptism is a pretty ceremonial to be per-
formed. ,.or omitted at convenience or taste — where marriage is
^nl contract which may or may not be embellished by
yers — where death is regarded as so purely a family affair
i**at the ministerial presence is felt intrusive — the relationship
between pastor and people is based purely on personal likes or
dislikes, and that sense of personal dependence upon pastoral
service which is the fulcrum of efficient parish work is absent.
The " Catholic parish system " is the outgrowth of the Catho-
lic faith — the natural outcome of the church's sacramental
system, and therefore "not made with hands/' incapable of
superficial imitation.

DR. SETON'S SCIENTIFIC ESSAYS.*

Very few Catholic writers in America have done as much
as Dr. Seton to hasten on the reconciliation of science with
religion. In a dispute between friends, in nine cases out of
ten the cause is either a misunderstanding concerning state-
ments made or a misinterpretation of motives. The duty of
peace-maker is confined principally to bringing parties to-
gether and encouraging mutual explanations. In his scientific
essays Dr. Seton has done great service as a peace-maker
between science and religion.

He has brought to this task not only a thoroughly loyal
devotion to the spirit of religion, but also a reverence for the
letter of the church's teaching, and he has united with all this
an accurate knowledge of the latest teaching on scientific sub-
jects. He has, moreover, that peculiar faculty of making inter-
esting whatever he touches. We are pleased to know that
much that he has written has taken a more permanent form in
the shape of the book which he modestly calls A Glimpse of
Organic Life.

>It is a series of instructions on natural history in the shape of
a conversation out-of-doors between a professor and his favorite
pupil. It traces briefly the development of organic life, and
this in the confidence that there is no antagonism between real
science and religion. It would be hardly fair to give an out-
line of the subject of this little work, but we can indicate its
character by saying it covers four stages of development; the
first he calls that of " The Rocks," the next that of " Inverie-

♦ A Glimpse 0/ Organic Life, By William Seton, LL.D. New York : P. O'Shea.
VOL. LXV. — 54

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850 Talk about New Books. [Sept.

brates/' the third the "Age of Reptiles," and finally that of
" Mammals;"

In an easy and familiar manner, the result of careful study
is given in the one hundred and thirty pages which com-
pose the book ; and we venture to say whoever reads it, bring-
ing to the task no knowledge, or very little knowledge, of
natural history, will close it with the grasp of a more intelligent
information than would be acquired from some of the very
pretentious compendiums that aim at being the treatises of
masters. Nor do we mean to imply that Dr. Seton at all
resembles those who make books of science by transforming
the works of investigators into popular manuals — books o( science
for the million. On the contrary, we very distinctly recognize
the fact that he has an interest in the study of natural history
which none but the genuine student possesses. To give an idea
of the easy sweep of his manner of communicating what he
has to tell, we shall cite a couple of sentences from a short
Hsumi of his account of the unfolding of organic life from
low to higher forms :

"The primitive fishes had beneath their armor soft, cartila-
ginous skeletons, and their tails were so constructed that they
could not give the strong blows necessary for rapid swimming."
That, we think, is admirable as an instance of concise statement,
and reminds us of the pages we have had to go over in order
to read practically the same matter. Again, we have him say-
ing his word about the ancestral horse : " We know that his
foot was infinitely less adapted to swift locomotion than the
foot of his far-off descendant."

We consider this also well presented :

" In the primeval days what little earth had risen above the
water was comparatively a silent earth ; but by and by insects
appeared to chirp and to hum, and to be answered by other
insects ; and this chirping and humming was followed later on
by the bellowing and roaring of mammals, and by the sweet
voices of birds."

We hope that the intelligent laity will procure books of this
kind, in which they will find the most fearless pursuit of truth
coupled with a reverent spirit which bows before the majesty
of the Creator ; books in which the authors show that the more
they learn of God's works the greater arc their awe and grati-
tude, instead of obtaining from a little knowledge of them that
science which puffeth up and has no tongue but that of an
insolent dogmatism.

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year, and proves very conclusively that the Total-Abstinence
sentiment is still making headway against an innumerable host
of opposing forces of apathy and criticism and the ever-vigilant
interests of the liquor power. During the past year there have
been added 74 new societies with a membership of 3,459. This
places the total membership of this admirable organization at
nearly 80,000 total abstainers.

It is not without its significance to note the frequent refer-
ence in sermon and paragraph to the number of conversions to
the faith and the general attitude of hopefulness that public
writers assume when talking about the future of Catholicity in
America. The wonderful revival of the religious spirit on the
one hand, and »the decadence of Protestantism as a working
organization on the other, leaves Catholicity master of the
field. If the Church only opens wide her doors and permits
the non-Catholic to see the beauty of the interior, there is no
telling what crowds will be attracted to her.

