Full text of "The Catholic world"

THE 




CATHOLIC WORLD, 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



OF 



GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 

j^W to 

^.**^ I I. ^ ? ^**^ 




VOL. LXIX. 
APRIL, 1899, TO -SEPTEMBER, 1899. 



NEW YORK : 
THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 

120 WEST 6oth STREET. 



1899. 




Copyiight, 1899, by THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL 
THE APOSTLE IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 



THE CoLUMiut PRES?, 120 WEST 60iH ST., NEW YORK. 



CONTENTS. 



A Doctor, a Diary, and a Diagnosis. 

Margaret M. Halvey, . . . 376 

Ancient and Honorable. -Jeanie Drake, 248 

Association of St. Camillus, The. Jos- 
eph Ignatius Maguii e, 826 

Barlow, Miss Jane. (Portra't.) Katha- 
rine Tynan Hinkson, . . . 101 

Beardsley, Aubrey : A Reconstruction. 

Louise Imogen Guiney, . . 201 

Beguines Past and Present. (Illus- 
trated.} Virginia M. Crawford, . 329 

Bohemia, A Philosopher in. (Illus- 
trated.) Margaret F. Sullivan, . 365 

Brownson's Conversion, An English 
View of. Rev. William L. Gildea, 
D.D., 24 

Bruges, The Gables and Octagon Tow- 
ers of. {Illustrated.) Madder 
Browne, 449 

Cardinals who may be the Next Pope. 

(Portraits), 433 

Catholic Church Architecture. (Illus- 
trated.) W. H. McGinty, . . 191 

Catholic Crisis in England Fifty Years 
Ago, Reminiscences of a. Rev. C. 
L. Walworth, . 396, 549, 662, 812 

"Catholicism, Roman and Anglican." 

Rev. R. Richardson, . . . 359 

Catholic Officers in the Army and Navy. 

(Portraits.) . 129, 282, 425, 573, 715 

Celtic Revival, The. Rev. George Mc- 

Dermot, C S.P., . . . .480 

Charity as it Was and Is.H. M. Beadle, 81 

Christ the Need of Society. Rev. Mich- 
ael P. Smith, C.S.P , . . .386 

Christ the Need of the Individual. Rev. 

Michael P. Smith, C.S.P. , . . 777 

Christ the Need of the Nations. Rev. 

Michael P. Smith, C.S.P., . . 255 

Christian Science, The Vagaries of. 

Ernest Hawley, .... 508 

Church in the Philippines, The Truth 

about the. Bryan /. Clinch, . . 289 

Columbian Reading Union, The, 142, 286, 
430, 575, 7:18, 861 

Conclave, The Press- and the Next. 

Rev. George Me Der mot, C.S.P., . 240 

" Consider the Lilies," {Frontispiece.) 

Cuba, A Practical View of. (Illus- 
trated.) James M. McGinley, . 72 

Cyrano de Bergerac. Rev . George Mc- 

Dermot, C.S.P., . . . .181 

Don Jaime's Honeymoon. Henrietta 

Dana Skinner, ..... 746 

Drink Problem, Women and the. M. 

E.J. Kelley 678 

Editorial Notes, 128, 280, 424, 572, 714, 857 

Education Bill in New York State, The 

New, 106 

Evangelists in Symbolism, T he. (Illus- 
trated.) Marion Arnold, . . 637 

Florence, Recollections of. (Illus- 
trated.) E. McAuliffe, . . .173 



Ganganelli (Clement XIV.), Letters of. 

Rev. Ethelred L. Taunton, . . 224 
German Humor. Carina B. C. Eagles- 
field, B.A., 319 

Havana Holy Week, A. {Illustrated.} 

M. E. Henry- Ruffin, ... 34 
Heavenly Adventure, A Comte De V. 

de risle Adam, .... 66 

Heirs of the Abbey, The. {Illustrated.} 

C. S. Ho-we 610 

Ingersoll, Robert. Henry A. Brann, 

D.D., 787 

Ireland, A Revolution in. Seumas Mac- 

Manus, 522 

Labor Question, The, and the Catholic 

Church Dr. Nicholas Bjerring, 

461, 629 
Lagoons, On the. {Illustrated.) E. 

McAuliffe, 737 

Lay-Sisters, The. Mary Onahan Gal- 
lery, 605 

Leo XIII. on " Americanism," . . 133 
Louvain, In Picturesque. {Illustrated.) 

Michael P. Seter, .... 595 
Love's Resurrection. Edith Grang< r 

Charlton, 17 

Markham : A Mischievous Pessimist. 

(Illustrated.) Rev. George McDer- 

mot, C.S.P. 688 

Mexico, A Sixteenth Century Town in. 

{Illustrated), . . . . .no 
Montmartreandits Poor. {Illustrated.) 

Rev. Frank X. McGowan, O.S.A., 232 
Montauk Incident, A. Henrietta Dana 

Skinner, ...... 54 

Munster's Peace, Through the. E. C. 

Vansitturt, 490 

Newman, The Influence of. Anne Eli- 
zabeth O' Hare. . . . . 623 . 

" New York Catholic Teachers' Man- 
ual," 832 

Norway, A Cruise in the Fjords of. {Il- 
lustrated.) C. M. CPBrien, . . 533 

Old Brown Hat, The. John Austin 

Schetty, 584 

Our Risen Lord, {Frontispiece.) 

Papal Letter and the " Outlook," The, i 

Pater Damien, . . . (Frontispiece.} 

Patmore, Coventry. (Portrait.) Rev. 

Henry E. O'Keeffe, C.S.P., . . 646 

Peace Conference, and What it Might 

Have Been, The, .... 577 

Philippine Insurrection, and the Voice 
of the Courts, The. E. B. Briggs, 
D.C.L., 544 

'' Ramona's " Home. (Illustrated.) 

M. B. Jordan, . . . . .10 

Red-House, The. {Illustrated.) P. M. 

Eve> s, . . . . . . 305 

Resurrection and the Ancient World. 

Rev. Joseph V. Tracy, ... 46 

Saint Vincent de Paul. (Illustrated.} 

Rev. Walter Elliott, C.S.P., . . 721 



IV 



CONTENTS. 



San Luis Rey, At the Ruined Altar of, 

(Frontispiece.} 

San Luis Rey, The Mission of. (Illus* 

(rated.) Clara Spalding Brown, . 798 

Saturday Morning on Mount Calvary. 

(Frontispiece.) 

Science, The Century's Progress in. 

William Seton, LL.D., . . .146 

Southern Alps," The " Unspoilt Valleys 

of the. (Illustrated.} E. M. Lynch, 468 

Study in Identity, A. fames N. White, 

Jr., ....... 79i 

Sympathy. Rev. Wm. A. Sutton, S.J., 61 



Talk about New Books, 



118, 264, 411, 561, 
699, 838 



Tintoretto, The Religious Paintings of. 

(Illustrated.) Mary F. Nixon, . 762 

Tolafaa Land, In. (Illustrated.} Mary 

F. Nixon, 88 

Ursuline Nuns and a Normal College, 

The. Isabel Allardyce, . . . 674 

Watterson, Bishop (Portrait.) John 

Jerome Rooney, .... 407 

What the Thinkers Say, . 285, 427, 858 

Whistler, Mr., and the Expatriated. 

Frank Ward O' 1 M alley, . . . 340 

Woodland Scene, (Frontispiece.) 

Woods and Pastures New, Fresh. (Il- 
lustrated.)- E. M. Lynch, . . 346 

Zach's " Interests." Boston Smith, . 214 



POETRY. 



Agnosticism. " Eamon Hayes,'" . . 532 
Au Sable Chasm. John Jerome Rooney, 735 
Ballad of Normandy, A. Rob Lear, . 836 
Darkness, In. Virginia Osborne Reed, 825 
Death of the Innocent Grace Bea- 
trice Barlet, 507 

Discipline, 560 

Easter Symphony, An. M. A. Blan- 

chet, 9 

Easter, The First. Marion Arnold, . 64 
Father Fitzgerald. John ferome Roo- 
ney, 51 

Fidelity. James Buckham, . . . 318 
Heart's Teaching, The. C. J. Clifford, 

S f., " . 345 



"Lead Thou Me on." Rev. James T. 

Brown, 395 

O Salutaris Hostia \-Clara Conway, . 304 
Raphael's Transfiguration. D. J. Me- 

Mac kin, 776 

Resurrection. F. X. E., . 50 

Salve, Regina ! R. H. Armstrong, . 145 
Song of Songs, The. (Illustrated.} 

Claude M. Girardeau, . . . 518 
St. Catherine of Sienna. (Illustrated.} 

Carolyn Sage, 168 

Surrexit Christus Spes Mea. (Illus- 
trated.) Mary Grant C? Sheridan, 33 
Twilight. Rev. William P. Cantwell, 200 
Waiting. Thomas B. Reilly, . . 594 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Agnostic Science, The Reaction from, . 704 
Are Catholics Reasonable in their Be- 
lief ? 705 

Auricular Confession, Notes on a His- 
tory of : H. C. Lea's Account of the 

Powerof the Keys in the Early Church, 711 

Bettering Ourselves, .... 270 
Between Whiles : A Collection of 

Verses, 420 

Bible Stories in Bible Language, . . 271 

Blessed Virgin, Devotion to the, . . 270 
Boyhood to Manhood, Through : a Plea 

for Ideals, 269 

Business Guide for Priests, . . . 279 
Cambridge Conferences, . . . 708 
Catholic Teachers' Institute, The Na- 
tional, . . . . . . . 570 

Christ to Manhood, The Message of, . 122 

Christian Argument, .... 411 

Christian Doctrine. Exposition of, . 845 
Christian Persecutions, . . . -417 

Christianity or Agnosticism, . . . 124 

Church of the Revelation, The, . . 705 

College Boy, The t 564 

Contemporary Spain, .... 700 

Du Doute a la Foi, 421 

Early Church, Gems from the, . . 844 
English Church, Men and Movements 

in the, 123 

Espiritu Santo, 119 

Fullerton, The Inner Life of Lady Geor- 
giana, with Notes of Retreat and 

Diary, 702 

Gaelic, Key to the Study of, . . . 855 



God Winning Us 122 

Historic Nuns, ..... 126 

Industrial Cuba, 849 

Italian Art, History of Modern, . . 264 

Joubert's Thoughts, .... 417 
Kingdom of Italy and the Sovereignty 

of Rome, The, 415 

Law and Legal Practice, Natural, . 566 

Le Catholicisme et la Vie de 1'Esprit, . 422 
Le Renaissance Catholique en Angle- 

terre au XIXe Siecle, .... 700 

Mass Book, The, 127 

Miracles of Antichrist, The, . . . 272 

My Lady's Slipper and Other Verses, . 278 

Old Bay State, Stories of the, . . 562 

Old Patroon and other Plays, The, . 419 
Philosophy of Literature, An Essay 

Contributing to a, . . . . 565 

Protestant Fiction, . . . . 565 

Prudentius, Songs from, . . . 563 
Religion and Morality ; their Nature and 

Mutual Relations historically and doc- 

trinally considered, .... 705 

Roman Primacy, A. D. 430-451, The, . 838 

Ruskin, John, Social Reformer, . . 852 

Shakespeare, The Religion of, . . 699 

Silver Cross, The, 413 

Sociology, Outline of Practical, . . 841 
St. Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop 

of Canterbury, Life of, ... 125 

St. Francis de Sales, Library of, . . 846 

Studies in Literature, Three, . . 121 

Turf Smoke, Through the, . . . 276 
Two Standards, The, . . . .118 




" And on the Sabbath Day they rested according to the 
Commandment. ' ' 

SATURDAY MORNING ON MOUNT CALVARY. 



THE 




CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. LXIX. APRIL, 1899. No. 409. 



THE PAPAL LETTER AND THE "OUTLOOK." 

BOUT the only religious publication which has 
taken any very serious exception to the recent 
letter of the Holy Father on the subject of 
" Americanism " is the Outlook. Other periodicals 
have demurred at some of the statements or have 
found fault in a trivial way with the dignified and 
authoritative claims made by the Holy Father as 
the exponent of the one true Church. This might 
have been expected, because of the different points of view from 
which the letter is looked at. But the Outlook takes issue with 
the words of the Pope on deeper and more fundamental grounds, 
no less than "the interpretation of the religion of Jesus Christ 
as embodied in the Four Gospels." Let us quote here the ex- 
act words of the statement from the Outlook : 

"But the larger question, Does Pope Leo XIII. correctly in- 
terpret the religion of Jesus Christ as it is embodied in his 
life and teachings contained in the four Gospels? concerns the 
Universal Church. The Outlook does not believe that he does. 
We recognize the self-consistent attitude of the Roman Catholic 
Church, but not that this attitude is consistent with the liberty 
wherewith Christ makes free. Nevertheless we are glad to have 
it stated with such explicitness, for it will help clear thinking. 
For between the position that religious faith is a dogma once 
for all delivered to the saints, and either transcribed in an in- 
fallible Bible or committed to the custody of an infallible 
Church, and the position that every man is a child of God, 
may have direct communion with God, and may learn for him- 
self by that communion what the will of God is, that no dog- 
ma can possibly state spiritual truth in a permanent form, that 

Copyright. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE 

STATE OF NEW YORK. 1899. 
VOL. LXIX. I 



2 THE PAPAL LETTER AND THE " OUTLOOK." [April, 

philosophical definitions of spiritual life must change with 
changing philosophy, as the language in which they are ex- 
pressed changes with changes in language and literature, that 
truth is more than dogma and life is more than discipline, that 
neither truth nor life has been or can be ossified in a written 
record or a traditional ecclesiastical decree, that, in a word, the 
kingdom of God is like a seed planted in the ground, which 
grows, men know not how, and that when it ceases to grow it 
ceases to live, and therefore ceases to be the kingdom of God 
between these two attitudes there appears to us to be no 
middle ground. The Roman Catholic Church is the self-con- 
sistent exponent of an infallible, unchangeable dogma, an immo- 
bile, unalterable life. Protestantism will never be self-consistent 
until it stands with equal courage for the opposite doctrine 
adaptability of religious institutions to changing circumstances, 
the mobility of religious life as a perpetual growth, and the 
continual change of dogmatic definitions, always inadequate to 
express the ever-enlarging spiritual life of the individual and of 
the race." 

As a thoughtful and representative periodical the Outlook 
has a very high standing. It voices the religious sentiments of 
a large and intelligent class of non-Catholics who have turned 
their back on church authority and ecclesiasticism, and are fac- 
ing towards " rationalism " in religion, in the stricter sense of 
the word, as opposed to the acceptation of the authoritative 
teaching of the external order. 

It is not at all to be wondered at that the Outlook should 
manifest some little uneasiness at the beautiful spectacle of 
the Catholic world here in free-thinking and liberty-loving 
America listening with reverential docility to the voice of an old 
man away off in Rome. But in doing so Catholics neither con- 
fess to any servility to the opinions of another, nor to any intel- 
lectual slavery. The only intellectual servitude we know is the 
subservience of the mind to a human teacher whose authority 
on questions of divine truth does not transcend the skies and 
whose sources of knowledge are no more or no less than just 
what any one may acquire by natural ability. It is no slavery 
for the mariner who is tossed on the wide expanse of ocean that 
he must stand at midday and watch the passing of the sun across 
the meridian, and that he must accept the dictation of the sun as 
to the regulation of his daily life. He perchance might be freer 
if he had the arrangement of his own time, if he might go on 
the bridge and announce the hour of twelve when it pleased 
his fancy or suited his own convenience. But even then he 
could not get away from the principle of authority. In order 



1899-] THE PAPAL LETTER AAD THE "OUTLOOK." 3 

to get any one to accept his arbitrary arrangement of time so 
that there might be some order in the watches, and not ever- 
lasting confusion on board, he would be obliged to impose his 
arrangement on all the others by authority. Many, moreover, 
seeing that the only principle whereby the hour of midday was 
fixed was the captain's own pleasure, would very soon rebel 
against one man's pleasure setting itself up against another's, 
even if he were the captain of the ship. 

How much more harmonious it is to have the authority 
of the sun, which no one disputes and whose regulation of 
time every one freely and willingly accepts. As we look over 
the non-Catholic religious world, where the principle of authority 
is denied, there are duplicated the divergencies and differences 
that would characterize the condition of affairs on shipboard if 
the captain would put aside the sun as a guide and set up his 
own convenience as the standard. 

In accord with this spirit of obedience, when the letter of 
the Holy Father was published the Paulist Fathers immediately 
sent the following expression of their adherence to the teach- 
ing of the Holy Father:* 

As soon as we had read the letter of your Holiness regard- 
ing the errors to which the name of " Americanism " is given, and 
addressed to his Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop 
of Baltimore, as this letter was given in English in the New 
York daily papers, we immediately, fully, and willingly em- 
braced the doctrine laid down in this Pontifical document ; and 
we signified this without delay by telegraph to your Holiness. 
And for the letter we cordially thank your Holinesg, because, 
in the discharge of your office of supreme Doctor and infallible 
Teacher, you lead us in the way of truth and keep far from us 
the darkness of error; and in the same spirit Father Hecker, 
if he were still living, would with filial veneration have received 
the Pontifical decree. 

But the reading of the letter of your Holiness gave us no 
little comfort, because therein it is stated that the errors reproved 
by the Holy See are rather to be ascribed to the interpretations 
of the opinions of Father Hecker than to those opinions them- 
selves. But if there be anything, either in the doctrine or the 
" Life " of this Father, which is ordered by the wise judgment 
of your Holiness to be corrected, we willingly acquiesce in the 

* The Latin text of this letter may be found at the end of this number under the caption 
'Editorial Notes." 



4 THE PAPAL LETTER AND THE "OUTLOOK" [April, 

sentence of the Holy See, both because the Roman Church is 
the pillar and ground of the truth, and because it is commanded 
as follows in the Rule of our Institute : " Let a prompt and 
cheerful religious submission to the Holy Church, and to every 
lawfully constituted authority in it, and to all the ordinances 
established by its authority, be a principal and evident charac- 
teristic of our society and of all its associates. First of all, let 
this obedience be shown to the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and to 
the Holy Roman Church, and to all the decrees and instruc- 
tions of the Holy See, whether relating to doctrine or to disci- 
pline." This manner of obedience is deeply imprinted in our 
hearts, so that we have never thought of departing from the 
integrity and strictness of Catholic doctrine. But if, according 
to the judgment of your Holiness, we have either had this 
tendency, or have appeared to have it, or by our way of 
acting have given any favor in any way to such a ten- 
dency, we gratefully receive the paternal correction of your 
Holiness. 

The Constitutions of our Institute strictly require us to aim 
at perfect orthodoxy, and to have for our standard not only 
the definitions of the Church, but also its instructions, and the 
writings of approved authors concerning the spiritual life, and 
to promote the devotions which the Church fosters and recom- 
mends. And in these Constitutions the following declaration is 
to be found : " To all, including the priests, it is prescribed to 
use spiritual direction, according to the principles laid down by 
approved writers." In these and in all matters we declare 
that we shall follow the instructions laid down in the letter of 
your Holiness, and we likewise profess full obedience and 
faithful adherence to your Holiness and to the Holy Roman 
See. 

The principle of authority in religious matters, instead of 
being a hindrance to the growth of real religious life, is a most 
decided help. The Outlook does not seem to appreciate this 
fact. It looks on an unerring church or an infallible pope as 
an oppressive incubus which kills all spontaneous growth be- 
neath it, shutting out all direct communication with God him- 
self. It would seem to think that under such a system the 
spiritual life must of a necessity be etiolated and jejune. But 
the facts are, fortunately, not in accord with such imaginings. 
Catholic hagiology is full of the life-stories of men and women 
who have attained the heights of heroic sanctity while living 



1899-] THE PAPAL LETTER AND THE "OUTLOOK" 5 

under this system. It is quite certain that one may go up and 
down the avenues of New York City and meet devout, prayerful 
Catholic souls who, though clad in hood or tattered garments, are 
as prayerful as the fathers of the Thebaid, and are as instant in 
season and out of season in resisting the demands of the in- 
ferior nature, and all because their hearts have been touched 
by the divine love. Authority in religion is not an overhang- 
ing cloud to shut out the sun, but is rather like the railroad 
track to guide and to facilitate the progress of the train. The 
engineer as he starts from the depot knows every inch of his 
way, the rails will keep him from wandering across fields and 
being wrecked in the ditches, and instead of hindering him from 
reaching his destiny only the more readily help him to attain 
his end. It is easily conceivable that a people who have no 
worrying cares about their doctrinal beliefs can far more read- 
ily turn their attention to the fixing up of their lives from an 
ethical point of view. While, on the other hand, they to whom 
the question of " what must I believe " is like an open sore, 
will very soon find that their moral life will get into the same 
unhealthy condition. 