Some of the leading religious papers outside the church are
beginning to realize how empty is the showy parade of figures
found in the religious census, and when seen from inside out
many religious bodies are not in reality what they seem. The
Congregationalists constitute a striking instance. To them are
given in the latest census 5,482 churches; but one-half these
churches have less than 50 members each, and a great many
have less than 10 members.

Practical, hard-headed business men are beginning to re-
alize that for the money invested the output of religion as
a manufactured article is of higher quality and better grade,
and more of it to the yard, from the Catholic loom than from
any other source. This is the secret of many of the generous
donations made by non-Catholics to Catholic religious effort.

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852

Authentic Sketches of

[Sept.,

AUTHENTIC SKETCHES OF LIVING CATHOLIC

AUTHORS.

Among the Catholic women of culture in the South who
have won distinction by their published writings, Mrs. Mar-
garet Ellen Henry-Ruffin is conspicuous for the work that
she has done both in poetry and prose.

She was born at Daphne, Baldwin Co., Alabama, on the
eastern shore of Mobile Bay, at the summer home of her par-
cnts, and, barring three years of her infancy that were spent

in Ireland during the Civil War
in this country, she has always
resided in Mobile.

She was educated at St.
Mary's School, in Mobile, and
at St. Joseph's Academy, Em-
mitsburg, Maryland. At the lat-
ter institution she was graduated
in 1877, and to it she looks as
the Alma Mater that bestowed
on her her best training and
that has rejoiced at the laudable
use that she has made of it.

Even in her school-days she
gave evidences of possessing the
literary gift. In the develop-
ment of that faculty she received
the cordial encouragement of her
father, who, having the love of learning that is characteristic of
the well-born Irish and the means to cultivate it in his favorite
daughter, lovingly fostered her literary aspirations and looked
forward with fond anticipations to her career as a writer.
It is one of her greatest griefs that he is not here now
to cheer her on in her labors and to share their meed of
praise.

Her first book was published in 1884. It was a volume of
poems called Drifting Leaves (Catholic Publication Society Co.)
It shows the influence on her thought and style of Father
Abram J. Ryan, the poet-priest, who was an intimate friend

Margaret Ellen Henry-Ruffin.

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I897-] Living Catholic Authors. 853

of her family's^ and whose verse she knew by heart before she
herself attempted " to build the lofty rhyme."

She has material on hand enough for another and larger
volume, some of which has appeared in magazines, but the chief
gem of which is an epic, "John Gildart," that has never yet
been published.

In prose she has produced an historical sketch of the dio-
cese of Mobile,* a novel entitled The North StaVy and many
artistically constructed and charmingly written short stories
that have found a wide audience in publications North and
South.

Although Alabama is her home, she has travelled extensively
in this country, especially in the North Atlantic and Mid-
dle Western States, and she counts her friends in them a
legion.

She has devoted much time to the study of music and lan-
guages. She is an ardent admirer of Celtic literature and an-
tiquities, and she expects to make apt use of her acquirements
in those fields.

In 1887 she was married to Mr. Frank G. Ruffin, a civil en-
gineer and son of Colonel Frank Ruffin, for many years State
auditor of Virginia. She has five children — three daughters
and twin sons. Her time is divided between her household
cares and her literary engagements, and through her own mater-
nal experiences, sheltered and glorified with affection as they
have been, her spirit has broadened in sympathy with life at
large, the story of which is ever ancient and ever new, the
same yet infinitely varied, radiant with laughter but abounding
in heart-tragedies.

Cond6 B. Fallen was born at St. Louis in 1858, studied
at the University of St. Louis, Fordham College, and the Uni-
versity of Georgetown, and spent two years in Europe. He
has received from Georgetown University the degrees of A.B.
(1880), A.M. (1883), and LL.D. (1896); and from St. Louis
University that of Ph.D. (in 1885). All of these degrees were
earned by hard study, with the exception of that of LL.D.,
which was conferred in causa honoris. The first article which
he ever published was contributed to The Catholic World
Magazine, in the year 1883, and was on the subject of scepti-
cism and modern thought.

In 1886 he started to write the editorials for the Catholic

* The Catholic World Magazine, November, 1893.

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854 Authentic Sketches of [Sept.,

World weekly in St. Louis, which in 1888 was amalgamated
with the Church Progress. From that time until the spring of
1896 he was the editor of the Church Progress^ which under his
editorship became recognized as the most powerful and un-
compromising organ of ultramontane opinion in the United
States.

In 1885 Mr. Fallen, in connection with Frofessor Maurice F.
Egan, published a little volume of verse (Carmina. London:
Kegan Faul, Trench & Co.)

In 1889 Dr. Fallen gave the Centennial Ode at Georgetown
University, and about the same time he read a paper on
American Catholic Literature at the first Catholic Congress of
the United States, held at Baltimore in that year. In 1891 he
was elected president of the Catholic Fress Association of
the United States, which he had been instrumental in or-
ganizing.

Dr. Fallen has long enjoyed an extended reputation as a
lecturer. Besides many special lectures in various parts of the
country, he has given lecture courses at all the Catholic Sum-
mer and Winter Schools that have thus far been held. The
, principal subjects of these courses have been The Fhilosophy
of Literature, Epochs of Literature, Savonarola, and The
Church and Socialism. The lectures on the Fhilosophy of
Literature are now in press, and will shortly be issued in book
form by B. Herder.

Dr. Fallen has been a frequent and welcome contributor to
the periodicals of this country and Europe, including The
Catholic World, the American Catholic Quarterly Review^ the
Month (London), the Rosary^ the Educational Review^ and the
American Ecclesiastical Review, An article on "The Interpreta-
tion of the * Idylls of the King,' " published in 1885 in The
Catholic World, and afterwards expanded into five articles
for the Catholic Reading Circle Review^ called forth from Lord
Tennyson himself the testimony that he had seen farther into
the meaning of those beautiful poems than most of his com-
mentators had done.

Ellen Beck, known better to Catholic readers as Magdalen
Rock, is a native of County Tyrone, Ireland. Her first poem,
** A Californian Rose," was published in the Irish Monthly early
in the year 1890. Like many of her fellow-countrymen and
countrywomen, she attributes whatever measure of success she
has attained in literature to the kindly and learned editor of

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1 897.] Living \Ca tholic A uthors. 855

that periodical, Father Matthew Russell, S.J., who from the
first was ready with advice and encouragement. Miss Beck is
a certificated first-class teacher, and has taught in the village
school of Rock from the age J of sixteen. It is her boast that
she has never been, but on two .
occasions, out of her native
county. The village of Rock,
from which she takes her name,
consists of some half-dozen
white-washed houses built on the
summit of a slight hill. It is
within a few miles of the historic
town of Dungannon, once the
residence of the O'Neills, kings
of Ulster, and famous as the
meeting-place of the Irish Volun-
teers in February, 1782. The
village is a very quiet one, pos-
sessing neither telegraph office
nor railway station.

Since the time of her first

, . Magdalen Rock.

appearance in the Irish Monthly

Miss Beck has been a frequent contributor to its pages. She
has also written much verse for Chambers's Journal, the well-
known Edinburgh magazine, and prose and verse for many
London journals. Contributions from her pen have appeared
on this side of the Atlantic. She has also, in collaboration
with Mr. Joseph Seymour, Dublin, written an operetta for
Messrs. Curwen & Son, of London. Miss Beck has written many
stories for the Catholic Publishing Company, Liverpool, and a
volume of short tales from her pen have been published by
Moran & Co., of Aberdeen.

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856 What the Thinkers Say. [Sept.,

WHAT THE THINKERS SAY,

WORLD-WIDE SERVICES PROPOSED.

CARDINAL JACOBINrS PLANS FOR CELEBRATING THE END OF

THE CENTURY.

Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Sir : You have doubtless become
aware of the project, advanced by a number o^ men of great piety, to get the faith-
ful throughout the universe at the close of the present century to affirm in a
, solemn manifestation, by a series of religious exercises, their love and gratitude to
the all-powerful Redeemer of the human race.

The design of these men in this initiative was to respond to the desire of our
Holy Father Pope Leo XI 1 1., who wished to consecrate this epoch of transition
from one century to another by an extraordinary invocation of the divine assist-
ance of Jesus Christ as a happy presage of peace and concord.

Now, the project of these personages having received the full approbation
of His Holiness, and Catholic delegates from all nations having assembled in
congress at Rome to promote its realization, it has pleased the Sovereign Pontiff
to select me, without any merit on my part, as honorary president of the com-
mittee.

Here, assuredly, is a noble task, and I own that I am proud and happy to
undertake it. For what could be more agreeable to my feelings than the occasion
so favorably presented to me at the end of my days to employ all the strength
that is still left me in promoting the glory of our Saviour — all the more, too. in
these last days of a departing century ? And what a century has been this of
ours in which proud men, relying on a science unworthy of the name and display-
ing an activity which might be called feverish, have carried their audacious
temerity to the extent of calling in question the origin of Christianity, or even
presenting as a fiction, as a lying legend, faith in the divine person of the
Saviour !

Wherefore we shall fervently strive to make reparation for the great injuries
done to our Master, to appease God's anger by our prayers, to exalt in paeans of
praise the holy name of Jesus Christ, who is the splendor of the glory and the
perfect image of the substance of God. Such will be the task in which we shall
put forth all our zeal at the dawn of the new centur>'.

Uniting, therefore, as closely as possible under one head the efforts of all, by
striking acts of piety and reparation, by the publication of desirable works, by the
great voice of the best daily papers, and, finally, by public demonstrations of
affection for the Roman Pontiff, we shajl easily succeed in celebrating these
grand solemnities in the joy of our hearts, and in an imposing concert, as it were,
of the voices of all nations. In this way we shall clearly show forth our close
alliance of will, the wonderful unity of the church, and the perfect union of the
faithful with its head. Moreover, the triumph of the cross, the only, source of sal-
vation, being thus verified throughout the universe, human society will escape un-
harmed from the perils of imminent ruin, and will happily enter upon a path of
peace and prosperity at the beginning of the next century.