The Outlook seems to have some curious notions about ob- 
jective truth. It would appear that "spiritual truth" is only a 
mental impression. It has no permanent or pervading existence 
outside one's own comprehension of it. The writer says: "No 
dogma can possibly state spiritual truth in a permanent form." 
The prevailing idea of " spiritual truth," like any other truth, is 
that it is permanent yesterday, to-day, and for ever unalterably 
the same. Truth, like God, is unchangeable. The Ten Com- 
mandments and what more comprehensive " spiritual truths " 
are there than these? are just as true to-day as they were when 
uttered on Mount Sinai, and will be just as true at the crack 
of doom. Dogma is only an expression of a divine fact, as the 
Commandment is the expression of a moral fact. These divine 
facts were revealed at sundry times and in divers ways, placed 
in the deposit of truth to be faithfully kept and infallibly 
declared by the one whom the God of truth has constituted as 
the guardian of the deposit. 

The world will never be converted to the truth by minimizing 
its meaning or explaining away and softening down its plenary 
signification to suit the hard heart and dull ears of a worldly 
generation. There is such a thing as an attractive presentation 
of truth, but instead of lessening its value such a presentation 
only heightens its importance. 



6 THE PAPAL LETTER AND THE " OUTLOOK:' [April, 

Father Hecker frequently gave expression to these state- 
ments. There is no one who wooed divine truth with such a 
lover's devotion as he, and there was no one who was prouder 
of its attributes, so ever ready to speak of them in any as- 
semblage, and almost frantic in his desire to tell the whole 
truth and nothing but the truth. He would have counted it 
treachery, and himself a traitor, to have explained away or to 
have apologized for one iota of the truth. One of the best 
statements against minimizing was written by Father Hewit in 
an article entitled " Pure vs. Diluted Catholicism," published in 
1895.* In fact, the whole non-Catholic mission movement, from 
the day of its inception to the present moment, has constantly 
held in its front the statement "that we shall never lead our 
erring brethren' to a knowledge of the truth by making light 
of the differences which exist between them and ourselves, or 
by mitigating the doctrine that out of the Church there is no 
salvation. Almighty God having instituted a way of salvation, 
has instituted no other." 

But while there is in the Catholic system this " infallible, un- 
changeable dogma," this continuing " in one and the same doc- 
trine, one and the same sense, and one and the same judgment " 
(Const, de fide, chap iv., Cone. Vatican), it does not necessitate 
an " immobile unalterable life." For the spiritual life is un- 
doubtedly a growth through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 
" He that believeth in Me, as the Scripture saith, out of his 
belly shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said of the 
Spirit which they should receive who believed in him ", (St. 
John vii. 38, 39). This same Spirit is the one who originates 
the good desire as well as the one who bestows the grace to 
carry it to completion. He is the one who has regenerated us 
by instituting a new relationship between the soul and God 
whereby we are enabled to cry, Abba, Father. He plants the 
seeds of a Christian life in the regenerated soil of our hearts 
and by the abundant showers of his grace he germinates that 
seed. He fosters it in its growth until truly we can. say that 
" I live, not I but Christ liveth in me." " The charity of 
God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is 
given to us "(Rom. v. 5). Herein is established that wonderful 
union between the soul and God, far more close than that be- 
tween friend and friend, so close that very often the soul is 
called the spouse of God. 

As in a city there are the external ramparts which protect 

* American Catholic Quarterly, July, 1895. 



1899-] THE PAPAL LETTER AND THE " OUTLOOK." 7 

the city in its outer defences and guard the people from being 
carried away into the darkness of slavery, so also there is the 
internal civic life whereby the laws are kept and the refine- 
ments of civilization are cultivated, libraries established, and art 
galleries fostered. In just the same way in the city of the soul : 
while there are the external barriers of defined truth, the 
dogmatic teachings which preserve the soul from straying away 
into the slavery of falsehood and error, there is also the inner 
life begun and carried to the " full stature of Christ " by the 
indwelling of the Holy Spirit.* 

To most Catholics who live godly lives the existence of the 
outer ramparts is rarely felt. They have a consciousness that 
they are safely protected within a fortified city of truth, and 
with a sense of security they are enabled to cultivate the higher 
life, to cleanse, to adorn, and to decorate the temple of their 
souls in which the Spirit of God dwelleth. 

In this city of the soul the Holy Ghost rules both as civil 
governor to promote the higher life of the citizen as well as mili- 
tary commander to guard the outer ramparts of the common- 
wealth. While he inspires each one to action, he also dwells in 
the church to guard the deposit of truth. It may happen at 
times that one seems to be inspired to do what the exter- 
nal authority forbids. In which case such private inspiration is 
to be forsaken, for only to the external authority has the gift 
of infallibility been imparted. No one expresses the synthesis 
of this double action of the Holy Ghost better than Father 
Hecker in the following passage : 

" The Holy Spirit, which, through the authority of the 
church, teaches divine truth, is the same Spirit which prompts 
the soul to receive the divine truths which he teaches. The 
measure of our love for the Holy Spirit is the measure of our 
obedience to the authority of the church ; and the measure of 
our obedience to the authority of the church is the measure of 
our love for the Holy Spirit. Hence the sentence of St. Au- 
gustine : ' Quantum quisque amat ecclesiam Dei, tantum habet 
Spiritum sanctum.' In case of obscurity or doubt concerning 
what is divinely revealed truth, or whether what prompts the 
soul is or is not an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recourse 
must be had to the divine teacher or criterion, the authority 
of the church. For it must be borne in mind that to the 
church, as represented in the first instance by St. Peter, and 
subsequently by his successors, was made the promise of her 

* These relations of the Holy Spirit in the individual soul, as well as in the one true 
Church, are most clearly and beautifully expressed in the Encyclical Letter of the Holy 
Father on " The Office of and Devotion to the Holy Ghost." 



8 THE PAPAL LETTER AND THE "OUTLOOK" [April. 

Divine Founder, that ' the gates of hell should never prevail 
against her.' No such promise was ever made by Christ to each 
individual believer. ' The church of the living God is the pillar 
and ground of truth.' The test, therefore, of a truly enlight- 
ened and sincere Christian will be, in case of uncertainty, the 
promptitude of his obedience to the voice of the church. . 
The criterion or test that the soul is guided by the Holy 
Spirit is its ready obedience to the authority of the church " 
(Church and the Age, page 34). 

This statement indicates as well what an obedient and sub- 
missive child of the church Isaac Thomas Hecker was, and 
were he alive to-day he would be the very first to signify his 
adherence to the teachings of the Holy Father as announced 
in the late letter to Cardinal Gibbons. 

We have every reason to be grateful to the Holy Father 
for the luminous exposition of Catholic truth as well as for the 
condemnation of the many errors which have been paraded 
under the garb of " Americanism." It has always been of the 
genius of error to snatch the robes of respectability and wrap 
itself about with the mantle of truth. But the Holy Father as 
watchman on the tower of Israel has seen through the disguise, 
and with a masterly hand has snatched away the false mask 
and revealed the errors in all their nakedness. 




CASTER SYMPHONY. 

I he air is stirred With tuneful sounds and sWeet 
With j,y ous murmurings. CfV*PJ? glad, free thing 

I hat breaks the sod or lifts a rapturous Wing 
[Assays its note of praise. Jet incomplete 

I he song: as though orchestral fairies meet, 
With timid fingers trying string on string, 

0r striding each tys little part to sing, 
Yet Waiting for the master's rallying beat. 



maq, and lead t\\e eager choir! 

Lfook, past the e)pring-sun,'s liberating rays; 
I hou only see'st the |\isen Lrord beyond. 
e)ound " Alleluia's" keynote or) thy lyre, 

I hen shall a sympl-jonj of finest praise 
a " earth's music in harmonious bond. 

M. A. BLANCHE?. 






"RAMONA'S" HOME. 

BY M. B. JORDAN. 

:N this age of railroads and newspapers, of elec- 
tricity and vitascopes, with all of the burdens of 
civilization pressing in upon us, California with 
its eventful past, its dreamy atmosphere, and 
quaint old architecture seems a veritable Eldo- 
rado, the entrance, as it were, to those long looked-for "Cas- 
tles in Spain." The admixture of foreign blood has left, so to 
speak, a dash of color, of romance, on the most remote homes 
and unattractive landscapes. In the out-of-door life, the soft 
flowing speech, and the freedom from prudential wisdom one 
traces everywhere the results of climate and alien instincts. To 
a student of language the fact that to-day, in even the common 
speech, one hears a gully called a barranca ; a water-jar, ,an 
olla (oy-yah) ; a street, a calle ; a house or home, casa or resi- 
dencia, shows the history in a nutshell of Rus- 
sian, Spanish, English, and Mexican supremacy. 
From San Francisco south, one can almost 
trace the epochs through which California has 
struggled from those early days of romance 
and passion when, as Bancroft says : " Cali- 
fornia was the elf-child of the Union, not yet 
regularly baptized into the family of States 
a child which felt the isolation of its foreign 
blood, the pride of her dreamy ancestry, and 
the self-assurance of unbounded native re- 
sources "; those times when the fourteen Franciscan missions 
were the centres of life, spiritual, mental, and physical, down 
to the present when those missions stand, partly in ruins, dese- 
crated, robbed of their lands, their money, and their preroga- 
tives. 

In no part of California is to be found a more typical 
example of Spanish influence than the Camulos Ranch, which, 




RAMONA'S" HOME. 



1 1 




situated on the oldest grant of mission 

land forty miles back from the sea, is the 

scene of Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona. 

In the early part of this century the 

Camulos Ranch covered the area that is 

claimed for it in the story. Its lands, 

which consisted of gifts from the church 

and commandants, stretched from the San Fernando Mountains 

down to Santa Barbara, touching the sea at Buena Ventura, 

giving the old seftora in the story her bit of sea-shore. 

The old mission built in 1780 still stands in Santa Barbara, 
where the wedding of the first Moreno is described as taking 
place. This mission is of mixed Spanish-Moorish architecture, 
somewhat more pretentious than the others. One can still see 
the beautiful gardens with their famous Old Mission grape- 
vines, the olive and orange orchards, the 
severely plain interior of the chapel, the ir- 
regular steps winding up to the bell tower, 
the shady, pillared corridor off which the 
priests' rooms opened, and the school for In- 
dian children, all serving to give the picture 
a most un-American setting. Back of the mis- 
sion on the mountain side a broad white scar 
may be plainly seen a scar made there over 
a century ago by the timbers which were 
dragged down from the forests beyond by In- 
dians to build this little chapel. In this day 
of strife and strikes over hours and wages this 
furrowed mountain side is a powerful reminder of the compel- 
ling force that the Franciscans exerted over those lazy, lawless 
bands of Indians. 

Following in the footsteps of Father Junipero Serra, a party 
of us, wishing to visit " Ramona's " home, took the path lead- 
ing along the coast from Santa Barbara to Buena Ventura. 
From Ventura we followed 
the dry river bed of the 
winding Sespe, back through 
the beautiful valley, some- 
times yellow with jungles 
of wild mustard, sometimes 
sweet with the fragrance of 
orange blossoms, by the 
grazing lands of the Sespe, 





12 



'S" HOME. 



[April, 




which had been used as early as 1780 by the mission flocks; 
gradually rising until we found ourselves in the valley owned 
by the Del Valles, the proprietors for more than a century of 
the Camulos Ranch. 

Never was treatment more realistic than the setting " H. H." 
gave her story, but surely realism was never more perfectly ideal 
than the way in which the old ranch, with its vineyards, its fra- 
grant orchards, its old Spanish house of adobe brick, its cross- 
capped hills, and even its crowd 
of Indian and Mexican children, 
fitted into the plot of Ramona. 
( Howells himself could scarcely 
; have been more correctly minute 
in his descriptions of this quaint 
old home and its surroundings than 
was Helen Hunt Jackson. 

Just as one would expect from 
the story, after the highway was 

left behind the low, open barns and sheep corrals came first in 
sight, then the back of the house, as you remember that the 
old sefiora in Ramona thanked the saints every day that her 
house expressed the scornful attitude she always longed to take 
toward the " usurping Americanos." Owing to its almost entire 
lack of windows, the exterior of the house was forbidding 
enough, until the front, or southern exposure, was reached, and 
there was the vine-covered porch with its irregular steps, its 
quaint Mexican water-jars, and its beautiful carved old benches 
from the desecrated mission of San Luis Rey. 

The old adobe house was built in General Del Valle's time, 
after the plan of Spanish houses, in the form of a hollow 
square around an open court or quadrangle ; the servants' quar- 
ters at one end, with the store-room, the living-rooms, the old 
priest's room all opening, as did the windows, upon an inner 
porch which extended entirely around the court. In this open 
space, perhaps one hundred feet by eighty, there were beauti- 
ful roses and fragrant Cape 
jasmine growing around 
splashing fountains. Among 
the orange and pomegran- 
ate-trees south of the 
house was the tile-roofed 
chapel with its chime of 
bells, the centre one brought 




1 899.] 



RAMONA'S" HOME. 



f 




from Spain ; there was 
the grape-arbor, and, 
as if to make the illu- 
sion or the realism 
more perfect, as we 
sat there reading the 
opening chapters of , 
Ramona, down the 
porch came an aged 
but queenly looking 
woman, whom one 
would have sworn was 
the Seflora Moreno 
herself. After we had 
talked with her of the 
history of this inter- 
esting place, we felt 
that " H. H." had not 
only given a wonder- 
fully accurate picture of the surroundings of her heroine, but 
had caught and put in her characterization of the seflora some- 
thing which made us 
ifti tor* 



feel too " that this 
sefiora before us had 
had a life that would 
have made a romance 
to grow hot and cold 
over eighty years of 
the best of Old Spain 
and the wildest of New 
Spain, Bay of Biscay, 
City of Mexico, Pacific 

Ocean! The waves of all of them had tossed 
destinies for the seflora, but the Holy Church 
had kept its protecting arms about her all these 
years." 

She wore the scant black serge gown which, 
with its crucifix and beads, reminded one of a 
priest's robe. The madame must have been a 
woman of rare strength of character and culture, 
for at the time of the expulsion of the Francis- 
cans she was, by special permit from the head 
of the church, given the power to perform the 





'S" HOME. 



[April, 




three sacraments of baptism, marriage, and burial. 
With the courage of a man and the gentleness ^ 
of a woman she had worked for years among her 
serving people, and accomplished what many a 
priest had sighed to do. 

In her possession are some of the rarest relics- 
of the early life of California: annals of the old- 
est missions, reports of the work of the blessed 
Father Junipero, records of the English and Rus- 
sian supremacy, of Fremont, of Pico, of Castro,, 
of the first newspaper, the first home manufac- 
ture, the railroad, the gold fever indeed one 
might almost say that in her chapel at the Camulos Ranch the 
madame had not only the annals but the real life of California 
of the past. 

Though there can be no doubt that the madame and her 
son were the originals for the portraits of Senora Moreno and 
Felipe, and that every touch in the descriptive 
part was true to the scene before us, yet it 
was with something of a pang that we learned 
that Ramona and Alessandro existed only in 
Helen Hunt's brain ; indeed, that such sensi- 
tive refinement, such pathetic simplicity and 
faith, among the Indians had long since passed 
away. But in that ideal world of letters, where 
everything is possible, they lived and loved and 
suffered, and all day we followed them, living 
over in imagination the uneventful life of the child Ramona. 
From her earliest memory she had been coldly repulsed by the 
unswerving justice of the senora, but she had always reached 
out toward love and beauty with all of the strength of her 
Spanish blood. In this isolated life, cut off from all friendship 
and sympathy, she had grown up a deeply religious child, full of 

love for the church service 
and the beautiful flowers. 

When Alessandro, the 
son of one of the converted 
and intelligent San Pablo 
Indians, first came to the 
ranch, Ramona was strongly 
attracted towards him, and 
when the senora cruelly dis- 
closed to the girl what was 





i8 9 90 



RAMONA' s" HOME. 




to the world a bar sinister across 
her name, that her mother had been 
an Indian, Ramona, with all of the 
force of heredity, blood, and instinct, 
turned to her people, glad that, as 
one of them, she could help the man 
she loved. 

At the south-east corner of the 
house we were shown Ramona's win- 
dow, before which she sang her sunrise hymn and under whose 
casement Alessandro watched and waited when she was in need 
of him. There was the porch where Felipe passed his long 
convalescence listening to Alessandro's violin-playing. There, 

too, were the sheep- 
shearing booths and 
the orchard walks 
where Ramona first 
met Alessandro ; the 
chapel, the mustard 
thickets, and back of 

. all the mountain where 

race instinct taught 
them to flee from the 
sefiora's wrath. The 
story of their flight from one refuge to another, the worth- 
lessness of their land titles, are but a pathetic version, set 
down in every history, of those troublous times when land com- 
missioners played fast-and-loose with promise and grant made 
alike by church and state. 

All day the story of Ramona seemed most visibly before 
us, for under the wil- 
lows at the end of 
the arbor the most 
desultory sort of 
washing was going 
on in a brook, the 
apparatus consisting 
of a paddle and the 
stones over which 
the water trickled. 
The Indian men and 
boys were picking 
up almonds, while 




Wi\ ' - 




(' \ !-JW C f ''{.; ' 



i6 



RAMON A' s" HOME. 



[April, 




the women and children shucked them under the 
trees ; here also their dinner was served to them. 
Thus the whole domestic economy took place out 
of doors, accompanied by a great deal of singing 
and not very vigorous motions. 

The Camulos Ranch has shrunken sadly from 
its dimensions in its prosperous days, when it 
reached from the San Fernando Mountains to the 
sea ; but there, on all the neighboring hills, the 
crosses still stand, outlining the boundaries of what 
has been one of the strongest influences in the life of California 
the Franciscan idea of patriarchal government. 

The last effective touch was 
given to this day spent in so 
foreign an atmosphere when, as 
the sun's last rays touched the 
crosses on the eastern hills, the 
bells began to chime and, led 
by a youthful acolyte, a proces- 
sion headed by the madame, who 
was followed by her family and 
all her serving people, wound through the garden to the chapel, 
solemnly chanting their sunset hymn. And as we went out into 
the world of progress with the sound of that intoned evening 
service in our ears, we were content that Ramona and Ales- 
sandro should have been ideals, since the real life we had seen 
that day had so much of romance about it. 





**&* 




1899-] LOVE'S RESURRECTION. 17 

LOVE'S RESURRECTION. 

BY EDITH GRAINGER CHARLTON. 

HERE, that un ain't wuth nuthin'." 

Jacob Stern pushed the small woolly animal 
out of the way with his foot. It certainly did 
not look worth much, that wee lamb only two 
days old, as it lay on a bunch of straw gasping 
its little life away. It was very small, very thin, and very 
ugly. It seemed all legs. If its eyes had been either open or 
shut it might have excited more pity, but there was some- 
thing almost repulsive in the half-closed orbs that had the 
death-film over them. 

" Yes, it '11 be as dead as a door-nail in half an hour, I tell 
ye," the man continued, as he gave his attention to other more 
likely lambs of his flock. But Sarah Stern watched the dying 
creature with a growing pity in her eyes. She had stood near 
her husband when he kicked it, and a pain shot through her 
heart when the big, coarse boot touched the helpless thing. A 
moment longer she watched, then stooping down she gathered 
the ugly, shivering lamb into her checked apron and started 
for the house. 

There was nothing to suggest tenderness or pity in the re- 
treating figure of Sarah Stern. Her back was stiff and straight. 
Determination and repression were written on those broad, flat 
shoulders and in that springless walk. There was nothing to 
awaken a thought of pity in the awkward figure in its short, 
scant skirt, flapping the tops of the heavy shoes, as it took a 
near cut to the house across the corner of the ploughed field. 
Her face, when she turned an instant to see if she were fol- 
lowed, was scarcely more attractive. It was wrinkled, yellow, 
and dried, and resembled a leaf which had withered in the 
unfolding. The eyes were cold, the lips firmly pressed together, 
and the iron-gray hair was wiry and lifeless. It would never 
occur to any one to ask Sarah Stern for sympathy, but just 
now, when she opened one corner of the blue and white apron 
and looked again at the motionless thing she carried, there was 
a strange expression on her face. New and strange as it was, 
it did not look out of place on those homely features. 
VOL. LXIX. 2 



1 8 LOVE' s RESURRECTION. [April, 

" I believe he 's gettin' harder every day," she muttered, as 
she hurried along. " Laws, I guess we've both bin gettin' 
harder and colder sence ' 

The sentence was left unfinished, but the heavy sigh and the 
one word " Mamie " that quivered through the thin lips told 
there was much not said in that unfinished sentence. 

" You '11 live, little lamb ; you '11 live just for the sake of them 
old days." The woman was crooning over the lamb now as it 
lay on a ragged shawl under the kitchen stove. Sarah Stern, who 
had never been known to say a caressing word in twenty years, 
was lifting that morsel of life with the tenderness she might 
have bestowed on an infant. She coaxed a few drops of warm 
milk between the lamb's nerveless lips, covered it snugly with 
the shawl, and then sat down beside it to await results. 

When Jacob came into the house an hour later the lamb 
had recovered sufficiently to open its eyes, and its breathing 
was more regular. Sarah's face wore a brighter expression than 
it had for years. Jacob saw it and wondered. 

"Queer creatures women be," he muttered. "There, she 's 
looking more pleased over that mis'able lamb than I ever sed 
her look at me sence "; and Jacob stopped abruptly when he 
reached the point in his sentence where his wife had faltered 
an hour before. 

Like other men, when Jacob Stern was puzzled he was apt 
to be unreasonable. He strode over to the stove, lifted the 
shawl none too gently and looked at the lamb. 

" 'Tain't no use coddlin' that thing. I told you it wunt 
wuth nuthin', and it ain't. Ye '11 see it '11 die and ye '11 hev 
ye're trouble fur nuthin'." 

" If I want to waste my time over a sick lamb it ain't none 
of your affairs," was the gruff answer that Jacob received for 
his prying. 

Between the preparations for dinner Sarah found many op- 
portunities to visit the corner behind the stove and watch the 
struggle between life and death that was going on there. 
Sometimes her eyes were bright and sometimes troubled, when 
she went back to the potato-paring or table-setting ; it all de- 
pended on the progress nature was making in its fight with 
death. At dinner the man and woman were silent. They were 
never talkative, but there were frequently remarks to exchange 
about the condition of the weather or the crops ; to-day there 
was none. But twice they looked at each other and caught a 
look in the other's eyes that made the shadow of some remem- 



1899-] LOVE'S RESURRECTION. 19 

bered thought flit over their faces. Each was conscious of it 
and each wanted to hide it from the other. Cold and apathetic 
as these two were, there was an undercurrent in their lives that 
was being stirred to-day. Sarah showed it by being more cold 
and reserved than ever. Jacob showed it by being more than 
usually irritable. The lamb seemed to be the cause of his ill- 
nature. It was able now to bleat feebly at intervals, and there 
was an occasional wriggling under the shawl that betokened 
greater activity shortly. 

" You surely don't expect to keep that creature around the 
house if it should live a day or two. 'Twon't last more 'n 
that I know," Jacob said, while he changed his old house-coat 
for an older one that he wore about the barn. 

" I haven't said yet what I was a-going to do, and I guess 
you hev your hands full with them other lambs 'at the barn 
without troubling about this one " ; and Sarah caught up the 
remains of the roast pork and went down cellar to escape 
further questioning. When she came back Jacob had gone and 
the kitchen was quiet. 

" He don't seem to have any more heart than a stone. 
He can't seem to think about anything that isn't big and 
strong and will bring in money. Money! money! that's all 
we either seem to live fur now. O Mamie ! it might hev bin 
different if you'd hev stayed with us." The voice that was irri- 
table at first sank to a wail of grief, the gray head dropped 
on the table, and Sarah Stern wept bitterly. Great sobs that 
shook her from head to foot sounded through the quiet kitchen 
and the stillness was oppressive with that terrible sorrow. 
Sarah did not cry often. Tears did not come readily to her 
eyes, her grief would have been lighter if they had. Deep 
sorrows, like deep waters, are not easily stirred ; when either is 
moved there is a change in consequence. 

The clock struck the half-hour since Jacob left the house. 
The dinner-table was still covered with the remains of the last 
meal. The fire had gone out and the lamb under the stove 
was very quiet. The woman's ,head was still bowed on her 
arm. Her sobs had ceased and she sat there motionless. In 
the silence of that hour Sarah Stern saw a pleasant vision. 

It was twilight in the summer-time. The evening meal had 
been finished an hour ago, and Sarah sat by the open window, 
through which the sweet-scented honeysuckle nodded, and 
hemmed a child's white frock. Jacob's broad back could be seen 



20 LOVE'S RESURRECTION. [April, 

in the distance leaning over the gate he had just closed on his 
herd of cows. The sleek creatures were wading knee-deep 
through the dewy grass looking for the juiciest bite in that lus- 
cious field of clover. They were not hungry, and soon they laid 
down one by one among the rank grass and were satisfied. In 
the pool over by the woods the frogs were croaking and an 
occasional June-bug flew against Jacob's hat in its flight towards 
the light. The air was heavy with the perfume of clover and 
wild flowers. Nature was in her most delightful mood and man 
and beast were content. The stillness in the house was broken 
by a childish voice saying, as a little figure stepped over the 
door-stone : 

"Mamma, I want to sleep with my pet lamb; he's all 
alone to-night." 

" What '11 mamma do if Mamie sleeps in Billy's pen? She'll 
be all alone then." 

" Oh ! you 've got papa, and poor Billy hasn't anybody to 
keep him company. Let me sleep with him just for to-night, 
mamma ? " 

Sarah put down her sewing and took the little one in her 
arms. She was a sturdy little miss, her big hazel eyes, shaded 
by long, dark lashes, were troubled now when she thought of 
her playmate spending the night alone. The mother pushed 
back the mass of yellow curls and looked in the baby face that 
already had a woman's tenderness dawning in it. 

" Will Mamie leave mamma and sleep out-doors with Billy ? 
She '11 be very cold I'm afraid." 

" 'Tisn't a bit cold to-night, mamma ; and besides I '11 lay 
close beside Billy, and his wool is very warm you know. Do 
let me go, mamma." 

What was the use of arguing ? The child's heart was set 
upon it, coaxing would not convince her, so better let her find 
out for herself the foolishness of her plan. 

" Get your night-gown and pillow, then, and mamma will 
undress her little girl." 

The child needed no second bidding and in a moment was 
back on her mother's lap trying to hurry the undressing pro- 
cess. All the time the mother talked about how dark Billy's 
pen would be after awhile, how there was no soft bed in it, 
and no one would be near to hear her if she called. But the 
little girl was firm, and taking her pillow she started for the 
garden. The mother followed, for the first time thinking it 
might be difficult to make the maiden change her mind. 



1899-] LOVE' s RESURRECTION. 21 

It was very quiet in the lamb's pen. The twilight had 
deepened into night and only a few stars looked down from a 
dark sky. Billy was lying in the corner, quite oblivious to the 
concern of his little mistress for his comfort. She peeped 
through the bars at the lamb curled up on the grass, then she 
looked up into her mother's face. There was a short mental 
struggle ending in a sigh of perplexity, then two arms were 
reached up to the mother's neck and a quivering voice said : 

"It is dark, isn't it, mamma? and Billy doesn't seem to 
care 's much as you do ; so I guess Mamie '11 sleep with you and 
papa." 

An hour later Sarah was telling it all to Jacob as they 
stood by the bedside and watched their sleeping child. The 
mother laughed for the fulness of her love and the father 
stooped to kiss the sunny curls on the pillow, then kissed his 
wife as she stood beside him. 

The scene changed, and time turned back a few more 
years in its record. Now Jacob and Sarah Stern were stand- 
ing hand-in-hand in the kitchen of their home. It was a 
plainly furnished room, but there seemed to be a halo over the 
common deal table, the painted chairs, and the bare floor. 
The man and woman had been married a few days before and 
had come for the first time into their new home the place 
dearer than all the world to them, the centre of their ambitions 
and their hopes. 

" We '11 gather the sunbeams together, love, and we '11 go 
hand-in-hand through the shadows," Jacob said tenderly as he 
drew his wife close to him. 

"Yes, Jacob, we are all the world to one another and life 
cannot be very hard," Sarah answered. 

Another shifting of memory's pictures and now a thick, 
dark curtain seemed to obscure the light. Jacob and Sarah 
were standing on either side of a small casket, looking down 
with dry, strained eyes on a dead baby's face wreathed in sun- 
ny curls. The happy, loving, laughing Mamie, the most pre- 
cious part of that home, had been taken out of it, and the 
father and mother refused to be comforted. The blow had 
been so swift, so cruel ; a few days of acute suffering that no 
human aid could ease, then the hazel eyes closed under the 
long lashes and the sunshine went out of that home and never 
since returned to it. From that day there was a change in 
Jacob Stern and his wife. Instead of sorrow bringing them 
closer together, it rested as a barrier between them. The little 



22 LOVE'S RESURRECTION. [April, 

child had been the idol which each worshipped, and now that 
it was broken each seemed to blame the other for the loss. 
They grew indifferent, then cold and hard, and farther apart as 
each year passed. They tried to forget their grief in gaining 
wealth, so they clutched their possessions with a selfish, greedy 
grasp. 

Slowly the years passed in silent review before Sarah's 
vision as she sat with bowed head in the quiet kitchen. She 
recognized them all, no incident was forgotten. Gradually the 
consciousness came that there had been a mistake, that life had 
been hard because it had not been travelled together, because 
she and Jacob had not gone hand-in-hand through the 
shadows. With the conviction came the longing to hear again 
the tenderness of her husband's voice as he spoke to her in 
those early days. The longing became more intense until the 
woman's body quivered beneath it. Just then the lamb under the 
stove began to bleat and Sarah arose ; the vision had vanished. 

Mechanically she gave the creature a few spoonfuls of milk, 
stirred the fire into a blaze, drew the kettle of dish-water over 
the flames and gathered up the dinner dishes. Her face was 
pale and set, but down in the depths of her eyes there was a 
gleam that had not been there for twenty years. Carefully she 
performed her afternoon tasks, then took her sewing-basket 
and sat down near the stove to patch one of Jacob's faded shirts. 
There was no sign of emotion in her face or actions, nothing but 
that new gleam in her eye. Evening came .and she set the table 
for supper. She laid it with unusual care and apparently un- 
thinkingly brought out the dishes she had used in her early 
married life. Almost unconsciously she prepared the same 
things for supper as she did on the night she and Jacob took 
their first meal together. There was the same kind of cake, a 
plate of hot biscuits, and she emptied a can of plums into the 
same glass dish that had held the same kind of fruit on that night. 
Sarah Stern was a careful, methodical woman ; there was little 
outward change in her home in all those years. When supper 
was ready she went to her bedroom and drew a piece of faded 
blue ribbon out of the bureau drawer. She tied it round her 
neck, then smiled grimly at the delicate color against her sallow 
face ; it was the same ribbon she had worn when a bride. 

" What 's the use of it all ? 'Tain't likely he '11 notice any- 
thing; he don't care fur sich things now," she half sobbed as 
she looked again in a bit of broken mirror and then went out 
to put the tea to steep. 



1899-] LOVE' s RESURRECTION. 23 

Strange what destinies shape our lives! Strange how the 
thoughts in one mind are those uppermost in another's! Jacob 
Stern saw many of the same pictures that afternoon that his 
_wife had seen. They came to him as he tended the sheep and 
looked after the rest of his stock. Every time he went to the 
sheep-fold the figure of a little girl with golden curls seemed 
to walk near him, and each time he passed into the cow-shed 
a woman's pleading eyes seemed to follow him and a woman's 
voice seemed to say, " We'll go through life together, Jacob." 

" It's all nonsense," the man said as he brought in the 
straw to bed the cows, "but I wonder if she 'd notice if I tried 
to act a bit as we did that night " ; then he laughed to himself 
as he thought of gruff, ugly old Jacob Stern making love to 
his wife. 

They drew their chairs silently to the supper-table. Neither 
had spoken since Jacob came into the house, but Sarah noticed 
that her husband had gone to the stove to look at the lamb 
when he thought she was not looking. Jacob saw the faded 
ribbon round his wife's neck and there was a queer clutching 
at his heart, but he made no remark on his observations. The 
meal was almost finished, though neither had eaten much. 
Jacob had broken one of the hot biscuits, then pushed it from 
him, and a moment later he choked on a mouthful of plums. 
Sarah made scarcely a pretence at eating. In a moment Jacob 
would push back his chair and go out to the barn again ; she 
could almost hear her heart while she waited for him to go. 
Just then the lamb gave a feeble bleat, and the man and wo- 
man, looking up at the same instant, saw that new, strange 
gleam in each other's eyes. 

" Sarah ! " 

" Jacob ! " 

It was all they said, but time rolled back twenty years in 
that instant and love that had been dead all that time was 
alive again. As they stood with their arms about each other 
and their faded, wrinkled faces pressed close together Jacob 
said : 

" We went through the shadows apart, dear, but we may 
still find a few sunbeams at the last." 

And Sarah answered : " Yes, Jacob, we '11 be all the world to 
one another and life will lose its hardness." 

Again the lamb under the stove gave a feeble cry. 




24 AN ENGLISH VIEW OF BROWNSON' s CONVERSION. [April r 



AN ENGLISH VIEW OF BROWNSON'S CONVER- 
SION. 

BY REV. WILLIAM L. GILDEA, D.D. 

:N the well-known work Catholic Belief a list is given 
of some of the more eminent converts to the 
Catholic Church in America. The list includes 
statesmen, judges, generals, authors of note, 
famous men of science, and distinguished eccle- 
siastics ; but one name towers like a mountain peak above the 
rest the name of Orestes A. Brownson, who is stated, by the 
author of Catholic Belief, to have been called by the famous 
English statesman, lawyer, and man of letters, Lord Brougham, 
the " master mind of America." We have never met with this 
statement elsewhere, though an allusion to it may perhaps be 
found in a letter addressed to Brownson, in 1841, by R. Barne- 
wall Rhett, a well-known South Carolina congressman of that time. 
In his Review Brownson had criticised favorably a speech delivered 
by Mr. Rhett on a matter of importance which was then much 
engaging public attention. In a letter of thanks, printed in the 
very interesting volume entitled Brownson s Early Life, which 
Mr. H. F. Brownson, the son of the eminent writer, has recent- 
ly published, Mr. Rhett wrote : " If I needed encouragement 
to sustain me in the advocacy of the great truths which lie at 
the basis of our free institutions, and which I have endeavored 
to elucidate in this speech, it would be the strong voice of 
cheering and approbation from him whom the first mind in 
England has pronounced to be the greatest genius in America. " 
But, whether the statement ascribed to him was actually made 
by Lord Brougham or not, there can be no doubt that Orestes 
A. Brownson was one of the most eminent thinkers and 
writers that America has ever produced. The conversion of a 
man like Brownson was no mere passing incident. It was a 
turning point in the history of the church in America. 

MANY MENTAL PHASES. 

Brownson's mind passed through many phases before it found 
rest in the Catholic Church. His boyhood and youth were 
passed amongst Congregationalists. At the age of nineteen he 
became a Presbyterian. A few months later he declared him- 



1 899.] AN ENGLISH VIE w OF BRO WN SON'S CON VERSION. 2 5 

self a Universalist ; and in the year 1826, at a session of the 
New Hampshire Universalist Association, was " set apart to 
the work of the ministry by solemn public ordination." In 
1830 he seceded from the Universalists, and early in the fol- 
lowing year was preaching in Ithaca, " as an independent min- 
ister, not connected with any sect or denomination." In the 
summer of the following year he became a Unitarian minister, 
and such he remained till a short time before his reception into 
the Catholic Church. It might perhaps be inferred from these 
many changes that Brownson's earlier religious views were want- 
ing in earnestness and sincerity. Such an inference would be, 
however, entirely false. Religion was always with Brownson 
the most serious factor in his life. He had a solid reason for 
every step that he took, as we shall proceed to show. 

HIS STUDIOUS YOUTH. 

Brownson's boyhood was a studious one. He had no mas- 
ter to instruct him the family circumstances did not permit of 
this but he had learned to read, and if he did not possess 
books of his own, he could at least borrow those of others, and 
the books thus obtained, to use his own expression, he " de- 
voured." He has left a list of the books he read before he 
reached his fourteenth year. We find no " children's books " 
amongst them. They are all of a solid, serious cast : historical 
works, classical works of English literature, even philosophical 
works, like Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding a most 
astonishing list for a self-taught boy. But of all the books read 
by him at this time none, as he himself tells us, was read with 
" a more intense interest " than the Bible. What is this Book ? 
he often asked himself. The Word of God? Clearly, in a cer- 
tain sense, it must be that. The word of God is found in all 
truth. The word of God is especially found in the higher and 
sublimer truths. And what truths so high and sublime as those 
that are found in the Bible ? What book or collection of books 
can set before us so high a standard of morality or so perfect 
a system of doctrine ? But is the Bible, in very truth, the 
Word of God? Were they who wrote it inspired by God, 
moved to write by the impulse of God, guided as they wrote 
by the hand of God, freed from the risk of error by the watch- 
ful care of God ? This was the question that Brownson set to 
himself. It is a question that he cannot answer. The honest 
farmer folk with whom he spent his boyhood were, as Mr. H. 
F. Brownson informs us, "not very religious in their practice, 
though strict in their morals." This we take to mean that 



26 AN ENGLISH VIEW OF BROWNSON' s CONVERSION. [April, 

though they led decent, sober, God-fearing lives, they attended 
neither church nor chapel. They can bring no light to dissi- 
pate his darkness. There is no one to solve the doubt, and 
the doubt remains. 

FIRST SERIOUS DOUBTS. 

In the year 1822 we find Brownson engaged as a journey- 
man in James Comstock's printing-office, at Ballston Spa, Sara- 
toga. County, New York. His doubts are with him still. Indeed, 
they have increased with the lapse of time. This state of un. 
certainty is intolerable to him, for his nature is profoundly re- 
ligious. But how can the uncertainty be removed ? He has no 
power to remove it. He has done his best, and his best has 
failed. Are his doubts, then, insoluble ? Must they dog his 
steps through the whole course of his life ? Surely, if the Bible be 
the Word of God, there must be somewhere the means of prov- 
ing it so. God cannot have left his Word without an adequate 
warrant and protection. Reason can give no certainty on the 
matter. Then the decision must rest with ecclesiastical author- 
ity. He must place himself, then, under the guidance of eccle- 
siastical authority. And thus, in the year 1822, and at the 
age of nineteen, Brownson, who till now had belonged to no 
religious denomination, became a member of the Presbyterian 
Church, " prepared," says Mr. H. F. Brownson, " to yield to 
ecclesiastical authority with the blind obedience of a Jesuit." 

Brownson, then, has decided that private judgment cannot 
avail to establish the divine origin of the Bible. He seeks the 
proof in ecclesiastical authority. But he is not long in discover- 
ing that Presbyterianism lacked the authority he sought. " How 
do you know the Bible to be the Word of God ? " he asked his 
Presbyterian pastors. " It is perfectly clear," they replied, "that 
it is the Word of God. No reasonable man can doubt that it 
is. We have been always taught to consider it so." " In 
short," replied Brownson, " you individually, or, if you will, 
collectively, but with no greater authority than belongs to you 
as a mass of individuals, believe the Bible to be the Word of 
God. And that is all that you can say. I call that private 
judgment, be it ever so multiplied. I demand something higher 
than that, if I am to believe. I demand the voice of one that 
speaks in the name and with the authority of God. I fail to 
find that voice with you. You admit yourselves that it is not 
with you. Henceforward, your way lies in one direction, mine 
lies in another." And thus Brownson, after a few months of 
membership, severed his connection with the Presbyterians. 



1899-] AN ENGLISH VIEW OF BROWNSON' s CONVERSION. 27 

PATH THROUGH UNIVERSALISM. 

Though he had abandoned Presbyterianism, Brownson had, 
as yet, no wish to finally break with Christianity. If he could 
not convince himself that Christianity was true, he had not yet 
convinced himself that Christianity was false. Was there any 
religious denomination, calling itself Christian, of which, in his 
present state of mind, he might without hypocrisy become a 
member ? Such a system seemed to offer itself in Universalism. 
All that Universalism required of its adherents was that they 
should uphold the doctrine of universal salvation. They might 
unite to this doctrine a belief in the divine origin of the Bible, 
and in the divine personality of Christ ; or they might reject 
these latter beliefs. In either case they were good Universal- 
ists. The tessera of the sect was the doctrine of universal 
salvation. So Brownson became a Universalist, and was ordained 
to the ministry in that sect. But Universalism did not long 
retain him. Doubt yielded to scepticism. He convinced him- 
self that the Bible was not the word of God. The raison d'etre 
of his connection with Universalism had thus ceased, and 
Brownson seceded from the sect. 