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1897.] What the Thinkers Say. 857

I entertain the happy expectation that your lordship, as well as all other
bishops, will consent to give your powerful support to myself and the committee
established at Rome, and, above all, that you will devote your best efforts to the
creation of a national committee for the same object.

Awaiting your answer, in order that we may all agree on the measures to
be adopted, I earnestly implore the Lord Jesus Christ to vouchsafe in his infinite
bounty to hear your lordship's prayers.

Yours most fraternally and devotedly. Cardinal Jacobini.

FATHER HECKER.
HIS YANKEE TYPE OF CHARACTER AND THE FRENCH

CATHOLICS.
(From the New York Sun,)

To THE Editor OF The Sun. — Sir: It is not a little significant to note
with what eagerness many thinkers in Europe are watching the development of
American thought, especially in religious matters, and are looking to the fresh
vigor of our younger civilization for their inspirations. Leo XIII. has made no
secret of the fact that not a few of his progressive ideas as well as his broad hu-
manitarian notions he has acquired from American sources. He owns up to care-
fully reading a copy of the Constitution of the United States given to him by
President Cleveland some time ago, and it gives him not a little delight to button-
hole some American prelate or publicist, and, while telling him how much he
loves America, to gather all the knowledge he can of American ideas and the trend
of American thought. Formerly the wise men came from the East ; his wise men
come from the West. Leo in this capacity represents a large and growing class
among the thinkers of Europe.

A notable instance of the same spirit is found in the publication lately of two
appreciative articles on Father Hecker in Le Correspondant by the Count de
Chabrol, and now there appears a translation into French of the Life of Father
Hecker, apropos of the publication. Abbe Klein, professor at the Catholic In-
stitute of Paris, summarizing the intellectual position of Hecker, speaks of him as
the prophet of the future — the one who has blazed the way to the best progress
in religious matters.

Abb6 Klein is one of the stoutest exponents of the Leonine policy in France,
and, like Leo, he is a strong believer in the vitality of ideas. He says of Hecker's
" Life " that " no book has appeared within fifty years which casts more vivid
light upon the present condition of humanity or the religious evolution of the
world, on the intimate relations of God with the modern soul, or on the existing
conditions of the Church's progress."

The type of Yankee character he finds in Hecker is so unconventional and at
the same time so refreshing, so full of straightforward simplicity and- guileless-
ness, so utterly lacking in that peculiar French trait, diplomacy, that he falls in
love with it at once. Still, he does not fail to see the far-reaching influences of
Hecker's ideas, and he realizes that, like all pioneers in intellectual or spiritual
movements, Hecker will be appreciated fifty years from now far more than he is
to-day. He says : " Nothing is so affecting as to follow the intellectual, moral,
and religious evolution of this free and confident youth. As in a sort of interior
drama one beholds God taking irresistible possession of his soul and leading it by
a manifest influence to the highest degree of perfection. With the difference
which belongs to their epochs, he reminds one of St. Augustine. The latter was

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858 IVnAT THE Thinkers Say. [Sept.,

attracted to God from a corrupt life. Hecker was profoundly moral, filled with a
strenuous desire for the light, but without any model of the religious life, and even
repelled from the Church by the external appearances which Catholics retained
from an age gone by. He has traversed the whole space which to-day separates
from the Church a Yankee unembarrassed by the accidental institutions of the
past."

When the searchlight of Rome was being thrown on the difficulties which
ultimately culminated in the institution of the first American religious community,
now known as the Paulists, one of the Canadian bishops said to Pius IX. : " Holy
Father, I should not be at all surprised if you were to canonize one of these
Yankee priests some day."

The applications of the inventive genius to the industrial arts have un-
doubtedly produced more changes in the world in the last fifty years than were
formerly made in several centuries. Such changes in the social world do not go
on without reacting profoundly on the moral condition of humanity. They re-
quire, and, in a certain measure, they call into being more knowledge, more energy,
more independence, more initiative, and a greater change of the conditions under
which one lives ; and all this newness of environment creates new ethical prob-
lems which constantly demand solution in public life as well as settlement in pri-
vate conscience. The passive spirit which was the honor of an epoch in which
one had only to follow the current, must everywhere give way before those active
virtues without which the cause of morality cannot stand.