In 1831 Brownson came before the world as an Indepen- 
dent preacher. Supernaturalism in every form he had now 
discarded. He believed in God and in the moral law. But the 
basis of his belief was not revelation but reason. Where 
reason could carry him, thither he was prepared to go, but no 
farther. He was an advocate of a merely natural religion, a 
devout-minded rationalist. 

HE BECAME A UNITARIAN. 

In the following year, 1831, we find Brownson once more 
connected with a sect, the Unitarian. There was no reason 
why Brownson, in his then state of mind, should not become 
a Unitarian. Unitarians, like himself, accepted a merely natural 
religion. On the other hand, there was good reason why he 
should become one. He had taken up preaching, not as a re- 
spectable means of earning a livelihood, but as a means of doing 
good to others. It was clear to him that, as a recognized 
representative of an influential religious organization, his power 
for good would be greater by far than if he spoke in his own 
name merely. Influenced by this consideration, Brownson ac- 
cepted a pastoral charge amongst the Unitarians. 

Brownson was now very far from the church. But the fault 
was not his. He had never sinned against the light. He had 
not first held the truth and then rejected it. He had never 



28 AN ENGLISH VIEW OF BROWNSON' s CONVERSION. [April, 

known the truth. As little was there fault in his logic. His 
reason had told him that, if the Bible were the Word of God, 
God could not have left it without an authentic custodian and 
interpreter. He had sought this custodian in Presbyterianism, 
but had failed to find it there. Indeed, the Presbyterians had 
expressly informed him that it was not to be found amongst 
them. They repudiated any claim to infallible authority. They 
made private judgment their sole and sufficient basis. And as 
it was with Presbyterianism, so it was with every form of Pro- 
testantism. Without exception they rested on fallible private 
judgment. Brownson was quite right in inferring that, if the 
Scriptures were, in very truth, the Word of God, they must, 
of necessity, have their divinely appointed custodian and in- 
terpreter. His error lay in his assumption that this divinely 
appointed custodian was to be found in Protestantism or no- 
where. The ideal of the office and work of the true Church, 
which Brownson, even as a youth, had so accurately formed for 
himself, finds its reality in the Catholic Church. But the Catho- 
lic Church was, as yet, unknown to Brownson. 

HE GRASPS THE CHURCH IDEA. 

As a Unitarian Brownson stood in the very foremost rank. 
His eminent talents as a preacher and lecturer, his singleness of 
purpose, his tremendous force of character were gladly and 
universally acknowledged. He exchanged pulpits with the most 
prominent Unitarian divines in America. A sermon that he 
preached for Dr. W. H. Channing in New York, in the year 
1837, led to his acquaintance with the three brothers, John, 
George, and Isaac Hecker, who were amongst his audience on 
this occasion. The acquaintance thus formed ripened into a 
friendship, and the friendship lasted through life. 

Brownson had, as we have seen, convinced himself that, 
given that the Scriptures are the Word of God, there must 
exist a divinely instituted church, whose office is to infallibly 
guard and interpret them. But he had equally convinced him- 
self that, given the existence of a divinely instituted church, 
her task and duty must also be to watch over the interests of 
the poor. On this latter task and obligation Brownson laid 
great stress, in the first number of the Boston Reformer, which 
appeared, under his editorship, in July, 1836, not indeed as a 
cha y^ eristic of the true church, for Brownson had long come 
to ^h ^'onclusion that there was no divinely instituted church, 
but as the office and work of any religious society which could, 
with any confidence, claim a hearing of the public. The Boston 



1 899.] A N ENGLISH VIE w OF BRO WN SON'S Co A VERSION. 29 

Pilot, reviewing this article in its issue of the following day, 
exhorted Brownson to study the history of the Catholic 
Church, and assured him that he would find in that church all 
that he vainly sought outside it. A few years later Brownson 
did set himself to the study of the history of the Catholic 
Church, at least of that portion of her history which has been 
most misrepresented and maligned, with momentous results to 
himself and to the future history of the church in America. 

THE HISTORIC CHURCH. 

Brownson, who was an orator of a very high order, was in 
much request as a lecturer. In the winter of 1842-43 he de- 
livered a course of lectures on the Middle Ages. He had pre- 
pared his lectures, as his custom invariably was, with the ut- 
most diligence and care. He had read widely and reflected 
deeply. He learned, as he read, not without surprise, that the 
Catholic Church, in the middle ages, had been acquitting itself 
of that duty which he had called upon the religious societies of 
his own day to perform. He saw her lovingly caring for the 
poor, and withstanding kings and nobles in the interests of the 
oppressed and friendless. And as he saw the church so he 
described her in his lectures. His lectures were, in truth, a 
panegyric of the church. He spoke in terms of strong repro- 
bation of the ungenerous prejudices of Protestants. These pre- 
judices were, the lecturer affirmed, the outcome of ignorance 
or malice. They were especially to be deplored in the case of 
those Protestants who accepted a supernatural Christianity. 
What is Protestantism, as a supernatural religion, but a mere 
reminiscence of Catholicism ? To the Catholic Church Protest- 
ants of this class owe the preservation of the Scriptures, the 
writings of the Fathers, and the liturgical works which had 
supplied the basis for their own books of piety and devotion. 
Even those Protestants who, like the lecturer himself, were 
unable to accept a supernatural Christianity, owed a deep debt 
of gratitude to the Catholic Church. If they did not admit the 
divinity of the Scriptures, they insisted, at least, on the dignity 
of man. Now, what human institution had laid so much stress 
on the dignity of man, as such, as the Catholic Church in the 
middle ages? The reign of absolutism dated from the revolt 
of Luther. Till that revolt kings and governments had been 
forced to confess that there existed a power superior to their 
own ; and that power was enrolled in the service of humanity. 
To Luther's revolt is due the present sad condition of the 
lower orders of society. " The rejection of the authority of 



30 AN ENGLISH VIEW OF BROWN SON'S CONVERSION. [April, 

the Catholic Church left men free to follow their own natural 
selfishness, and left all social matters to be regulated according 
to the dictates not of Christian charity but of the self-interests 
of governments and individuals." 

COINCIDENCE BETWEEN HIS IDEAL CHURCH AND THE CATHOLIC 

CHURCH. 

Brovvnson's sympathies were now fully given to the Catholic 
Church, as it existed in the middle ages. But he believed that 
the church had fallen from her high estate and no longer stood 
forward as the champion of humanity. This impression was a 
false one, and Brownson had no desire to persist in it. It was 
due not to malice but to ignorance. He would gladly have 
seen it removed. And it speedily was removed. Brownson's 
course on the middle ages was followed shortly afterwards by 
courses delivered on the same subject by Bishop Hughes, of 
New York, in Baltimore and Philadelphia. The views set forth 
by the bishop on political economy were precisely similar to 
Brownson's own, and were read by Brownson with equal sur- 
prise and pleasure. " He had long ago decided," writes Mr. 
H. F. Brownson, " that the Catholic Church had outlived its 
mission, and here was that church, in the person of one of her 
most influential prelates, proclaiming the doctrine which he 
thought most needed at the present time with the vigor of a 
living and thinking friend of the people. This not only gave 
him a favorable impression of the bishop, but greatly increased 
his growing sympathy with that church." 

It was now clear to Brownson that the Catholic Church 
possessed the second characteristic of his ideal church. It 
was the church which cared for the poor. Might it not, he 
asked himself, possess the first characteristic too ? Might not 
the Scriptures be, after all, the word of God, and the Catholic 
Church their divinely appointed infallible custodian ? The 
Catholic Church claimed that this was the case. Might not 
possibly her claim be true ? In any case the question deserved 
attention, and attention it should receive. Brownson accord- 
ingly commenced a thorough investigation into the supernatural 
claims of the Catholic Church. His mind became full of the 
subject. He loved to discuss it with his friends. He was once 
engaged on the topic with John C. Calhoun and James Buchanan, 
when, as we learn from Mr. H. F. Brownson, the party was 
joined by Daniel Webster. " We were talking about the Catho- 
lic Church," said Buchanan, " and I, for one, am pretty well 
convinced that it is necessary to become a Catholic to get to 



1 899.] AN ENGLISH VIE w OF BRO WNSON' s CON VERSION. 3 1 

heaven." " Have you just found that out ? " said Webster. 
"Why, I've known that for years." 

DIFFICULTIES DISAPPEAR WITH CONVERSION. 

Brownson's difficulties rapidly disappeared as he continued 
his investigations, and his progress towards the church was 
visible to all his friends. Some of them wrote to him in tones 
of mild remonstrance, like Franklin B. Pierce. Others, like his 
intimate friend, Isaac Hecker, who was later to render such 
splendid services to the church, advanced along with him. But 
whether they approved of his progress or not, he still retained 
their friendship and respect. By the spring of 1844 Brownson 
had approached so near to the church that he felt obliged to 
retire from the Unitarian ministry. In the May following 
he called upon Dr. Fenwick, the Bishop of Boston, to seek his 
advice. Anxious though the bishop must have been to secure 
a convert whose conversion must make an immense impression 
upon the religious world of America, he contented himself 
with saying to Brownson : " It is best not to be hasty. The 
question is serious, and you will do well [to inquire further 
and longer." A week later Brownson called again ; and a 
fortnight later still he called once more, this time to declare 
that his mind was fully made up and that he was determined 
to become a Catholic. The task of preparation and instruction 
was entrusted to Bishop Fenwick's coadjutor, Bishop Fitz- 
patrick. The latter was every whit as adverse to anything that 
savored of a hasty reception as Bishop Fenwick himself, and 
it was not till Brownson had gone through a preparation ex- 
tending over more than four months that he consented to re- 
ceive his abjuration and admit him into the church, 

The soul which had craved for truth had now at length 
found it. The wanderer on many seas was now in the haven 
of rest. Sacrifices many were called for ; sacrifices common to 
every one that becomes a Catholic, and sacrifices peculiar to 
Brownson's position in the community. But the sacrifices were 
gladly made. They were scarcely so much as reckoned. " He 
thought," says Mr. H. F. Brownson, " not of sacrifice but of 
gain." The gain was indeed great to Brownson ; but it was 
great too to the church of his adoption. During the thirty-two 
years of life that still remained to Brownson the splendid gifts 
of the " master mind of America " were spent in the service 
of the Catholic faith. 




' And I have heard Thy white-robed angel say : 
' He whom ye seek is risen. He is not here ! ' " 



SPES 

esus, my risen Lord, to | \\ee \ pray: 

how me 1 hy Wounds. 1 hy Voice, oh! let me hear. 

ri\?e from my fainting heart all doubt and fear; 
por 1 haVe sought I hee at the daWn of day, 

<And I ha\?e heard | hy white-robed angel say: 
Tie wF|om ye seek is risen,. pe is n,ot here!" 

Lford ^Jesus, Wilt | Fjou not to me appear, 
<And Walk, a little With m,e by the Way? 

C/en though kneW hee not, still Would feel 

eJ x ' 

1 he sweetness of 1 hy presence in my heart; 

|n joy and Wonder Would bid I hee stay, 

J\or at the eventide from me depart; 

0, Would | \\y lo^e at length to me repeal 
Who With me Walked a little by th,e Way. 

MARY GRANT O'SHERIDAN. 



VOL. LX1X. 3 




A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 




BY M. E. HENRY-RUFFIN. 

T was in the spring of the closing year of the 
great Civil War. Out from the City of Mobile 
a brave little blockader had dashed past the 
Northern guns at Fort Morgan, and swept over 
the Gulf to the shadow of Morro Castle. How 
well it comes back to me dark, frowning Morro and the vista of 
the beautiful City of Havana. I was a very young blockader 
a Mobilian being borne back to the old land of Erin from 
whence my fathers came. Some time I may tell you more of 
that trip, that wonderful " running the blockade," that stands 
out so clearly in the visions of the past. I can hear the waters 
of Mobile Bay, I can hear the whispers of the watches, I can 
see the lights of Fort Morgan. I can even see the dark, glid- 
ing fleet that waited for just such daring craft as ours. I can 
see and hear and live it all over again, through the years and 
years that have passed. But to-day I want to tell you of a 
girl's war visit to Havana in Holy Week. 

Our vessel swung into the wharf ; and I was so excited at 
the thought of being in Havana, so interested in the strange 
sights, the strange faces, the strange language, that I was 



1 899.] 



A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 



35 



almost speechless. And then ah, then, I was to see my father ! 
the dear father whom I had not seen for so many, many 
months. 

While I was looking in every direction at once, trying to 
see everything at the same time, a tall, bearded man held me 
close to his heart, and I could only say over and over again : 

"O papa! O papa! How glad I am!" 

Being something of a heroine, I suppose I am entitled to 
some sort of a description, as all real nice authors give you a 
pen-picture of their heroes and heroines. But I was only a 
small, pale child, with big blue eyes and flaxen braids. My 
costume, however, I am sure is worth describing ; for in those 
war days the mammas had to be very skilful to get anything 
at all for their little children to wear. In Mobile we had been 
tightly blockaded, and we had depended so long on the North- 
ern States for so many things that it was funny to see what 
the ladies could contrive to do. Now, my hat how I remem- 
ber that hat ! was home-made of plaited palmetto. It was not 
very well bleached and was quite heavy. Then the shape it 
was just like a door-mat with a sunken centre, where the 
crown should have been. My dress, a revised and condensed 
costume of one of my elders, was quite gorgeous 
a bright green and red plaid silk, with such very 
large stripes. So the little misses, who are so fas- 




A COMFORTABLE CUBAN 
HOME. 



A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 



[April, 




DARK, FROWNING MORRO. 

tidious about their dresses in these days, can just picture little 
Eily Hinton, after she had run the blockade, and stood on the 
wharf in Havana in the year of grace, 1864. 

I was too young to feel the depression of war clothing very 
deeply, but the ladies of our party were unwilling to enter 
Havana in their absurd palmetto hats. So the mate of the 
vessel had gone ashore and bought some very pretty French 
bonnets for these ladies. 

" Now, Miss Eily," he said, handing me the bandbox, " just 
hold this a spell, till I see after the luggage." 

So I took the box and stood on the wharf, watching my 
father as he went back and forth up the gang-plank. The 
Cubans gathered around me, for it was not usual to se ladies 
and children come in on a blockader. They called me " Nina," 
" Chiquita," and " Poor little American," but they never criti- 
cised my queer costume. 

" Come, Elenita," called out my father, from the end of the 
gang-plank, giving me the pretty Spanish version of my name. 

I started with that fateful bandbox to make the ascent to 
the deck. Such a hurrying, jostling crowd for one poor, small 
girl to get through by herself, to say nothing of that bandbox. 
I struggled on up the gang-plank, my flaxen braids swinging 
out after me, my huge palmetto hat flapping in the breeze. I 
grasped the cord of that bandbox desperately, when lo ! some 
evil spirit sent a sailor down the incline. He tried to avoid 
bumping me, and the bandbox received the shock. The bot- 
tom promptly fell out. The wind caught up the contents, and 
three elegant French bonnets went sailing down Havana Bay, 
like three gorgeous aquatic plants. I immediately lifted my 



1 899.] 



A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 



37 



voice and wept. A crowd gathered around me. The Cubans 
grew excited, and all talked at once. Several long fishing- 
poles were put out, and presently the three bonnets were 
drawn in, limp, wet, and ruined. 

I think a deluge of reproach would have been poured upon 
.me, but my father drew me into his arms. "Never mind the 
bonnets, girls. I thought my own little Eily, my ' Elenita Chi- 
quita,' as these folks will call her, had gone overboard. It is 
all an accident, and she is frightened enough already. Here 
come the volantes. Come along, Eily. I want you to have your 
first volante drive." 

So we climbed into the queer carriages used in Havana, a 
high buggy as it were, drawn by a horse at some distance from 
the vehicle, and upon whose back sat the driver or postilion. 
The ladies whose bonnets I had drowned had thrown black 
lace shawls over their heads, and leaning back in the volantes, 
looked quite like picture ladies. 

" Eily, my pet," said my father, surveying my head-gear, 
" where on earth did you get such a hat ? It looks like it 




PALACE OF THE CAPTAIN-GENERAL. 



A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 



[April, 




THE MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR is THE CHIEF INDUSTRY OF CUBA. 

could better carry you than you can carry it. It is an um- 
brella as well as a hat." 

We drove through the narrow streets and stopped at our 
hotel. Into an arched driveway, at the side of the house, the 
horses entered. " O papa ! " I cried out, " just see ! We are 
going right into the house, horses and all. Oh, look ! there's 
the parlor ! " 

We drove through the long marble hall and stopped at the 
parlor door. It seemed so queer to go rattling along right 
through the house. 

With an immense flourish of his whip, the postilion dis- 
mounted and helped us to alight. Then he remounted and 
drove out of the end of the hall, through a courtyard, to the 
stables. 

We had luncheon, and then I went into the large, marble- 
tiled parlor and looked out of the high, iron-barred windows 
into the street. Such a commotion on the street ! Such hur- 
rying and talking ! A tall, dark Cuban was gloomily dusting 
the parlor. My father came in and joined me at the window. 

" Gregorio," he said to the servant in Spanish, " here is my 
little daughter, the Seflorita Elenita." Gregorio made a pro- 
found bow, saluting me with the dust-brush. " Now, Eily," con- 
tinued papa, "you must teach Gregorio to speak English, because 
he is very anxious to learn ; and he will teach you some Span- 
ish." This contract was translated to Gregorio, and he seemed 
delighted. 

The crowd on- the street grew larger. " What is the matter, 
papa?" I asked. "Where are all those people going? It is 
just like Mardi Gras in Mobile." 

"Oh! I forgot to tell you, Eily. This is the day they hang 
Judas Iscariot. This is ' Spy Wednesday.' I expect you have 



1 899.] 



A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 



39 



lost sight of Holy Week in the excitement of running the 
blockade. Well, on to-day, Spy Wednesday, in Havana, they 
hang Judas ; and this evening, on the plaza, they will hang 
and burn him. I must surely take you to see that. We will 
hurry up and get you some sort of a dress, and certainly a new 
hat." Papa looked at my war-time costume and laughed very 
heartily. 

In a little while the lady who kept the hotel, and who had 
come from New Orleans, sent her daughter out ; and she bought 
me a new outfit. It was very stylish, I suppose, and all ac- 
cording to the prevailing fashion, but I cannot help smiling 
when I recall that costume. The predominant feature that con- 
stantly asserted itself was a pair of enormous hoop-skirts ; for 




A STREET IN HAVANA. 

the smallest Cuban children wore these. My dress, of bright 
blue silk, was voluminous and greatly beruffled. My good, 
honest Confederate brogans of red, untanned leather were ex- 
changed for a pair of high-heeled slippers, whose laces were 
strapped around my white, open-work stockings. My panta- 



A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 



[April, 



lets were deeply embroidered and touched my ankles. My 
wide hat of French leghorn was tied down with yards and yards 
of blue ribbon and loaded down with white feathers. As 
I was a small, thin child, one may make the absurd picture for 
one's self. I was a sort of miniature balloon. I could not 
manage those dreadful hoop-skirts. I knocked down chairs and 
tables in my difficult progress. In those days I learned to envy 
the graceful little Cuban girls, who would spring into a chair, 
and have no explosions or collisions with the enormous hoop- 
skirts, which were worn down to the tenderest age. 

I wish I could delay to tell you of that Havana dinner, in 
the large, cool marble hall ; but we were in a hurry to witness 
the execution of the traitor Judas. 

Down on the plaza an immense crowd was gathered. It was 




ON A FESTIVAL DAY. 

nearly dark [but in the clear twilight we could see, hung aloft, 
the absurd figure or effigy of Judas. There was no attempt 
to follow the costume of Iscariot's own time. His effigy was 
attired in a very ragged postilion costume, with a pair of very 
long cavalry boots. A straw hat and gay necktie finished 
the attire. Imagine one of the Apostles in cavalry boots and 
spurs, with a straw hat ! 

" Now, Eily," said papa, " they are going to swing him up." 
Slowly the uncouth figure was lifted to the top of the 
scaffold, while the crowd jeered and cursed the traitor. 



1899-] A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 41 

"Judas is full of gunpowder and fire-crackers," my father 
told me. " His clothes, too, are saturated with oil ; so presently 
you will see a great sight, Eily, when they burn him." 

" Burn him ! Fire him ! " shouted the crowd. Torches were 
brought out, but none of them could reach the figure. At 
last, a soldier on horseback rode under the scaffold. He car- 
ried a long pole with a lighted candle at the end. 

" Bravo ! Bravo, caballero ! " sang out the excited crowd. 
The smoking candle touched poor Judas, and then such an ex- 
plosion ! The whole effigy was a mass of flames. The gun- 
powder and the fire-crackers were exploding in all directions. 
Pieces of burning cotton fell over the crowd, who yelled, 
cheered, and sang until the effigy burned out. 

" Come, Elenita," said my father, " you have seen the last 
of old Judas Iscariot." 

The next morning, Holy Thursday, we were out early to 
see the grand procession of the Blessed Sacrament, as it wound 
its way around the city. Those who have only seen this 
solemn service in non-Catholic countries can form no real idea 
of its grandeur in a Catholic city. Every official, every reli- 
gious and social organization, joined in the ranks of devout 
followers of the hidden God. How my child's soul exulted at 
the majesty and magnificence of that pageant ! 

The streets were thronged. Windows and galleries, and the 
flat roofs of the houses, which are promenade gardens in Ha- 
vana, were filled. Children gayly dressed, ladies with their 
graceful black mantillas over their heads, looked from the 
verandas down into the crowded streets. 

We had secured a good place to look at the procession on 
the veranda of a friend in Calle Obispo. 

" You will never see such another sight in your life, Eily," 
my father told me, as we gazed down in wonder at the mass 
of people. We were near a corner, and there was a movement 
in the crowd. 

" Here they come," whispered my father. We caught the 
soft strains of the military band, subdued to solemn music. 
Gleaming tapers sprang up. Every man and boy lifted his hat 
and sank upon one knee. The ladies drew their veils closer 
and devoutly knelt. I was awed by the solemn silence, the 
great hush broken only by the beautiful notes of the band. 
How I wish I could bring to your mind the beauty of that 
pageant as it glows in my memory to-day, the vision that de- 
lighted my childish eyes and heart ! 




LADIES LOOKED FROM VERANDAS DOWN 
INTO THE CROWDED STREETS." 



c899-] A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 43 

Soldiers, civilians, religious orders, all in handsome regalia, 
marched past in rank upon rank. Near the venerable arch- 
bishop, who carried the Blessed Sacrament, were hundreds of 
white clad children strewing flowers of great beauty and fra- 
grance. We knelt until the procession had passed far out of 
sight. The scent of tropical flowers, the spice of incense, the 
echo of exquisite music, the vision of worshipping faces, 
lingered far after, even as, in my mind, that Holy Week in 
Havana lingers, sweet, solemn, bright, and fragrant. Even more 
impressive, because more sombre, was the service of Good Fri- 
day. The procession was a beautiful repetition of the day be- 
fore. " Eily," said my father, as we went up to kiss the cross, 
" put this in the plate." He handed me a piece of gold. I 
saw upon the plate a large pile of gold coins, and after we 
left the cathedral papa said : 

" A Spaniard never gives anything but gold to the church 
on Good Friday. They say that Christ was sold for silver, 




. . . "' : 

PRIMITIVE METHODS OF TRANSPORTATION. 

and to-day even the poorest will put a small gold coin in the 
plate." 

How the bells of Havana rang out the " Regina Cceli " on 
Holy Saturday! All the ships in the harbor were decorated 
Easter morning, all the bells and whistles helped to ring in 
the great feast. At the cathedral a tall, magnificently dressed 
soldier stood in the centre aisle, just in front of the main 
altar. A small mulatto girl followed me, carrying a light cane 



44 



A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 



[April, 




THE VISTA OF THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF HAVANA. 

chair and a rug. When we reached the cathedral my father 
motioned to the little attendant, and she placed the chair on 
the floor, spreading out the rug in front of it. Then she knelt 
down behind me. There are no pews in the Cuban churches ; 
but rows and rows of little chairs and rugs. My father dropped 
upon one knee, following the example of the Cuban gentlemen. 
The drum major of the captain-general's band, for such was 
the gorgeous individual in the handsome red uniform trimmed 
with gold lace, paced up and down the central aisle, some- 
times touching with his long gilt baton a man standing up, 
and making him kneel down. I was sure that this splendid 
creature must at least be a king, and they laughed merrily at 
the dinner-table when I expressed my belief in his royal char- 
acter. A detachment of soldiers also stood in the aisle, and 
the military band joined with the organ and the choir. At 
the Elevation the soldiers knelt as one man, and their clang- 
ing swords rang impressively on the marble floor. 



1 899.] 



A HAVANA HOLY WEEK. 



45 



When we sat down to dinner that Easter Sunday, Gregorio, 
with many bows and flourishes, placed a small box at my 
plate. 

" An Easter present for the Chiquita," he said. I opened 
the box. There was a whole nestful of lovely little candy 
eggs. 

Gregorio reappeared with a long, slender tumbler. I tasted 
the beverage it contained. It was very nice. 

" That is cocoa-nut milk and a little wine," papa told me. 
" If you were a man, Gregorio would put brandy in your cocoa- 
nut milk." 

After dinner I was watching the waiters, tall, gloomy Gre- 
gorio and merry little Emanuelo, as they worked around the 
dining-room. The landlady was reprimanding Gregorio rather 
sharply. He lifted up his head, answering her defiantly. My 
father laughed aloud, and after awhile the landlady joined in 
the laugh. 

"Why, Eily, you just should have heard your friend Gre- 
gorio." 

" What did he say, papa ? " 

" Madame was scolding him, and he told her he was afraid 
of no woman on earth, only God and Isabella Segunda. That 
is his queen, the Queen of Spain. Come now, Eily, let 's get 
ready for the concert in the captain-general's garden. They 
have such beautiful music there on Sundays ; and as this is 
Easter, it will be better than usual." 

A tired, happy child fell asleep on her little cot in the 
hotel that night. She dreamed of all the wonderful sights she 
had seen. Even to this day there is nothing more impressive 
or beautiful in her memory than that Holy Week in Havana. 




46 RESURRECTION AND THE ANCIENT WORLD. [April, 




RESURRECTION AND THE ANCIENT WORLD. 

BY REV. JOSEPH V. TRACY. 

O declaration made by the Apostles met with a 
less gracious welcome from both the Jewish and 
the Gentile world than their announcement that 
Jesus had risen from the dead, and that His 
Resurrection was the pledge of ours. 
Among the Jews two powerful parties directed and con- 
trolled thought ; to both the message of Easter was hateful, 
but to each for its own reasons. There were the Pharisees : 
the narrowly orthodox and intensely patriotic body whose 
leaders held firm influence over the masses of their countrymen. 
This sect and its adherents did believe in a future life and a 
corporal resurrection ; but to make Him, who through their in- 
trigue had been gibbeted, the foundation-stone of the doctrine ; 
to maintain that He was the " first-fruits of them that sleep " 
(I. Cor. xv. 20), this was nothing less than blasphemy, and 
merited as a punishment, death ! Therefore, when Stephen in 
the peroration of his masterly defence exclaimed : " Behold I 
see the heavens open, and the Son of Man standing on the 
right hand of God," at once his trial proceedings lost all sem- 
blance of order ; the fanatical listeners became a lawless mob : 
" they, crying out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and 
with one accord ran violently upon him ; and casting him forth 
without the city walls, they stoned him "; and he, first of num- 
berless martyrs yet to be, falling on his knees, " cried with a 
loud voice : Lord, lay not this sin to their charge " (Acts vii. 

55, 56, 57, 59)- 

If the Pharisees thus opposed the Apostolic doctrine of resur- 
rection, with even greater reason was it rejected by that other 
Jewish party, the Sadducees, a sect, though second in point of 
number, first indeed in nobility, wealth, learning, and social pres- 
tige. The high-priesthood and other priestly emoluments of 
value, as well as political alliances always of service to ambitious 
churchmen were theirs by right of long and legalized possession. 
In the Acts of the Apostles the cardinal articles of Sadducean 
faith are thus summed up : " The Sadducees say that there is 



1899-] RESURRECTION AND THE ANCIENT WORLD. 47 

no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit " (Acts xxiii. 8).* Evi- 
dently this society was left no choice but to oppose the state- 
ment that Jesus had risen from the dead, and, consequently, 
that we would rise also. And the Sadducees were true to their 
principles : thus, when Peter and John, at that gate of the 
Temple known as " Beautiful," cured miraculously a cripple, 
and thence took occasion to preach Jesus Arisen, saying among 
other things : " Ye men of Israel hear, . . . Jesus . . . 
the author of life you killed, whom God had raised from the 
dead, whereof we are the witnesses" (Acts iii. 12, 15), there 
came upon them the Sadducean Temple officers, chronicles 
the faithful history, " being grieved that they .taught the 
people, and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 
And they laid hands upon them, and put them in hold until 
the next day" (iv. 1-3). Again, on a later occasion, . . . 
" the high priest rising up, and all they that were with him 
(which is the heresy of the Sadducees) were filled with envy. 
And they laid hands on the Apostles and put them in the com- 
mon prison " (v. 17, 18). Truly, the record of the Apostolic 
preaching of resurrection among the Jews is a record of op- 
position. 

On the part of the heathen world, to opposition was added 
contempt, and this in the East as well as in the West. 

In the East : there religion and morality had been for long 
pervaded by a tendency of thought which finally crystallized 
and has become known to us as Gnosticism, a system that 
probably found entrance into Judaism by way of the Essenes, 
and may also be held accountable for some of the earliest and 
most pernicious corruptions of Christian belief and practice. 
In regard to this system it surfaces for our present purpose to 
know that it conceived of matter as the principle and source 
of evil : matter of its very nature was malignant. Now, our 
bodies are composed of matter, and are therefore evil things, 
finally to be got rid of. And so to Gnostics, or to those leav- 
ened by Gnostic views, the Christian doctrine of resurrection, 
involving as it did in their mind the perpetuation and triumph 
of evil, since the body would be glorified, was wholly repulsive. 
By them, then, the message promulgated by the Apostles was 
sure to be despised ; or, if individuals of this bias found them- 
selves drawn to the new religion, their new belief was apt to 
be altered to suit their previous Gnostic conceptions. Hence 

* Cf. also Matt. xxii. 23-28, where Sadducees undertake to joke upon the subject of 
resurrection, at our Lord's expense. 



48 RESURRECTION AND THE ANCIENT WORLD. [April, 

we need not be surprised to find, in a letter of St. Paul to 
Timothy, mention of one Hymenaeus and a certain Philetus, 
pseudo-Christian teachers, who maintained "that the resurrec- 
tion was already past" (II. Tim. ii. 18), and managed to refine 
away the Scriptural expressions, in spite of their literalness, 
into allegories and metaphors. The Gnostic East certainly did 
not want " the great doctrine of the resurrection of the body, 
though in pushing aside that glorious hope men touched with 
their impious hand the corner-stone of all Christian belief the 
resurrection of the body of the Redeemer." 

In the West the reception of Resurrection was not a whit 
more cordial than in the East. Different incidents illustrate the 
truth of the remark. There was St. Paul's experience at 
Athens : " Certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the 
Stoics disputed with him, and some said : What is it that this 
word-sower would say? But others: He seemeth to be a setter- 
forth of new gods ; because he preached to them Jesus and the 
resurrection. And taking him they brought him to the Areopa- 
gus, saying : May we know what this new doctrine is thou 
speakest of ? . . . And when they had heard of the resur- 
rection of the dead some indeed mocked ; others only said : 
We will hear thee again concerning this matter " (Acts xvii. 
18, 19, 32), a more polite but equally effective method of ex- 
pressing dismissal and contempt. " So Paul went out from 
among them " ; and we hear of him no more at Athens. 
Equally illustrative of the unsympathetic audience the Western 
world gave to the tenet, is the fact that after the acceptance of 
the Christian faith, resurrection remained for some converts, and 
these in number, an anxious problem. The Christian com- 
munity at Thessalonica was gravely disturbed lest its members 
who died before the last and all victorious Return of Christ 
would have no part in the world to come (I. Thess. iv. u, ff} ; 
and to crown all, in the church at Corinth some Christians 
seem to have gone to the extreme of denying the resurrection 
in toto either of Christ, or of ourselves, body or soul. That this 
error was a menace to the community is evidenced by the 
lengthy, logical, and passionate passage which St. Paul devotes 
to the subject. In the fifteenth chapter of that epistle, which 
we know as his First Epistle to the Corinthians, he calls to their 
minds the unimpeachable testimony of Christ's appearances 
after death ; testimony the greater part of which those to whom 
he wrote could verify for themselves, since most of the witnesses 
^e still alive. ..." I delivered unto you first of all," he 



1899-] RESURRECTION AND THE ANCIENT WORLD. 49 

writes, "that which I also received; how that Christ died for 
our sins according to the Scriptures ; and that he was buried, 
and that he rose again the third day according to the Scrip- 
tures. And that he was seen by Cephas, and after that by the 
eleven ; then was he seen by more than five hundred brethren 
at once ; of whom many remain until this present day, and some 
are fallen asleep ; after that he was seen by James, then by all 
the Apostles ; and last of all he was seen also by me . . ." 
(I. Cor. xv. 3-8). After this clear declaration of Christ's Re- 
surrection, a declaration strengthened by various arguments and 
analogies, he connects that fact with the dogma of the re- 
surrection of ourselves, and, finally, closes his splendid period 
by the thrilling words : " For the trumpet shall sound, and the 
dead shall rise again incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 
For this corruption must put on incorruption ; and this mortal 
must put on immortality. And when this mortal hath put on 
immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written : 
Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is thy 
victory! O Grave, where is thy sting?" (I. Cor. xv. 52-55). 

If any truth of Christianity has run the gauntlet of opposition 
and abuse that truth, above all others, is this of the resurrection : 

1. The Apostles themselves had not expected it ; and when 
it occurred they refused their credence until to further dissent 
would be to deny the reliableness of their own senses and 
judgment : " Jesus had to speak with them, be handled by them, 
eat with them, perform miracles for them, instruct and train 
them " in a word, be for them after Easter all that he had been 
before Good Friday, ere they would allow themselves to admit 
that he was really back among them again in the flesh. 

2. These men, so hard to convince themselves, had, in turn, 
to persuade a world whose dominant classes were prejudiced 
against the possibility and had reason to deny the fact of re- 
surrection. The world had the Present, and its pleasures were 
tangible ; the Future what was it more than a surmise, maybe, 
as unreal as a dream ! Even when converted many chafed under 
the restrictions the doctrine necessarily imposed, and sought, 
at the cost of heresy and disorder, to loosen these moral con- 
sequences. 

Yet, notwithstanding the unwillingness of Apostles, the 
scepticism of the world, and the lukewarmness of neo-Christians, 
Resurrection, fact and dogma, did vindicate for itself a place 
in the deposit of Revealed Truth, and such a place that it has 
become the hope of the ages. 
VOL. LXIX. 4 



RE S URRE C T10N. 



[April, 



From the endurance and survival of this one dogma, may 
not we, who have religious truth, draw a lesson of comfort for 
all dogmas ? Truth is truth and it will stand wear and tear. 
Philosophers or scientists may think that they have undermined 
the foundations of faith, and built up a system of doubt, or 
agnosticism, or negation. Whither they have brought themselves 
their own hearts and the great heart of the race will refuse to 
abide. Mankind never has been able to get on without God ; 
and, as a result of the last nineteen hundred years, never can 
get on now without Christianity. "A thousand times more liv- 
ing to-day," Ernest Renan, sceptical to his own scepticism, con- 
fesses of Jesus, "a thousand times more loved since thy death 
than during thy passage on earth, thou wilt become the corner- 
stone of humanity to such a point that to blot thy name out 
of the world would be in truest truth to shake its foundations." 
Resurrexit sicut dixit ! 




RESURRECTION, 



BY F. X. E. 




NE April eve my sister-love 
Went wandering with a homing dove 
To rest beyond the stars above, 
And all the house was still 



As still as April evenings are 
Whilst Life is fading with its star, 
And hearts their glory find afar 
Within His cenacle. 



FATHER FITZGERALD. 




FATHER FITZGERALD.* 

BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY. 

ATHER FITZGERALD! long live his name, 
His hero deed and his soldier fame ! 

Not least is he, in brave renown, 

With the men who captured Caney town 



Not least, tho' his steps were on mercy bent 
As he marched with his gallant regiment 

Marched and fought, thro' the deadly loss, 
As a valiant Captain of the Cross ! 

Down thro' the brush, with stroke on stroke, 
The Twenty-second regulars broke 

* Chaplain of the Twenty-second Infantry (Regular). 

NOTE. At the reception given by the Aid Society to the Seventy-first Regiment New 
York Volunteers, Major Frank Keck, who led the boys in the charge on San Juan, was 
asked to tell of some notable exhibition of personal courage on the battle-field. The brave 
soldier, universally loved and respected by his men, said : 

" On July 2, while the fighting was going on, I sent word to our chaplain to come to the 
front to officiate at the burial of comrades who had been killed in action. For some unex- 
plained reason he failed to respond. A Catholic priest, the chaplain of one of the regiments 
of regulars in Lawton's division, volunteered his services, which were promptly and grate- 
fully accepted. As he was reading the service over the body a Spanish bullet struck his left 
hand, in which the book was held, shattering it horribly. Without a change of voice the book 
was dropped into the right hand and the services continued without a moment's halt. The 
mutilated and bleeding hand dropped to his side. Having finished the burial services, he 
asked if he could be of any further service. My answer was a detail to get him to the field 
hospital as quickly as possible and my sincere, heartfelt thanks." 

In answer to a question as to the name of this chaplain and the regiment to which he 
belonged, Major Keck replied : " I do not know either, but I think he was the chaplain of the 
Sixth or Sixteenth. A more heroic deed was never witnessed on a battle-field." 

ON BOARD U. S. A. TRANSPORT " GRANT," 

En route to Manila, February 6, 1899. 
CATHOLIC WORLD MAGAZINE : 

Your favor of December i was duly received. I have taken some trouble to ascertain the 
name of the gentleman to whom you refer. I have made diligent inquiries among the men 
of the command, and as near as I can find out it refers to Chaplain Fitzgerald, who was on 
duty during the campaign in front of Santiago with the Twenty-second U. S. Infantry. 

Very respectfully, H. W. LAWTON, 

Major-General U. S. Vols. 



52 FATHER FITZGERALD. [April, 

Out on the sunken road they sped 
With the starry flag well on ahead : 

For they knew there was work enough that day 
Where the forts of Caney blocked the way. 

But little they thought would come so soon 

The " Mauser's " whizz and the schrapnel's croon ! 

Sudden around, like a wintry gale, 
Fell a hissing shower of leaden hail. 

It seemed to fall from the skies and the breeze 
It seemed to spring from the earth and trees : 

It leaped out here and it leaped out there, 
Its message of blood ran everywhere ! 

But onward, with never a halt or rest, 
The dauntless Twenty-second pressed ; 

And, there, where the bullets whistled and flew 
Father Fitzgerald was marching too 

Marching and working there in the van 
As a soldier priest and a soldier man ! 

Out of the zone of fire he bore 
Many a comrade, wounded sore 

From the foremost line of the fierce attack 
To the mango-tree he bore them back ! 

Unto their wounds he gave a balm, 
And unto their souls a holy calm : 

To the ears that were closing for ever there 
He breathed a word of comfort and prayer : 

Over the brow, blood-wet from the strife, 
He poured the blessed waters of life ; 

The soldier saw, thro' the crimson mist, 
The light of the Holy Eucharist, 



1899-] FATHER FITZGERALD. 

And the shades of death were swept away 
In the joy of the dawn of the Coming Day ! 

Thus, thro' the thick of the fight, he worked, 
Nor ever an errand of mercy shirked. 

His canvas jacket, tattered and worn, 
By many a " Mauser " shot was torn : 

But on he forged where the good flag went 
With the men of the fighting regiment 

On, till the bugle charge was heard, 
Till gallant Lawton gave the word 

Till the banner of Spain came, riddled, down 
From the forts in front of Caney town ! 

Cheers for their valor and tears for our loss 
And our hearts to the Captain of the Cross 



53 





54 A MONTAUK INCIDENT. [April, 

A MONTAUK INCIDENT. 

BY HENRIETTA DANA SKINNER. 

[URE your riverence could help me!" 

I turned to look at the speaker, a plain, honest 
Irishwoman of middle age, with a stout, shape- 
less figure and broad, simple, snub-featured coun- 
tenance that one immediately associates with 
washtubs and mops and brooms. 

" What can I do for you, my child ? " I asked. I was 
pressed for time, as many of my sick soldier boys were criti- 
cally ill ; the heat was intense, and the confusion still reigning 
at the newly organized hospital camp made it difficult for me 
to accomplish my visits as rapidly as I would wish. 

She curtsied " If you could find my boy for me, father," 
she said. " We saw by the paper that he was sick here, and I 
came up from the city to be with him ; but they won't let me 
go round to look for him." 

" What company is he in ? " I inquired. 

" Sure I don't know who his friends are here," she answered 
stupidly. 

" What regiment is he in ? " I explained as patiently as I 
could. "What company of what regiment?" 