In these changing conditions Hecker had the greatest confidence in the
inborn ability of human nature to adjust itself from a spiritual side to the new
order of things. He saw that the trend of all these movements was in the direc-
tion of larger liberty and greater intelligence, and that the office of religion was
not to curtail liberty and intelligence, lest perchance they be abused, but to en-
courage and direct them. Not a few were possessed of the idea that religion was
a huge central despotism in the hands of a hierarchy whose chief business was to
repress the legitimate aspirations of the heart for what are the idols of modem
life — liberty and intelligence. Little wonder, then, that agnosticism was the full
flowering of such reputed antagonism. But the system of mysticism of which
Hecker was the best exponent emphasized the fact that the " kingdom of God is
within you." Every legitimate aspiration for what is good is from the interior
spirit of God, and the practical end of the true religion is simply to submit each
soul individually to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The external authority which
alone has been endowed with the prerogative of infallibility must be merely the
standard by which we are to measure the rectitude of the interior action — the
track on which the train is to run, while the motive power is in the engine. The
initiative to individual perfection must not be the principle of authority outside of
one's self. Where this is looked to and depended upon the result is the drying up
of the secret founts of individual life. But the growth must be from within, as
the tree grows by a life all its own. The action of the priesthood must be to dig
about and fertilize the roots that the tree may get its best development. " The
better the man, the better the Christian." " The individuality of the man cannot
be too strong, or his liberty too great, when he is guided by the Spirit of God."

It is not without its significance that these very principles have been en-
shrined in the latest encyclical letter of Leo on the " Mission of the Holy Spirit,"
andtoo little notice has been taken of these luminous affirmations of the great
watchman on the tower of Israel.

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1 897-] New Books. 859

During the last three hundred years the polemic effort of the church has been
to defend the outer ramparts of the citadel of her power — the external authority.
This work found its logical culmination in the Vatican Council, whose definitions
placed the coping stone on the fortified walls. Now, says Leo, the battle of i
three centuries is done ; turn now to the inner beautifying and sanctification of
souls.

Hecker's life had been the practical studying out of all these vital principles,
and he burned with the most intense desire to tell his countrymen that the Cath-
olic Church gives them a flight to God a thousand times more direct than they
ever dreamed of. They think the authority of the church will cramp their limbs.
He was eager to explain to them that it sets them free, clears the mind of doubt,
intensifies conviction into instinctive certitude, and quickens the intellectual facul-
ties into an activity whose force is unknown among those who are always inquir-
ing for and never gaining the truth. And with his profound confidence in the
future of the religious life in America, he believed that the Latin race, with its
predilection for external institutions and monarchical forms of government, had
crowned its religious work in the Vatican Council, and that it was given to other
races to lead in the development of the interior virtues of religion.

Abb6 Klein has assimilated these new and vigorous ideas in a wonderful way
for a Frenchman, and his voicing of them in French for the religious thinkers of
his own people is like a strain of sweetest music from another land. What is the
matter with French Catholicism ? Why is the practice of religion so formal, obe-
dience so servile, and the church so sterile ? Because so little has been made of
the interior spirit. The walls of a dungeon have been built around and the doors
have been shut upon the religious spirit. Souls yearn for the light. They gasp
for the fresh air. Hecker's spiritual views, which are, after all, but the approved
teaching of the best mystical writers, are like a deep breathing of oxygenated air
Into these souls ; they bring a new light into their eyes and a new vigor into their
step. Little wonder that with yearning eyes the best thinkers eagerly scan the
religious horizon of the Western World for this new light.

Catholicus.

NEW BOOKS.

Catholic Truth Society, London (Catholic Book Exchange, Paulists,
New York) :
Historical Papers, No. XXIV, The Landing of St, Augustine. Rev. Syd-
ney). Smith, S.J. Indifferent ism. Rev. Charles Coupe, S.J. The Jesuits,
By Comtesse R. De Courson.
American Book Company, New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago:

Physics for Grammar Schools. Harrington. A Study of English Words,
Jessie Macmillan Anderson. Advanced Music Reader, Vol. vii. of "Na-
tural Course in Music." Frederic H. Ripley and Thomas Tapper.
Benziger Brothers, New York:

Theolo^ia Moralis Decalogis et Sacrament alis. Rev. Patritius Sporer,
O.S.F. Edited by Rev. F. Irenaeus Bierbaum, O.S.F.
The Macmillan Co., New York :

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. H. De Balzac. Translated by Ellen
Marriage. Preface by George Saintsbury.
Appleton & Co., New York:

Cyprian: His Life, His Times, His Work. Archbishop Edward Ben-
son. Introduction by Bishop *H. C. Potter.

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86o The Columbian Reading Union. [Sept.,

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

SOME time ago Cardinal Gibbons, in an interview approving the Champlain
Summer-School, made this significant statement :

" Our clergy and laity have never had any central meeting-place where all
could gather without awkwardness and amicably discuss questions of interest to
all. The success of the congress held several years ago in Baltimore showed the
need of it. The plan of the Summer-School seems suitable for this purpose.
Pupils and teachers can meet at its reunions and learn to know one another out-
side the school formalities. Educators can compare notes, specialists can meet
and confer. This bringing together of theorists and men of affairs, clergy and
laity, religious and secular, cannot but have a good effect if wisely and safely-
managed."