" Sure, I don't know his regiment, father, but his name is 
Larry Byrne." 

" But his name is not enough ; you must know the name of 
his regiment and the number of his company or you will never 
find him in a military camp," I exclaimed. Stupidity is always 
very irritating to me. I find it easier to love a sinner than a 
stupid person. 

" I have never heard it, father, or else I don't remember 
it ; but what difference does it make ? Everybody knows Larry 
Byrne, and wasn't his name in the paper this very morning? 
That is how I came to know he was here at all. Just ask for 
Larry Byrne, father darlint, and sure they will all be telling 
you where he is ! " 

Poor soul! She had little notion of red tape, little idea of 
the utter hopelessness of finding plain, unvarnished, unnumbered 
Larry Byrne in that vast hospital camp. I questioned her fur- 
ther and found that she had already lost two boys on the 
battle-fields about Santiago, and that this was her youngest and 
her only support. 



1899-] A MONTAUK INCIDENT. 55 

" I didn't want to have him go to the war," she explained, 
" but he was crazy to enlist. He had been loafing for a month, 
and he thought it would give him a little more money, so I let 
him go, though it's little good the money '11 do him now, poor 
lad! The two big boys died down there in Cuby, where I 
couldn't be with them ; but when I heard my little lad was here 
and ill I had to come. I have never been outside the city 
before, father, and I couldn't have found my way at all but for 
this little girl here. Annie is right smart about finding her way." 

I noticed then for the first time a pale, slender young girl, 
of fifteen or sixteen years, standing modestly near her. She 
looked tired and dispirited. 

" How long have you been here ? " I inquired. 

" Since eleven o'clock, your riverence." 

It was now two o'clock the hottest hour of a hot, sultry 
day. They had not found him yet, and it was not likely they 
would ever find him, for they had no pass or permit of any 
kind, and could only hang around the outskirts of the camp ap- 
pealing to such persons as appeared kindly disposed to help them. 

"I will do the best I can for you, though it is little enough," 
I said, very doubtful of success. " I have many imperative 
sick-calls to make, so I cannot stop to search for him myself, 
but I will try to interest others to look him up." 

" We will wait here, your riverence. God be with you and 
bring you to my boy ! " 

"Look for Larry Needle in Camp Haystack!" laughed 
the first official to whom I addressed myself. I saw plainly 
enough that there was little encouragement to be had, but as 
I passed from one hospital tent to another I persevered in ques- 
tioning officers and nurses. All shook their heads doubtfully. 

" There might be a dozen Larry Byrnes here, but we could 
only find them by the number of their company," they ex- 
plained courteously, though I already knew this well enough. 
I turned somewhat sharply to reprimand a young volunteer 
loafing near who seemed inclined to joke at the expense of 
Larry Byrne's mother. 

" Boss," he said, sobering down, " I guess you haven't been 
here long. We've seen mothers' sons dying hereabouts so 
often that we've forgotten how to care. You '11 be indifferent 
yourself after a few days." 

It was true that I had not been there long. I was tempor- 
arily filling the place of a volunteer chaplain, and this was only 
my third day at Montauk Point. I was sick at heart and torn 
with compassion at the scenes around me till I was almost un- 



56 A MONTA UK INCIDENT. [April, 

nerved for my duties. Hitherto I had frequently visited hos- 
pital wards and witnessed operations, and attended the injured 
in accidents such duties came to me often enough in the ex- 
ercise of my vocation, and I had always borne myself with calm- 
ness and self-possession. But the sight of these suffering, home- 
sick soldier boys was too much for me. The long, hot, weary 
afternoon brought many distressing cases to administer to; there 
were confessions to hear, dying messages to record, lonely 
hearts to soothe, tired, fever-consumed eyes to close, disheart- 
ened sufferers to sustain and cheer. It was fully six o'clock 
before my rounds were over and I could return to the spot 
where I had left Larry Byrne's mother. I hoped she might 
not be there, that by some happy stroke of luck he might 
have been found. But she was still waiting, standing patiently, 
her lips moving mechanically as the beads of her rosary slipped 
through her fingers. 

" No news ? " I asked, though I well knew what the answer 
must be. 

She shook her head sadly : " No, father, no one has found 
him for us yet." 

" My poor child, you must come with me and have some- 
thing to eat. You will be faint, standing there since early 
morning, and it may be some hours yet before we find him." 

" I couldn't eat, father dear. It will be time enough to eat 
after we have found him. But Annie had better have a bite, 
poor little girl ! She never was very strong." 

The girl shook her head and I saw there was no use in 
urging her. She looked paler and more discouraged than ever, 
but I have seen that gentle, quiet sort before. They are stub- 
born as mules when they have a fixed idea in their heads. I 
knew that she would not eat nor drink nor rest, but neither 
would she faint. She would simply endure to the end. 

I was hungry and hot and tired myself, but how could I 
think of food or refreshment before these suffering hearts ? I 
turned once more towards the camp. 

"This time I will not come back till I find him for you, if 
he is here at all," I promised Larry Byrne's mother. 

" I '11 keep on praying, father, and you '11 find him sure." 

For nearly two hours I searched the camp, high and low. 
I addressed surgeons, officials, and nurses, many kind and con- 
siderate in the extreme, a few ungracious and abrupt. I could 
hardly blame them for a little impatience. To ask for Larry 
Byrne without number of regiment or name of company was 
like hunting in New York City without address of street or 



1899-] A MONTAUK INCIDENT. 57 

district. Still it did not warrant the storm of abuse hurled at 
me from one young fellow, a new-fledged lieutenant of volun- 
teers. He drew himself up in the consciousness of his new 
dignity and let loose a volley of expletives that I had never 
heard equalled in the slums of Chicago, where it has been my 
lot to labor for many years past. Oath upon oath rolled off 
from his tongue with appalling volubility. I waited quietly for 
him to finish. 

" Well," I said at last, " do you feel better, more like a 
soldier, more exalted, more worthy of your rank, a better 
American, a finer officer? Do you feel that the country is 
honored and the army ennobled by your words? Do you think 
that those of us who have had ; to listen to you will respect 
your wisdom and courage and dignity any more for this tirade? 
If you have any such idea, you will find that you have fallen 
just one hundred per cent, in the estimation of all who have 
heard you belittle yourself." 

Just then a young fellow came up and touched me respect- 
fully on the arm. He was weak and convalescing, evidently. 

" Parson," he said awkwardly, " there's a chap a-dying in 
our tent and I guess he belongs to your faith. Would you 
mind coming to see him a minute? " 

" What is his name ? " I asked, starting at once. 

" Larry Byrne." 

I quickened my steps. It was true that there might be a 
donen Larry Byrnes in the camp ; it was not an uncommon 
name, and I must not feel too sure that I was being led to the 
one I sought. As I entered the tent I perceived a fever- 
stricken lad of eighteen or thereabouts lying in the further 
corner. There were others in the tent, but this one bore the 
unmistakable stamp of death in his drawn, wasted countenance, 
his thin lips and gleaming teeth, the ashen hue of brow and 
cheek, the wild eyes burning like coals of fire. He was in the last 
stages of exhaustion, but perfectly conscious. I knelt by his side. 

"I knew God wouldn't let me die without seeing a priest," 
he gasped in hoarse whispers. " I've 'got too good a mother 
for Him to let any of her boys die out of His grace. I had 
two brothers, wild boys at home that gave her a lot of trouble, 
but in camp they said their -prayers regular night and morn- 
ing, and when they were dying, at San Juan, I found them 
with two Spanish priests attending them who had come out 
from the city to anoint the dying on the battle-field. I knew 
God would take as good care of me as of them, for mother 
loved me best." 



58 A MONTAUK INCIDENT. [April, 

I heard his confession and prepared him for death. He 
seemed ready to go, for he was too ill to struggle and death 
appeared to him as a friend, as it does to most of us in our 
last hour. When I saw that his conscience was at ease, and 
had done all that I could do for him, I said : 

"Would you like to see your mother?" 

" Wouldn't I ?" he exclaimed. "Poor mother! She has had 
a hard life. The boys were wild, and father drank and abused 
her. She will feel bad to lose me. But she could never get 
here, poor mother! She never was out of the city in her life." 

" But she is here," I said quietly. " I have just seen her." 

He looked incredulous. " It can't be mother," he said, sigh- 
ing. " It's some other Byrne. There's plenty of the name. 
She never could find her way any too well in the city ; we 
always had to look after her. It's some other poor fellow's 
mother." 

"We shall see," I said. "I will bring her here and we 
shall see." 

I threaded my way among tents and wagons and packing 
boxes, past groups of men and animals, to the spot where I had 
left Mrs. Byrne. The sun had set, but the air was breathless 
and close. The ocean breeze had failed us in our need that 
day. The homely, patient figure still stood there in the twi- 
light, the lips moving and the beads of the rosary slipping 
through her fingers. She started forward at sight of me, too 
weary for eagerness or smiles, but with a patient gladness 
lighting up the plain face. 

" I knew you couldn't help but find him, father," was her 
greeting. 

" It may be a mistake," I said cautiously, " but come with 
me." I turned to re-enter the camp, when an officer blocked 
my way. There is something about these young officers of 
volunteers that arouses all my combativeness, though, with the 
latent sympathy between priest and soldier, I will obey a regu- 
lar to the dotting of an " i." I tried to push by him. 

" No entrance," he said curtly. 

"And why not?" I asked. 

" No civilians allowed in camp at this hour." 

" By whose orders ? " I asked again. 

He drew himself up haughtily. "By mine!" he thundered. 

Then I did what I should have done in the first place, if I 
had not lost my temper. I put my hand in my breast-pocket 
and pulled out my permit, signed by the commanding officer, 
and countersigned by the Secretary of War, giving me entrance 



1899-] A MONTAUK INCIDENT. 59 

to the camp at all times and places. The officer sullenly with- 
drew and I passed in. Mrs. Byrne was about to follow me. 

"You have no permit for the woman," he said, holding her 
back. She stood patiently still. 

" She goes with me," I said. " Her son is dying and I am 
taking her to see him. There is not a moment to lose." 

"You may go where you please," he replied, "but you 
must get a separate permit for her. Women are not allowed 
to enter after dark." 

I knew that he was in the right and that there was nothing 
to be gained by arguing or pleading. She must take up her 
weary waiting once more. 

" God help you, poor soul ! " I said. " Keep up your cour- 
age, and trust in God." 

"I will, father," she replied. "Sure, He has never failed 
me yet, glory be to His holy will." 

The tears rushed to my eyes as I turned away. Ah ! how 
often it is the poor who teach us the gospel, and we, who are 
sent to preach it to them, may sit at their feet and learn. 

I went directly to headquarters, for there is no use apply- 
ing to subordinates, who often have not the power to help 
even if they have the will. The commanding officer was the 
busiest man in the camp, but his time and attention were at 
every one's service and I had no fear of the result. Nevertheless 
I must await my turn, and it was striking nine o'clock before 
I once more rejoined the patient, waiting figures in the moonlight. 

We hurried along in silence. Sad scenes passed before us, 
heart-breaking sounds met our ears, but we passed rapidly by, 
absorbed in the fear of being too late. I opened the flap of 
the tent. It was dimly lighted, but peering into the farther 
corner I could see the pinched, waxen face, and the fever- 
scorched eyes glaring in the darkness like balls of fire. He 
still lived and was conscious. I drew the mother forward. 
" Is it he ? " I asked. 

There was silence as she groped her way towards the cot ; 
then a wild cry rang out, a sound hardly human in its agony. 
It was as the cry of some hunted, wounded animal. But in an 
instant she recovered herself and drew nearer the cot. The 
nurse moved thoughtfully toward the door, and I turned my 
face away. Such a reunion was too sacred for witnesses. But 
I could hear the mother approach the cot, I felt her bending 
over the poor living skeleton, and my ears caught the first 
words she addressed to her dying boy, the last left to her of three. 

"Larry dear, have you made your peace with God?" 



60 A Mo NT AUK INCIDENT. [April, 

I went down on my knees then. O woman, great is thy 
faith ! and surely the Master is not far from thee, who shall 
declare thy praise before all the Court of Heaven. 

The ghost of a smile crept over the lad's livid features. 
"Yes, mother," he murmured; "and now I know that it is 
really you and not a dream, for that would be the first ques- 
tion you would ask me." 

"Praise be to God!" she cried, "but He is good to us, 
Larry boy, to let us be together again." 

He raised his thin, wasted claw of a hand and laid it over 
her broad red one, stroking it fondly and saying from time to 
time, " Poor mother! Poor mother! " He tried to tell her some- 
thing in broken whispers. I guessed from her subdued ex- 
clamations that he spoke of his brothers. 

The young girl had crept to the other side of the cot and 
knelt there sobbing quietly. At last he turned his eyes from 
his mother and looked at her, and for a moment their fever- 
light was subdued to softness. 

" It's little Annie," he whispered. " She must have brought 
you, mother, for you could never have got here alone. Annie 
was always good to you, mother ; she will be good to you when 
I'm gone." 

At last the great change came. It was ten o'clock when 
Larry Byrne's mother turned hastily and beckoned me to the 
bedside, and together we said the prayers for the passing soul. 
Then she tenderly closed the quenched eyes and crossed the 
emaciated hands. 

The young girl had thrown herself face downwards on the 
floor, sobbing convulsively, but the mother stood like a statue 
by the bedside. I tried to murmur a few words of comfort 
and hope. She turned towards me, her homely face transfigured 
by a smile of infinite faith and patient trust. No sob escaped 
her, though the tears poured down her broad cheeks. 

"Yes, it's God that knows best, father dear," she said. " I 
ain't asking any questions, for He has known best all along. He 
took them two wild boys where they were scared into saying 
their prayers reg'lar, and His mercy followed them way to Cuby 
and sent two foreign priests to anoint them. And now that 
He sees fit to take my Larry away too, glory be to His holy 
will! The three boys will be waiting for their old mother up 
in heaven, and in God's mercy I sha'n't be long in going to 
them, for me poor heart is broke, me heart is broke, me heart 
is broke ! " 




1899-] SYMPATHY. 61 

SYMPATHY. 

BY REV. WILLIAM A. SUTTON, SJ. 

pity and feel for creatures sharing in some 
way our sentient and intellectual nature. To 
some extent we make their sufferings and other 
states of consciousness our own, because we 
can imagine how we ourselves should feel if we 
were in their state. Hence pity is a kind of sadness, for sad- 
ness is caused by evil of any kind being present to and affecting 
us. This too explains how pity consoles sufferers. They per- 
ceive their affliction is shared by another and that lightens their 
own burden, as really as one carrying or drawing a load is 
relieved by some one lending a helping hand. 

At first sight it would seem that it would be better for our- 
selves to keep out of the way of sufferers. Pity for them 
makes us sad, and sadness is a passion to be avoided and re- 
sisted. " Drive away sadness far from thee. For sadness hath 
killed many, and there is no profit in it " (Ecclus. xxx. 24-25). 
But this means excessive, unreasonable, selfish sadness. Like 
all passions if not brought under due control, it is utterly 
ruinous. Passions are not bad in themselves. They are essen- 
tial components of sentient creatures. In man they are the 
raw material of virtue and of vice. If allowed to have their 
own way, they lead to every misery ; if brought under the 
control of reason, they minister to all that is good and great 
in human character. Natural inclination to commiserate others 
is a most lovable quality ; but, being in us of the nature of emo- 
tion or passion, it must be trained, developed, perfected by 
reason, and, above all, by the light of faith and the help of grace. 
Sympathy is more commonly and conspicuously excited by 
sorrow than by joy ; but unselfish sharing in the gladness of 
others is a beautiful manifestation of it too. " Rejoice with 
them that rejoice, weep with them that weep" (Rom. xii. 15). 
We alleviate sorrow by our sympathy, and we increase glad- 
ness and joy. Gladness is caused by the presence and posses- 
sion of good, as sadness by evil. When another in joy sees 
us glad because of his well-being, he instinctively recognizes 
that in our friendliness his own joy has reason for increase, 
for a friend is, as such, an alter ego. Sympathetic manifestation 
of good will consequently adds new and increased joy. 



62 SYMPATHY. [April, 

Selfishness is the cause of the absence of both kinds of sym- 
pathy. Selfishness is seeking our own comfort and well-being 
at the expense of others, either by taking from them or refusing 
to give what in any way they may have a reasonable claim on, 
whether it be a claim of justice or merely a claim on our kind- 
ness. We refuse or avoid commiseration in order not to become 
miserable ourselves ; we will not rejoice with others, because 
pride and envy make us feel others' success as constituting them 
superior to ourselves. Pride is, above all, a longing for superi- 
ority. Envy looks upon the good of others as an evil to one's 
self, and instead of joy at another's prosperity sadness is caused. 
We feel our own inferiority when we see others prosperous or 
joyous from what we have nothing to do with, or it may be 
from things that we ourselves are clearly wanting in. It would 
be well worth our while to cultivate sympathy, if only to avoid 
falling into envy, a passion that becomes continual torture 
when much indulged. 

" Invidia Siculi non invenere tyranni 
Majus tormentum " (Hor., ep. ii. lib. i. 58). 

I lately came across a quotation from Alexander Dumas 
which bears upon the above : " La Rochefoucauld a dit : 
' nous avons tous assez de force en nous pour supporter le mal- 
heur des autres.' II aurait pu ajouter : ' Mais nous n'en avons 
pas toujours autant pour supporter leur bonheur.' ' "La Roche- 
foucauld has said : ' We all have fortitude enough to bear the 
misfortune of others.' He might have added : ' but we have 
not always as much to endure their good fortune.' ' 

There never was a greater mistake than to think and act on 
the principle that sympathy for others in sorrow and joy inter- 
feres with our own content and happiness. Experience proves 
quite the contrary. As long as we are wrapt up in ourselves 
our own troubles occupy our imagination, which exaggerates 
them greatly and causes great depression. If we get away 
from ourselves and occupy our thoughts with the sorrows and 
troubles of others and try to relieve them, great good for our- 
selves ensues. We no longer brood over and distort exagger- 
atedly our own worries, and that in itself is a considerable 
source of relief. Besides, using our sympathetic passions in the 
right way gratifies them, soothes our conscience, makes us feel 
we are doing as we ought, gives us a sense of usefulness and 
worth ; moreover there is added the satisfaction experienced 
from the appreciation and gratitude of those we help and con- 



1899-] SYMPATHY. 63 

sole, and the esteem in general gained from being recognized 
as doing our part in that social organism of which we are 
necessarily members. One who is known to be selfish is in- 
stinctively detested, because he is always on the lookout to 
secure his own advantage at the expense of others. An un- 
selfish person is instinctively liked, because he willingly lets 
others have all that they have any claim to, and even goes out 
of his way to be obliging and helpful. Man is a social ani- 
mal. Selfishness is the enemy of society, unselfishness its 
greatest friend. 

It is not always easy to be pleased because others succeed 
and are glad ; it is often hard. But what has been done can 
be done, and we can train ourselves to sympathize in this 
most unselfish and beautiful way. If we make the effort a few 
times, we shall see the thing can be done, just like overcoming 
irritability or any other disorderly passion ; and then the habit 
of doing right in this direction begins to be formed, and soon 
we are masters of the situation. We are creatures of habits 
good and evil, and habit becomes second nature, as it is said. 
There is so much satisfaction in rejoicing with others that we 
are well rewarded, even if we did not look higher ; but of course 
we shall have higher motives and higher helps ; for all that, we 
must make use, too, of every natural help, for grace in every 
way makes use of natural powers and circumstances. 

A great aid to becoming sympathetic is to aim at trying to 
understand other people's way of looking at things. If we 
cultivated this habit, we should rapidly develop the sympathe- 
tic faculty. It is not stupid and ignorant people only that 
never think there is any way of viewing a question besides 
their own. I heard it said of an able and good man in high 
position that he could not conceive how any honest man could 
disagree with him. As a matter of fact, perfectly honest and 
intelligent people disagree irreconcilably on all manner of sub- 
jects ; such is the force of surroundings, inherited tendencies, 
prejudices, intellectual and moral limitations. Trying to put 
ourselves in others' places and states of mind is a wonderful 
assistance in getting over bitterness towards opponents, and thus 
being able to deal justly and without anger and vindictiveness. 
When people are an annoyance to us, great or small, our im- 
aginations get so possessed by our own trouble that we think 
of our opponents solely as a cause of suffering to ourselves, 
forgetting that they, too, have plenty to trouble them and to 
be pitied for. It is quite true that they are very often un- 



64 THE FIRST EASTER. [April, 

reasonable, as we are ourselves, and it is necessary to oppose 
them ; but we shall best succeed in bringing them to reason, 
or setting things right, if we are sympathetic, if we try to 
look fairly at their side of the question. 