The results that may be justly claimed for the session just closed of the Cham-
plain Summer-School are highly gratifying to all concerned, and especially to the
representatives of the American hierarchy whose timely words of encouragement
gave strength to the workers. During seven weeks at Cliff Haven clergy and
laity, theorists and men of affairs, have had opportunities to meet and discuss
leisurely important questions representing many phases of Catholic thought and
activity. In many ways the sixth session of the Champlain Summer- School, ex-
tending from July 1 1 to August 28, accomplished satisfactorily the same plans
proposed for the first Catholic Congress at Baltimore. For the time being an
intellectual centre was established of far-reaching influence on Catholics in gen-
eral. The keen appreciation shown for the intellectual treasures displayed in the
lectures and conferences can hardly be realized by those who were unable to be
present.

Among the pioneers who assumed responsibility for beginning the Summer-
School was the distinguished Brother Azarias. What he wrote in its favor for
the Catholic Congress at Chicago, in 1893, may be now read with profit as show-
ing that he accurately described the need of such an undertaking. These are
his words :

" The primary import of the Catholic Summer-School is this : To give, from
the most authoritative sources among our Catholic writers and thinkers, the Catholic
point of view on all the issues of the day in history, in literature, in philosophy, in
political science, upon the economic problems that are agitating the world, upon
the relations between science and religion ; to state in the clearest possible terms
the principle underlying truth in each and all these subjects ; to remove false
assumptions and correct false statements ; to pursue the calumnies and slanders
uttered against our creed and our church to their last lurking-place. Our reading
Catholics, in the busy round of their daily occupations, heedlessly snatch out of
the secular journals and magazines undigested opinions upon important subjects
— opinions hastily written and not infrequently erroneously expressed ; men and
events, theories and schemes and projects are discussed upon unsound principles
and assumptions, which the readers have but scant time to unravel and rectify ;
the poison of these false premises enters into their thinking, corrodes their reason-
ing, and unconsciously they accept as truth conclusions that are only distortions

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1 897-] The Columbian Reading Union. 86i

of truth. It is among the chief purposes of the Summer-School to supply anti-
dotes for this poison."

* 41 *

It is a great advantage to the reading public when specialists consent to pre-
pare a list of books. Rarely do we find any lecturer that has given such a satis-
factory bibliography as the Rev. M. J. Flannery, director of the Fenelon Read-
ing Circle, Brooklyn, N. Y. His object in preparing it was to supply guidance
for those who wished to continue the studies in Christian Art outlined in his lec-
tures at the Champlain Summer-School. The list is here given :

^Esthetics, Schlegel (Scribner, N. Y., 1880). Essays on Beauty, Blackie.
First Principles of Symmetrical Beauty, Hay. Analysis of Ornament, Wornum.
Principles of Form in Ornamental Art, Martel. Early Christian Symbolism, Pal-
mer, Northcote, and Brownl6w (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., London, 1885). An-
cient Christianity and Sacred Art in Italy, C. L. Hemans. Symbols and Emblems,
Twyning. Christian Iconography, Didron. Christian Art and Symbolism, Tyr-
-whitt. Early Christian Art in Ireland, Stokes (Chapman & Hall, London, 1887).
Principles and Limits of Expression, Bellars. The Ideal in Art, Taine. Le Spiri-
tualisme dans TArt, Lev6quc. L' Architecture du V« au XVI I^ si^cle et les arts
qui en dependent, Gailhabaud. Sacred Art, Maitland. Sacred and Legendary
Art; Sketches of Art, Jameson (Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1887). Con-
tribution to the Literature of Fine Arts, Eastlake. Religious and Military Life
in Middle Ages, Lacroix (Chapman, Hall & Co., London, 1874). Dictionnaire
raisonn6 du mobilier frangais dc T^poque Carlovingienne k la Renaissance, VioUet-
le-Duc. Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament, Pugin. An Apology for the Revi-
val of Christian Architecture, Pugin. Recollections of Augustus W. Pugin, Ferrey
(Edward Stanford, London, 1861). Renaissance, Symonds. Renaissance, Burk-
hart. Renaissance Sketches, Walter Pater (Macmillan, New York, 1887). Eccle-
siologist, Camden Society. Ruskin's Works (John Wiley & Son, New York, 1885).
Art of Illuminating as practised in Europe in Early Times, Tymns. Pilgrims and
Shrines ; Patron Saints ; Christian Art in our own Age, Eliza Allen Starr. Divers
Works of early Masters of Christian Decoration, Neale. Church of Our Fathers,
Rev. Dr. Rock (J. Hodges, London). Vestiarum Christianum, Marriott (Long-
mans, Green & Co.) Monasticon, Dugdale. Church Vestments, A. Dolby (Riv-
ingtons, 1869). Mediaeval Art, Von Reber (Harper Bros., 1887). Ecclesiastical
Art in Germany in the Middle Ages, Dr. Lubke (Thos. C.Jock, Edinburgh, 1873).
Mediaeval Christianity and Sacred Art in Italy, C. L. Hemans. Hand-book of the
Arts of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Labarte. The Fine Arts of Italy
in their Religious Aspect, Coquerel. Preraphaelitism, Young (Rosetti). P^re
Besson, Sydney Lear (Rivingtons, London, 1877). A Christian Artist of the
Nineteenth Century, Sydney Lear (Rivingtons, London, 1877). Cyclopaedia of
Painters and Painting (Scribner's, New York). Journal of Art (Appleton, 1875).
Cathedrals of England and Wales (Cassell & Co.. 1884). Lives and W^rks of
Michael Angelo and Raphael, by R. Dreppa and Quatremere de Quincy (H. G.
Bohn, London, 1856). L'Arch^ologie Chr^tienne, Andre Pirate (May & Motte-
roz, Paris). Wonders of Art and Archaeology, Lef^vre (Scribner's, 1886).
* * 41

As reports regarding the establishment in Washington of a Catholic college
for women have been prematurely circulated, it was deemed advisable by those
immediately concerned to publish an authoritative statement. Since the estab-
lishment of the Catholic University of America at Washington inquiries have

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862 The Columbian Reading Union. [Sept.,

been made as to what the Catholic Church is prepared to do for the higher educa-
tion of women. It has been decided to establish in Washington a woman's col-
lege of the same grade as Vassar, thus giving young women an opportunity for
the highest collegiate instruction. The institution is to be known as Trinity
College, and will be under the direction and control of the Sisters of Notre Dame,
whose mother-house is in Namur, Belgium. This congregation of religious
women is devoted exclusively to teaching; their colleges in Belgium, England.
Scotland, and their academies and parish schools in the United States, have won
for them high distinction in educational work. Trinity College will offer to its
students all the advantages of the best American colleges, and will have, in addi-
tion, those benefits that come from education given under the direction of experi-
enced religious teachers.

The Sisters of Notre Dame have purchased twenty acres of land near the
gateway of the Catholic University, at the junction of Michigan and Lincoln
Avenues, and plans will be at once prepared for a suitable college building. The
establishment of this college in the City of Washington offers opportunities to the
students which can be found in no other city of our country ; the libraries and
museums, as well as many of the educational institutes and the scientific collections,
offer advantages that cannot be equalled elsewhere in America, while its close
proximity to the Catholic University will give to the students the rare privilege
of following regularly the public lecture courses, or private courses by specialists
having the endorsement of the university.

It will offer three courses of study, each extending through four years — ^the
classical course, leading to the degree of bachelor of arts ; the scientific course,
leading to the degree of bachelor of science, and the course of letters, leading to
the degree of bachelor of letters. All the courses will ultimately lead to the de-
gree of Ph.D.

This college idea has been under consideration for some time, and has met
with the cordial approbation of his Eminence the Cardinal- Archbishop of Baltimore
and chancellor of the university, who welcomes its establishment in his diocese
and near the university as a providential step in the higher education of Catholic
women. It is to be a post-graduate school, and no preparatory department is to
be connected with it. It is intended to supplement the good work of the acade-
mies and high-schools throughout our -land, and the candidates for admission
must have certificates of graduation from such school, or pass an examination
before entering equivalent to such graduation.

Right Rev. Monsignor Conaty, Rector of the Catholic University, when
questioned about this matter, stated that everything that could be done consistent
with the interests of the university would be freely rendered for the encourage-
ment of those who have so generously undertaken this great enterprise. He ex-
pressed himself as confident of the ability of the Sisters of Notre Dame to
establish a first-class college, as he has had experience with them as teachers
during the whole period of his ministry, and could certify to the thoroughness of
their instruction and to the evident determination of being satisfied with nothing
less than the best in all the departments of education which came within their
scope. He feels confident that great success awaits the enterprise of the sisters,
and is pleased to see their college seeking the friendship of the university, for in
so doing they desire to be in close touch with the bishops of the church, under
whose direction the university is placed. At least one answer is given to our
Catholic women with regard to higher education ; for the university frequently

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1 897-] The Columbian Reading Union, 863

receives letters from all parts of the United 'States making inquiries concern-
ing it.

For further particulars applications should be made to Sister Julia of Notre
Dame, K and North Capitol Streets, Washington, D. C.

* * *

Twenty-six years ago the late Father Hewit wrote an article on the Higher
Education, published in The Catholic World Magazine for March, 1 871, in
which he showed the necessity of advanced studies, especially in philosophy.
Some passages will show the line of his argument at that time : " All modern
literature is full of erroneous, pernicious, and infidel maxims, data, and conclu-
sions. The extensive and miscellaneous reading in which our young people
indulge will fill up their minds with false notions which are logically irreconcila-
ble with the doctrines of the Catholic faith. Thus a state of mental contradiction
will be unconsciously, gradually, but inevitably produced, which will breed diffi-
culties, perplexities, temptations against, faith, and in many instances will result
sooner or later in secret or open apostasy and infidelity.