Well-regulated sympathy practically manifested is the best 
cure for misery and sadness. It brings a special blessing at 
such times to be kind to others. But at all times, under all 
circumstances, for attaining and preserving peaceful cheerfulness 
there is nothing like sympathy, kindness, mercy towards the sick, 
the poor, or the afflicted in any way. It is a natural reward. 
But it is also a reward of grace and in the supernatural order. 
Our Lord has promised peace and consolation to those who are 
rightly sympathetic. " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall 
obtain mercy." Mercy means more than what there is any claim 
to far more. Our Lord means that God will pour blessings 
on the merciful which will be the most soothing cure of all 
their miseries, and that to a great extent even in this life. If 
you want to be mirthful, be merciful. 




THE FIRST EASTER. 

BY MARION ARNOLD. 

'ER the Judean hills the dawn is creeping, 
Bringing the day with its griefs again ; 
On her lowly couch is Mary sleeping, 

O'er-wrought by the Passion's awful pain. 
Often she breathes His name in dreaming 
Sorrowful dreams of her bitter loss 
On Calvary's Mount, the mother seeming 
To stand again 'neath the mournful Cross. 

But list ! a strain as of angels singing 

Soft and sweet through the morning air, 
An echo of heaven-born music bringing 

To the lonely couch of the sleeper there. 
The strain takes on a joyful wording, 

And the mother stirs in her troubled dreams : 
But what are the angels' songs recording 

As the light o'er the Judean hill-sides streams? 



1 899.] THE FIRST EASTER. 

" Regina Cceli, laetare ! " thrilling, 

And " Alleluia " in chorus strong : 
In the light that all the world is filling 

The mother wakes with the angels' song. 
And there in the midst of the brightness beaming 

She sees her Son, and she hears His voice : 
" Mother ! " Ah, this cannot be dreaming, 

For the angels are bidding her soul rejoice. 

But come away ! It were rash presuming 

To tell of that meeting with mortal tongue ; 
With the light of heaven our souls illuming, 

We shall hear the story by angels sung. 
O Heart of Christ ! on some Easter morning 

We shall learn the strength of Thy love divine!; 
We shall sound the depths of that tender warning: 

" My child, let thy heart be always Mine." 




VOL. LX1X. 5 



66 



A HEAVENLY ADVENTURE. 



[April, 




A HEAVENLY ADVENTURE. 

BY COMTE DE V. DE L'ISLE ADAM. 

" Go to the sea, and cast in a hook : and that fish which shall first come up, take ; and when 
thou hast opened its mouth, thou shalt find a stater ; take that, and give." Matt. xvii. 26. 

OW that that seraphic child, Sister Euphrasia, 
has fled into the Realms of Light, why should 
we still call earthly the " miracle " by which she 
was so enraptured ? Indeed, this noble saint 
(but just fallen asleep in the Lord at the age of 
eight-and-twenty, superior of a Provencal order of Little Sisters 
of the Poor, founded by herself) would not have been scandal- 
ized to learn the natural cause of her sudden vocation. Her 
way of seeing things was too truly humble for her to have 
been troubled thereat, even for a single instant. All the same, 
it is as well that I kept silence until the present time. 

About a kilometre from Avignon stood, in 1860, not far 
from the verdant lands above the Rhone, an isolated hut of 
sordid aspect, lighted by a single window with iron-shod 
shutters, and situated in full view of a protecting police-barrack, 
on the outskirts of the suburbs, hard by the main road. Here 
an old Israelite, called Father Moses, had long dwelt. He was 
not a wicked Jew, notwithstanding his lifeless face, osprey's 
brow, and bald head, which was modelled and tightly bound 
round by a close-fitting cap, of which the stuff, and eke the 
hue, must for ever remain indeterminate. Still fresh and 
vigorous, he was quite capable of following closely, in a few 
forced marches, on the heels of Assuerus. But he never went 
out, and only received visitors with extreme caution. At night, 
a complete system of snares and wolf-traps protected him be- 
hind his ill-fastened door. Helpful, especially towards his co- 
religionists, invariably charitable towards every one, he dealt 
exclusively with the sick, to whom alone he lent, preferring to 
hoard his riches. 

For this practical and God-fearing man the sceptical ideas 
of the age in nowise altered the primitive faith, and Moses 
prayed as well between two usurious transactions as between 
two gifts of alms. Not being devoid of heart, he was particular 
to repay the least service rendered to him. 



1899-] A HEAVENLY ADVENTURE. 67 

As he looked forth with pale gray eyes at his surroundings, 
he was perchance aware of the cool, fresh country that lay 
extended beneath his windows. A distant object, however, 
placed on a slight eminence, commanding the river-side meadows 
to the edge of the stream, spoilt his horizon for him. This 
Thing he turned from the sight of it with a sort of annoyance 
(an annoyance not inconceivable in his case), with an insur- 
mountable aversion ! 

It was a very old Calvary, tolerated, as an archaeological 
curiosity, by the then city magistrates. Twenty-one steps must 
be climbed before arriving at the great central cross, which 
supports a Gothic figure of Christ, nearly obliterated by the 
work of time. It stands between the two smaller crosses of the 
thieves, Dipha and Gesmas. 

One night Father Moses, his feet on a stool, his spectacles 
on his nose, and his cap against the lamp, was leaning over a 
small table, covered with diamonds, gold, pearls, and precious 
documents. This table stood in front of the window which 
opened on to the night. The Jew was engaged in auditing his 
accounts in a dusty ledger. 

He had remained up very late. All the faculties of his 
being had become absorbed in his labors, so that his ears, deaf 
to the idle sounds of nature, had remained for hours inatten- 
tive to certain distant cries, numerous, wide-spread, terrifying, 
which, all the evening, had gone on piercing the silence and 
the gloom. 

A great, clear moon was sailing down the wide abyss of 
blue, and now no more sounds were heard. "Three millions!" 
cried Father Moses, placing a last figure to the total. 

But the joy of the old man, exulting in the depths of* his 
heart and filled with a sense of the realization of his ideal, 
ended in a shudder. For there was no room for doubt some- 
thing icy suddenly gripped his feet ! He pushed away his foot- 
stool, and jumped up quickly. 

Horror! A lapping flood, by which the chamber was in- 
vaded, was bathing his thin legs ! The house was creaking. 
His eyes, straying outside the window, dilated as they per- 
ceived the immense extent of the waters that covered the 
lowlands and farms. Here was the inundation ! the sudden 
overflow, terrible and increasing, of the Rhone. 

" God of Abraham ! " he stammered. 

Without losing an instant, notwithstanding his panic, he 
cast off his clothes all but his patched trousers, flung off his 



68 A HEAVENLY ADVENTURE. [April, 

shoes, and crammed the more precious objects from his table 
diamonds and securities pell-mell into a little leathern bag 
(which he hung round his neck), reflecting that, by and by, be- 
neath the ruins of his hovel, he would be able to recover his 
buried gold. Flac-flac, he strode across the room, that he 
might seize from the top of an old chest a bundle of bank-notes 
already saturated and sticking together. Then he mounted on 
his window-sill, and pronouncing three times the Hebrew word 
Kodosch, which signifies " Holy," he flung himself, knowing 
himself for a good swimmer, upon the mercy of his God. 

His hut sank behind him, noiselessly, beneath the waters. 
In the distance no boat ! Whither should he fly ? He turned 
towards Avignon, but the waters seemed to add to the dis- 
tance, and it was now far, far from him ! Where could he 
rest ? where find a footing ? Ah ! the only spark of light, there, 
upon the height, was that Calvary, whose steps were already 
disappearing beneath the boiling waves and eddies of the furi- 
ous waters. 

"Seek shelter from that Image? No, never!" The old 
Jew was in earnest in his beliefs, and although the danger was 
pressing, although modern ideas, and the compromises which 
they inspire, were far from being unknown to this gloomy 
fugitive, this seeker after an Ark, it was repugnant to him to 
owe, were it only earthly salvation to what was there. His 
outline, at that moment, reflected from the waters which mir- 
rored the stars, might well give rise to a dream of the Deluge. 

He swam at hazard. Suddenly, a forbidding yet ingenious 
thought crossed his mind. " I forgot," said he to himself, pant- 
ing (and the water ran from the two points of his beard) " I 
forgot that, after all, there is up there the unlucky impenitent 
Thief. By my faith, I see no hindrance to seeking refuge be- 
side the excellent Gesmas, while I await my deliverance." 

He then steered, all scruples appeased, with energetic strokes, 
across the rolling arches of the flood, in the clear moonshine, 
towards the Three Crosses. After a quarter of an hour they 
appeared to him, colossal, a hundred yards from his congealed 
and rigid limbs. They stood without visible support on the 
wide waters. As he gazed, breathing hard and seeking to dis- 
cover, to the left, the gibbet of his choice, behold the two 
side crosses, more frail than the central, creaked, weighed down 
by the current of the Rhone, and the worm-eaten wood 
yielded. With a sort of terrified, dark curtsy, both fell back 
silently into the foam. 



1899-] A HEAVENLY ADVENTURE. 69 

Moses did not advance. Wild and haggard before the spec- 
tacle, he all but sank, and spat forth two mouthfuls of water. 
Behold ! now the Supreme Sign, the great Cross alone, Spes unica, 
was outlined upon the depths of firmamental space. It held 
forth its pale One, thorn-crowned, nailed, with extended arms 
and closed eyes. 

The old man, suffocated, almost fainting, with nothing left 
but the instinct of drowning creatures, decided, in desperation, 
to swim towards the Sublime Emblem, the gold he must save 
trebling his last efforts, and justifying the act in his eyes, 
dimmed by the approach of the death-agony. He arrived at 
the foot of the Cross. Oh ! it was with a bad grace (to his 
honor be it said) and with his head averted -as much as possi- 
ble that he resigned himself he, the man, barely escaping 
death by drowning to seize and clasp his arms round the tree 
of the Abyss ; that tree which crushes all human reasonings 
beneath it, dividing Infinity into four, clearly-marked roads. 
The poor rich man gained a footing. The water welled up, 
raising his body to half the height of the Figure. Around 
him the flood, wide-spread and silent ! . . . Ah ! there a 
sail ! a boat ! 

He cried out. They tacked. They had seen him. 

At that very moment a movement of the water (some river 
dam breaking in the darkness) lifted him, with a great upheaval, 
to the Wound in the side. This was so terrible and so sudden 
that he had barely time to clasp, body to body and face to 
face, the image of the Expiator, and then to hang suspended, 
his head thrown back, his bushy eyebrows contracted over his 
piercing and sidelong glances, whilst the points of his beard 
moved to and fro in the water. 

The old Israelite, clinging to and astride of Him-who-par- 
dons, and unable to release his hold, gazed sideways at his 
" Saviour." 

" Hold fast ! We are coming," cried voices drawing near, 
and sounding distinctly. 

" Well ! " growled Father Moses, whose horrified muscles 
seemed about to betray him " well ! here is a service ren- 
dered by One . . . from whom I certainly expected nothing. 
Not wishing to owe anything to any one, it is only just that 
I should repay Him ... as I would repay a living man. 
Let me give well, what I would give ... to a man." 

And whilst the boat approached, Moses, in his character- 
istic zeal to cry quits, rummaged in his pocket and drew thence 



70 A HEAVENLY ADVENTURE. [April, 

a piece of gold, which he pressed gravely and to the best of 
his ability in between the fingers of the right hand, which 
were folded over the nail. 

" Quits!" he murmured, letting himself fall, almost fainting, 
into the arms of the boatmen. The very legitimate fear of 
losing his leathern bag kept him self-possessed till the landing 
at Avignon. The warmed bed of an inn comforted him there. 
In this town, a month later, he established himself, having re- 
covered his gold from beneath the wreck of his old home ; and 
in this town he passed away in his hundredth year. 

Now, in the December of the year which followed this 
singular incident, a young, orphaned, country girl, Euphrasia 
by name, very poor and with a charming face, attracted the 
attention of certain rich citizens of Vaucluse. Disconcerted by 
her inexplicable rebuffs, they resolved, in her own interests, to 
snare her by famine. She was soon turned off (at their insti- 
gation) from the work-room where she gained the daily ten- 
pence which kept her in bread and good humor, in exchange 
for but eleven hours of labor (the work-room belonging to one 
of the most respectable families of the town). 

The same day she found herself turned out also from the 
poor room where, morning and night, she gave thanks to God. 
To be quite just, the landlord, who had children to provide for, 
had no right, and could not, seriously and conscientiously, ex- 
pose himself to the loss of the six good francs per month 
brought in by that little hole in his garret. 

"However honest she may be," said he, "it is not with 
sentiment that one pays one's taxes ; and, besides, perhaps it 
is for her own good" added he with a wink, "that I must seem 
harsh." 

Thus it happened that, in the winter twilight, when the 
tolling of the Angelus was borne on the wind, this trembling 
and unfortunate girl wandered along the snowy streets, and, 
not knowing whither to turn, bent her steps towards the Calvary. 

Led, very probably, by angels, whose wings bore, her up the 
white steps, she sank at the foot of the great cross, her body 
falling against the time-worn wood, as she murmured the 
simple words: "My God, send me a little help, or I shall die." 
And (here is something to make one think!) behold, from the 
right hand of the ancient figure of Christ, towards which the 
supplicant's eyes were raised, a piece of gold fell on the 
maiden's dress ; and this surprise, together with the sweet and 
never disturbing consciousness of a miracle, revived her. 



1899.] 



A HEAVENLY ADVENTURE. 



It was an old piece of money, bearing the stamp of Louis 
XVI. , the yellow gold of which shone on the black robe of 
the favored girl. Something from God, no doubt, falling at 
the same time into the virgin soul of this child of heaven, 
strengthened her courage. She took the gold without being 
even astonished ; rose, kissed the sacred feet, smiling, and fled 
towards the town. Having handed the six francs (which had 
caused the difficulty) to her reasonable landlord, she awaited 
the dawn upstairs, in her icy little bed ; eating her dry bread 
during the night, ecstasy in her heart, heaven in her eyes, and 
singleness of purpose in her soul. The very next day, filled 
with living force and insight, she began- her holy work, in 
spite of rebuffs, of closed doors, of evil-speaking, threats, and 
mockery. 

And the work of the Lord was well planned, was stable. 

To-day the young saint has just taken flight into her king- 
dom, victorious over the sneering foulness of earth, radiant 
because of the " miracle," which created her faith, in union with 
Him who "permits all things to come to pass." 





72 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF CUBA. [April, 

A PRACTICAL VIEW OF CUBA. 

BY JAMES M. McGINLEY. 

ITH a thermometer marking an average 
temperature of seventy-six for the 
C) month of February, and while blizzards 
and zero weather prevail in New York, 
it is not difficult to realize the induce- 
ments which the City of Havana will 
continue to offer to modern tourists ; 
particularly so when the new provisional government shall have 
completed its work of applying the broom and whitewash brush 
to public buildings and thoroughfares. Even now the number 
of visitors from the States is so large that accommodations are 
insufficient. People of all shades and conditions are discernible 
here ; the tourist pure and simple, who is a much-travelled and 
well-informed person ; the camera fiend, who inflicts his presence 
and toy machine upon everything from the high altar in the 
cathedral to the hut of the reconcentrado, and in whose eyes 
nothing is sacred. The American business man has also aimed 
at and is looking for " opportunities." The young man " out of 
a job " is to be found, who, being unable to " strike " any- 
thing at home, has turned his face to this newly-opened field. 
He is, perhaps, faring somewhat better than the business hustler 
with great schemes for rapidly making money in view, for many 
of these young men have succeeded in obtaining employment, 
if not at high wages at least at such an income as will afford 
them good living opportunities. 

PROSPECTS FOR BUSINESS. 

Rates of living are higher here than in Northern cities of 
the same size. Restaurant charges for good, clean food are 
excessive, and no doubt due to the recent influx of Americans. 
As soon as the latter locate in any particular district prices 
immediately take on a remarkable growth. Beyond question, 
the Spaniard, or Cuban, is more alert in making a profit from 
the American than the latter was at first led to suppose. Aside 
from these " fancy " prices, the charges for rents, food, and both 
the necessaries and the luxuries of life are about the same as 
they are in the States. 



1899-] A PRACTICAL VIE w OF CUBA. 73 

The " American hustler," so called, is entirely out of place 
here. Assertiveness, cynicism, and impetuosity are not qualifi- 
cations which lead to the open road of enterprise in these 
Spanish-American countries. Good temper, patience, and de- 
liberation, with an adoption of the native customs to a great 
extent, bring about better results. Combine these conditions 
with a good knowledge of the Spanish language, work hard, 
keep one's credit good, and as an American citizen one can 
reap a harvest in certain lines, but only in certain lines. The 
rapid and sky-rocket pace at which many Americans have made 
fortunes during the past decade has blinded them to many 
vital and fundamental principles still held by foreign merchants. 
One will be impressed here with the simplicity and economy 
with which great businesses are conducted in inexpensive build- 
ings and with but little advertising. The employer is not dis- 
tinguishable from the employee in general work and activity. 
In most cases, while living well, he -does not indulge in the 
luxury of a summer palace or the expensive pleasures of club 
life, but locates his living apartments in or near the same 
building with his business. . 

THE SPANIARD KEEN-EYED AND ALERT. 

A north-country Spaniard is a keen and able merchant, 
and a competitor whom all must respect in the business field. 
It is told that recently a delegation of American Hebrews came 
to the island in search of money-making enterprises, but dis- 
covering that none of their race had so far ever succeeded in 
maintaining a foothold, they departed on the next outgoing 
steamer, remarking that if a Jew had not yet made money 
there the conditions must be hard indeed. So much for the 
economic conditions. As yet the tariff regulations are against 
the United States. It is expected, though, that the amended 
schedule of 1898, now in operation, will be taken up shortly 
for revision and important changes will be made in it. At 
present foods and provisions from the United States are the 
main articles favored by its application. In many instances 
the rate of tariff is absolutely prohibitory to Americans, and 
where it is not, the uniformity or " open-door " policy of duties 
enables French, German, and English merchants to undersell 
American goods. A careful examination of the markets will 
show large European importations of foreign textiles, fancy 
goods, hardware, machinery, etc. When the schedules are 
definitely determined, it may be possible to note an increase of 
American manufactures ; but admitting this to be certain, it is 



74 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF CUBA. [April, 

probable that, with but few exceptions, American goods will 
only sell here because of some particular novelty or finish and 
not because of their low prices. A discriminating tariff in favor 
of the United States is not consistent with our humanitarian 
and open-door policy in the late war. Americans will not suc- 
ceed so well as shop-keepers and merchants as they will by 
introducing distinctively American institutions. 

Real estate transactions present many complications to a 
stranger. Ownership by corporate bodies is not based upon 
English or American methods. Large parcels of property may 
be owned by three or more individuals, but their interests are 
separate and distinct, and hence the difficulty of definitely clos- 
ing a transaction, with conflicting claims, within a reasonable 
time. Briefly, it may be said that if a purchaser is enabled to 
secure the deeds of any property, it is the best guarantee of 
ownership. Tracing back the possession of it is frequently 
attended with so many inaccuracies of record as to be unreliable. 

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

The work of the provisional government, under General 
Brooke, is proceeding rapidly. Major-General Ludlow is already 
established in his official headquarters as municipal governor of 
Havana, with a goodly number of assistants. As far as practi- 
cable, his administration will not conflict in any way with city 
local authority, which is controlled by Prefect La Costa 
as Mayor of Havana. It is the policy of the Brooke and 
Ludlow administration to fill all offices with Cubans as rapidly 
as they show ability to assume charge. Americans -will be 
secondary consideration in all government appointments, and 
with the mustering out of many United States troops, by next 
April the display of American authority here will become 
softened. Port Collector Colonel Bliss is following the lines laid 
down by the administration in making appointments for the 
custom house. Many of the candidates are Cuban soldiers or 
patriots, who preface their letters of application with a re- 
minder of the abuse they received from the Spanish govern- 
ment. In one of these letters of application the writer stated 
that " his possessions had been systematically confiscated, robbed 
and plundered from him during the last ten years by the 
Spanish government." 

HOUSE-CLEANING IN PROGRESS. 

But each day attests the energy of the new administration 
in the care of the cities. At every turn street-cleaners are 
working towards yet unexplored accumulations. All public 



1 899-1 



A PRACTICAL VIEW OF CUBA. 