** Young women as well as young men are exposed to these dangers, because
to a great extent they become familiar with the same kind of literature. Women
are engaged in editing, writing, translating, and teaching. It is often the case
that a priest will be obliged to call on his philosophy and science to remove the
doubts, solve the difficulties, and instruct in sound religious doctrine the minds of
the female catechumens who come to him to be prepared for reception into the
Catholic Church, or to be re-established in the faith from which they have been
drawn away by a bad education. Women in our society, if they are intelligent
and educated, come in contact with the intellect of men, and share in the intel-
lectual movements around them in such a way that a sound instruction in the
philosophy of religion is of great utility to keep them safe, and to give them a
wholesome influence both at home and in the society around them.

" The g^eat point to be gained with the coming generation of Catholics is to
make them see and feel the grandeur and magnificence of their religion, that they
may glory in it, and that all their pride and boast may be in their faith and in
their Catholic descent. It is time to break the prestige of heathenism and pseudo-
liberalism, and every other illusion, and manifest to the multitude that which has
so long been known to the dite, that there is nothing in the earth really worthy
of admiration except the Catholic Church, the spotless bride of the Son of God,
the queen of the world, for whose sake the nations have been created, and for
whose glory and triumph alone time is prolonged."

41 « «

The words non-partisan and i\on-sectarian are frequently used to cover secret
hostility to Catholics. Mr. G. Wilfred Pearce declares that

" It is in vain that the student searches the ' non-partisan ' histories for an
acknowledgment of the fact that the great elements of our institutions, namely,
representative government of the Christian type, electoral franchise, manhood
suffrage, written ballot, written constitutions, bills of rights, reciprocal oaths be-
tween rulers and their people, trial by jury, limitation of laws of labor, fixed com-
pensation for labor, sanctity of human life, and the recognition of the woman's
rights in the marriage law as standing upon an equal footing with those of man,
came from the Catholic Church alone.

" The Republic of San Marino has existed in papal dominions more than
fourteen hundred years, and therein that form of popular government, which in

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864 The Columbian Reading Union. [Sept., 1897.

our country is called the New England Town Meeting, has been in use for a
period which antedates the time when the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes departed
from the sand-dunes that front the Baltic Sea and invaded Britain. The saint
who founded San Marino instituted the town meeting after seeing the same form
of government among tribes in the north of Italy. In the Germanicus of Tacitus
is an excellent description of town meetings. Our Federal Constitution does not
contain a line which cannot be found in a complete edition of Esprit des Lois^ the
greatest French book of the eighteenth century, written by Baron Montesquieu,
whose body was interred in St. Sulpice's Church, Paris, exactly thirty-seven years
before the Constitutional Convention met at Philadelphia.

41 * *

Reading Circles cannot dispense entirely with the daily papers, if there is a
desire among the members to discuss current events. Judicious readers should
always refuse to give time to the news of notorious criminals and the other cal-
amities displayed in prominent headlines. The following opinion of an exchange
editor may be profitably discussed :

I am reminded of that highly accomplished and thoroughly amiable editor,
John H. Holmes, one of the owners of the Boston Herald^ who, in a recent num-
ber of Munsey*s Magazine ^ has been profitably discussing journalism, new and
old. Among other striking remarks is this :

"In the whole range of journalism there are to-day probably not more than
seven or eight thinking newspapers. All the rest are echoes. A man who reads
the daily exchanges of the country may see an idea travel from the Atlantic slope
to the Pacific and from the Pacific to the Atlantic as visibly as a train of freight-
cars runs over the Vanderbilt system."

As an exchange editor, off and on for years, I can agree with this, but should
be inclined to raise the limit. There are at least a dozen papers in this countr>'
that present evidence from day to day of original thinking, and, considering the
tremendous rush and pressure of newspaper life, reflecting all life in America, this
is marv'ellous, almost miraculous. There are also men with high ideals in editorial
chairs — plenty of them. I remember a conversation I once had with Holmes
when on his staff. An educational article of unusual length had been sent in, and
one of the sub-editors did not agree with me that we should give space to it.
We appealed the case to NJr. Holmes, and the argument was made that there
was no money in printing the article. Holmes's eyes snapped a little, and I was
encouraged to proceed with my plea in favor of the contribution. Soon as I
finished he said gravely : " I should be sorry to think that I was publishing a
paper simply and solely to make money." Holmes has but one bad habit — he
will keep manuscripts occasionally till moth and rust have corrupted them. I
know one case where he has had an author's story for seven years. It was paid
for handsomely, but the author considered it one of his best tales, and therefore
felt aggrieved.

M. C. M.

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