75 



o 




76 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF CUBA. [April, 

buildings are being painted, scrubbed, and whitewashed as fast 
as time will permit ; and if the same operation could be ap- 
plied to many of the churches, schools, and dwellings it would 
be an untold blessing. A recent move of Major Cooke, who 
is in charge of the sanitary inspection, has been the appoint- 
ment of plumbing inspectors to make reports concerning the 
utility and hygienic condition of the plumbing service in stone 
dwelling houses, a great and immediate necessity. Before the 
entrance of the United States troops it was no uncommon 
sight to witness a flock of vultures feeding upon the carcass of 
some dead animal in the city streets ; in fact this spectacle oc- 
casionally offends the tourist even yet. Abuses of this charac- 
ter, together with revolting exhibitions of deformities and 
diseases by professional beggars in many of the prominent 
squares and thoroughfares, are to be remedied as quickly as 
the machinery of the administration can be made to do its 
work. 

Should the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
desire new fields of operation, it will certainly find an exten- 
sive one in Cuba. Horses and mules are overloaded and 
abused ; and as grass feed is the chief fodder for beasts of 
burden, they have little strength in comparison with our tem- 
perate, acclimated animals. It is a common sight to witness 
splendid teams of oxen yoked together in such a manner that 
free use of the head and shoulders is utterly impossible. 
Their heads are forced down into a heavy yoke which is placed 
directly back of the horns and on top of the head. From this 
yoke an iron chain passes down along the animal's nose and 
through his nostrils back again to its starting point. To see 
these patient beasts toiling in the hot sun all day with this 
cruel harness upon them is painful to any human being, and 
we hope before long steps will be taken to introduce more 
humanitarian methods here. 

THE CHURCH IN CUBA. 

The church and its standing in Cuba is at the present of 
universal interest. As to the much-discussed religious apathy 
of the people at least the male portion towards the religion 
of their country, it is safe to say that it is due more to personal 
disposition than to the lack* of apostolic zeal on the part of 
the church. The latter is best represented by the well-conducted 
establishment of the Jesuits and by the fathers of the Church of 
Mercedes, which is one of the most beautiful and artistic church 
edifices in the country. These churches, with their colleges, are 



1899-] A PRACTICAL VIEW OF CUBA. 77 

a credit to Catholicity in Cuba, and the modelling of their 
methods by other churches and communities, particularly in 
standards of activity, order, and cleanliness, would advance the 
influence of Catholic work so mightily that the so-called con- 
templated " mission " of Protestantism would have no further 
effect than that of stimulating the active workers of the Catho- 
lic Church to greater deeds of glory for their religion. " Mis- 
sions by Protestants" will probably act as a healthful stimulant 
and motive power for the church to begin a new era of life in 
Cuba. We have only to consider its marvellous growth in the 
United States and England, as well as in Mexico, during the 
last quarter of a century as proof of this. In the latter coun- 
try, although always strongly entrenched, and its policy guided 
at one time by the clerical party in combination with the gov- 
ernment, yet under the latter-day administration the position 
and influence of the church is greater than ever before. Pro- 
testant missionaries are forced to admit this through the failure 
of their own efforts. 

HOPEFUL SIGNS FOR THE FUTURE. 

The Spanish descendant is a Catholic normally and practi- 
cally and the old faith of his fathers is in his blood as strong 
as his love for country, but it needs awakening. While Spain 
yielded a revenue to the church of $1,800,000 annually, it 
was to be expected that her policy would be to support the gov- 
ernment and that her suggestions as to important appointments 
would receive consideration. This state of politics may ex- 
plain some things which appear strange alike to Catholics and 
Protestants. 

The funerealism as well as sad, heavy atmosphere surrounding 
many of the old Spanish churches and religious houses adapted 
itself to the moods and tastes of the people. The ornate dis- 
play of statues, gaudy paintings, and votive offerings, while not 
appealing to an 1 American Catholic, had yet a purpose in sym- 
bolizing the feelings of a people infused with Latin, Indian, 
and Negro blood, and of reaching sentiments which never could 
be realized by simple hymn and prayer. 

With the light and progress of the future, ever conducing 
o its advantage, the church will gain added encouragement, 
strength, and respect, and be an arbitrator in many perplexi- 
ties which will arise. No institution has so much work ahead 
of it and such splendid promise of success as has the church 
in Cuba when that land is under the guidance of the Republic. 

Monseigneur Chapelle is already there and at work ; Father 



78 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF CUBA. [April, 

Sherman was reported at the Jesuits' on the ist of March ; 
Father Jones, of the Augustinians, preached his first sermon in 
English to American tourists and Catholics in Havana three 
weeks ago at the old chapel adjoining the property of the 
Augustinians, who were expelled by the Spaniards some 
fifty years ago because of their Cuban tendencies. Father 
Jones expects to draw all American Catholics to his chapel for 
services because of the instruction given in English. Already 
the hand of the active American can be seen in the applica- 
tion he has made of broom and paint-pot, and in his well-defined 
ideas of modern art in the adornment and improvement of his 
chapel. Father Jones would impress one as a man of wide 
experience and thought, who will rapidly gain the co-operation 
of all Americans by his ability for work and his solicitous re- 
gard for the sick and dying soldiers in Havana hospital. His 
attendance to their spiritual comfort and needs is ever in de- 
mand, and this responsibility, in addition to his duties as a priest 
in charge of the American Havana colony, leaves him no time 
at his disposal. Of all men he is one of the most needed, and 
moreover the most respected by the Americans in Havana. 

HEALTH CONDITIONS OF THE CLIMATE. 

A burning question presented to Americans contemplating a 
visit to the new possessions is that of the health conditions 
and the liability to diseases germane to the country and 
climate. A few safe and positive rules carefully observed will 
do much to relieve anxiety on this point ; and from the expe- 
riences of army and navy physicians, together with the native 
doctors, the following seem to have proved the most trust- 
worthy : The best season in Cuba and Puerto Rico is from Oc- 
tober to April, known as the dry period. Outside of this 
term the rainy season is continual and, with but few excep- 
tions, rain falls every day in heavy thunder-storms. The sun 
will burst forth suddenly after these showers and create by its 
intense heat a vapor-laden atmosphere in which the malarial germ 
is a menace to those who are not acclimated, if they neglect 
certain wise precautions. It cannot be truly said that the heat 
is very severe, for an average of temperature taken during the 
jast ten years shows this result : in January, 70 Fahr.; March, 
73 J June, 80. One should drink pure water or water which 
has been clarified by filtering, eschewing the free use of intoxi- 
cants. Fresh bananas are not recommended too highly, but 
limes and pine-apples and the milk of green cocoa-nuts are said 
to be excellent. Long exposure to the night atmosphere should 



i8 9 9-] 



A PRACTICAL VIEW OF CUBA. 



79 




80 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF CUBA. [April, 

be prudently avoided, together with the wearing of damp cloth- 
ing and shoes. The basements and stone courts, with their in- 
viting shadows on a hot day, may only lure to destruction. 
The higher one locates his apartments in these houses, the fur- 
ther does he travel from the microbe. 

Yellow fever is common enough in unclean localities to 
cause apprehension of contagion among foreigners even in 
healthy places. In the army free use is made of quinine and 
citrate of magnesia as a preventive against it. In a word, with 
a strict adherence to the time-proven axiom and the practical 
application of the " pound of prevention," an American may live 
in Havana the year round and suffer no impairment of his 
health. A flesh wound, received by accident or otherwise, 
should have an application of an antiseptic as quickly as possi- 
ble in order to prevent the possibility of a disorder known as 
" tetanus," which is a peculiar form of blood-poisoning common 
among the natives of the island. 

It is to be regretted that many of the untimely deaths 
among our brave troops were due to a disregard or ignorance 
of some of these precautions. The governor, Major-General 
Ludlow, has found it necessary to issue public orders to every 
saloon-keeper prohibiting the sale of intoxicants to the army 
under penalty of seizure and imprisonment. Outside of the 
army the mass of the people may be divided into Spanish, Cu- 
ban, and Negro classes. The first comprise the leading mer- 
chants, bankers, and property-owners of the city. Although 
the Spaniards have been abused in all styles for the American 
people by our yellow sheets and prejudiced magazines, yet 
from personal contact, and from the experience of our entire 
army and navy engaged in Cuba, the impression which he has 
produced is a very favorable one. Our troops without excep- 
tion accord the Spanish unstinted praise for many courtesies 
and attentions, while the tourists will find that, as a class, they 
still represent large interests and unquestionable integrity as 
merchants. In proof of this, it is a fact that during the whole 
of the late war not one merchant of Havana suffered failure. 

The Spaniard of Cuba is well disposed towards the policy 
of the United States upon the island, and as a class will be 
found ready to adopt any course which will aid prosperity and 
peace and accomplish the best results for the good of all. 

Jfavana, Cuba, March 5, 7^99. 




CHARITY AS IT WAS AND Is. 8t 



CHARITY AS IT WAS AND IS. 

BY H. M. BEADLE. 

HE word charity has several meanings, but I 
shall treat of it only in the sense of aiding 
the poor. In the middle ages that is, in Catho- 
lic times the state did not assume the duty of 
individuals by caring for the poor, yet the poor 
were never so well cared for as during that time. It is well, 
it seems to me, to inquire how the poor were cared for before 
the state took upon itself the duty of relieving them. 

It was devotion to Christian principles that is to say, 
the principles taught by the Catholic Church of God that 
caused individuals in the middle ages to relieve the necessities 
of the poor. These principles could not have been so effective 
had not the people of that day fully accepted them, and car- 
ried them out in their relations to others. Every Christian in 
the middle ages believed that God, being the Creator of all 
things, was the owner of all things, and that man's ownership 
of property was subordinate to God's ; and that man in pos- 
sessing wealth acted as the steward of God ; that man had a 
right to the proceeds of his labor and wealth only by -the law 
of God, which gave him out of his income what was necessary 
for himself and his family; all beyond this to be used, accord- 
ing to divine law, for the poor, for religion, and for the state, 
and that God would hold each individual to a strict account if 
he made an unjust or evil use of the wealth which he had put 
in his hands. This may be seen in the old books of instruc- 
tion as well as in the old prayer-books, under the head of pre- 
paration for confession. This truth is still held, but I have 
not been able to learn why these instructions are not printed 
in modern English prayer-books and books of instruction. 

CHARITY A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE. 

In the Confession Book, prepared by Johannes Wolf in Ger- 
man, and printed in 1473, it is said of the aged poor: "They 
are as fathers and mothers on account of their age, and repre- 
sent Jesus." Then, as the penitent prepares for confession, he 
is made to ask himself : " Have I ridiculed the poor ? Have I 
respected them ? Have I visited them and given them to eat 
VOL. LXIX. 6 



82 CHARITY AS IT WAS AND Is. [April f 

and to drink ? Have I treated them rudely or made them 
stand at my door ? " And then the writer says : " Christians 
should consider their superfluities as belonging to the poor. 
Examine yourself on this point, and, if guilty, accuse yourself 
somewhat as follows ; ' I have loved riches, which belong to 
the poor, so much that I neglected to give alms.' ' 

In the Key of Paradise, printed in Philadelphia, and approved 
by Bishop Kenrick, of that city, afterward Archbishop of Bal- 
timore, in the preparation for confession, it is asked, Have we 
sinned against ourselves " By avarice ? in being backward in 
giving alms according to our ability, in squandering away in 
gaming, or in vain or foolish expenses, the substance that 
Providence has given for the relief of the poor and the dis- 
tressed ; in not only refusing them alms which we can afford, 
but in refusing it with bitterness, reproaches, imperious or ill- 
natured language, or with an insulting air; in being too much 
attached to the goods of this life, when it must be ever re- 
membered that what is really superfluous to us belongs of 
right to the poor ; that where there is much, much should be 
given, and where there is only a little, even some of that little 
should be given ; for ' God loves a cheerful giver.' " 

LEO XIII. ON THE RIGHT USE OF MONEY. 

This is a modern as well as an ancient teaching. Our Most 
Holy Father, Leo XIII., is quoted by Father Gasquet, the 
great Benedictine author, as follows : " The chiefest and most 
excellent rule for the right use of money rests on the principle 
that it is one thing to have the right to the possession of 
money and another to have the right to use money as one 
pleases. If the question be asked : How must one's posses- 
sions be used ? the church answers in the words of the holy 
doctor (St. Thomas Aquinas) : ' Man should not consider his 
outward possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as 
to share them without difficulty when others are in need. When 
necessity has been supplied, and one's own position fairly con- 
sidered, it is a duty to give to the indigent out of that which 
is over. It is a duty, not of justice (except in extreme cases), 
but of Christian charity, . . . (and) to sum up what has 
been said : Whoever has received from the divine bounty a 
large share of blessings . . . has received them for the 
purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, 
and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the minis- 
ter of God's providence, for the benefit of others.' " 



1899-] CHARITY AS IT WAS AND Is. 83 

PIUS IX. ON CHARITY. 

The poor were also relieved in the middle ages because the 
church taught that it was the duty of Christians to love their 
neighbors as themselves, following the precept of our Lord. 
In this day we cannot fully understand how that precept was 
followed by all classes of people in the middle ages, for few 
fully comprehend what they do not see. Pius IX., of holy 
memory, in addressing members of St. Vincent de Paul's So- 
ciety, in Rome, December 6, 1854, gave expression to the princi- 
ple that animated the people of the middle ages, paraphrasing 
our Saviour's words : " Love each other and love your brethren, 
not for the personal qualities or the natural gifts with which 
God has endowed some of them, but love them solely because 
every one of your brethren, even if he were the least among 
the last of men, is still My image." They loved each other 
because they saw in each other the image of their Saviour, 
and relieved their necessities because he had told them to. 
There was still another reason why the people of the middle 
ages relieved the poor, and that was because of the doctrine 
of good works. They believed with St. James, that faith with- 
out works was dead, and that by relieving the poor, the sick, 
and the prisoner, they were obeying their Divine Master, and, 
through his merits, laying up treasures in heaven. And among 
the many good works they did, relieving the poor was the 
first. 

THE CHARITABLE WORK OF THE MONASTERIES. 

The people of the middle ages founded monasteries that 
they might relieve the poor and teach religion at the same 
time. They believed they were thus providing a sure relief 
for the poor for all time. It was the rule, especially in Eng- 
land, to give one-third of the tithes to the relief of the poor. 
There were also foundations in almost every parish which 
yielded a revenue for the relief of the poor. Of Germany 
Martin Luther wrote : " Our fathers and forefathers, kings, 
princes, nobles, and others, gave generously, lovingly, and 
overflowingly to churches, parishes, institutions, and hospitals," 
and the great German historian, Janssen, supplements Luther's 
statement thus : " The voluntary offerings for good works were 
so constant and abundant that there was never any need any- 
where, in town or country, for government or public donations, 
for the levying of poor-rates or school-rates, or for house-to- 



84 CHARITY AS IT WAS AND Is. [April, 

house collections." Every noble or wealthy family gave relief 
to the poor every day. The guilds supported their own poor 
and often gave relief to others. There were no poor-houses or 
hospitals conducted by the state, but the poor and the sick 
were taken care of in both, though the far greater number of 
the indigent poor were cared for in their own homes or in the 
homes of others. The poor were not shut up from their neigh- 
bors and friends as has become necessary nowadays, because 
the people, not seeing in them the image of their Saviour, turn 
them over to the care of the state. Often the alms for the 
poor were in excess of their needs, and the excess was appro- 
priated to other pious uses. The Black Death destroyed one- 
third of the people of Europe, and Rev. Augustus Jessops, who 
has studied the conditions of the people of the middle ages 
for many years, seems to be of the opinion that this terrible 
plague, if it prevailed to a like extent in our day, would disin- 
tegrate society to a greater degree than it did five hundred 
years ago. 

LUTHER THE RECIPIENT OF CATHOLIC CHARITY. 

The children of the poor, especially in Germany, were edu- 
cated by the charity of the people. Martin Luther's parents 
were poor until he was about twenty years of age. His father, 
who was a peasant, could read and write German, and Luther 
could read and write when he was six years old, and so could 
many of his playmates. The whole of the expense of Luther's 
education, until he went to the University of Erfurt, was the 
gift of charitable people, all of whom were Catholics. Many other 
of the great men of Germany got their education at that time 
in the same way. The man that overthrew the church in the 
greater part of Germany was trained in Catholic schools, his 
expenses for ten years or more being paid by Catholics, be- 
cause of the ideas of Christian charity which prevailed in that 
age which so many ill-instructed people call " dark." 

In almost every city and large village, and, it may be said, 
in every parish, there were provisions by foundations of monas- 
teries, guilds, or other associations, or by the parish itself, for 
relieving the poor and teaching their children. In the course 
of time the revenues of many of these became important. 
These foundations were all connected with the church to a greater 
or less extent, and when in Germany and England the Reforma- 
tion prevailed, the greater part of these revenues were taken 
by the princes of Germany and the crown of England. Jans- 



1899-] CHARITY AS IT WAS AND Is. 85 

sen and Audin show how these were taken in Germany ; and 
Cobbett, Gasquet, and Jessops show how it was done in Eng- 
land. In taking the lands and revenues belonging to these 
foundations the poor were despoiled far more than the church. 
Not only were the lands of the poor, and what may be called 
their annuities, taken, but no revenues were left for their main- 
tenance, except the direct charities of those whose earnings had 
been impaired by the high prices caused by the debasement of 
money. 

DESPOLIATION OF THE MONASTERIES. 

I know it has been told for three hundred years that the 
church and the monasteries had been rightfully despoiled, be- 
cause they had accumulated what properly belonged to the 
state. This monstrous lie might be allowed to pass with a sim- 
ple denial, but it must be observed that if this property right- 
fully belonged to the state, the proceeds of those confiscations 
should have gone into the coffers of the state. But they did 
not ; they went into the hands of kings, princes, nobles, ad- 
venturers, and other equally disreputable people, men and wo- 
men. None of them went to relieve the poor or to educate 
their children. Even the foundations which were made for the 
education of poor children were stolen from them and appro- 
priated by the rich, as Professor Thorold Rogers truthfully 
states. The property and revenues of the guilds, which were 
the property of working people, were confiscated in England, 
and though the revenues of the poor were pointed out to the 
officials in England, all was taken under the pretence that it 
belonged to the church. The revenues of hospitals were taken 
the same as those of the monasteries and guilds. Gasquet has 
shown that the culmination of the Reformation in England was 
the robbery of the poor by the rich, and Janssen shows that 
practically the same state of affairs prevailed in Germany. 

THE REFORMATION AND THE WAGE-EARNERS. 

With the success of the Reformation in Germany and England 
came a rise in prices, which made the working people, once so 
prosperous, very poor. There was a slight rise in wages, but it 
bore no proportion to the rise in prices. Those who had be- 
come seized with the wealth of the churches, monasteries, 
hospitals, guilds, and foundations for the relief of the poor, 
were able to dictate both prices and wages, and the latter 
have not to this day overtaken the former, though great advance- 



86 CHARITY AS IT WAS AND Is. [April, 

ment has been made in this century by the working people in 
both hours and wages, probably at the cost of interrupting the 
continuity of labor. 

The increased prices and comparatively low wages added 
greatly to the numbers of the extremely poor. There was no 
means to relieve these ; those who would have relieved them 
were unable, and those who inherited what had been stolen 
from them, and who should have relieved them, would not. 
After passing many laws and temporizing with the matter many 
years, the English parliament, under Elizabeth, passed a law 
providing that the extremely poor should be sent to state poor- 
houses, and that some out-door relief might be given to those 
who were able to earn part of their living. The distress had 
so grown under Reformation ideas that there was no other way 
to relieve the poor, the people no longer seeing in each poor 
person the image of our Lord. 

In this country we have inherited from England many of the 
laws and principles of the Reformation, and we have poor- 
houses and out-door relief for the poor provided and given by 
the state, for we do not see, any more than the people of 
England under Elizabeth saw, the image of our Saviour in the 
persons of the poor. We do not see any reason why we should 
be called upon, as individuals, to support or relieve the poor. 
Let the state look to it ; the responsibility is upon the state, 
not upon us. To assert that men are not absolute owners of the 
property they possess, being only stewards of God while in 
possession of it, will be considered by many as agrarianism r 
for they have no idea of God's being concerned in the things 
of this world, and they cannot conceive that even God should 
have anything to say as to what they shall do with their own- 
What a terrible awakening some of them may have when their 
lives shall close and eternity open before them ! Before the 
last breath of life shall leave their bodies, may they experience 
that mercy that is impossible to man but possible to God ! 

THE COLDNESS OF STATE CHARITY. 

These days are something like those that ushered in the mis- 
called Reformation. The poor are pressing for relief, but the 
state is giving as little as possible. It is not going abroad like 
a good man, bountiful to relieve the poor, but to find excuses 
for not relieving them. The importunate and self-asserting poor, 
whose self-respect went long ago, get their full share, if not 
more than their share ; but those " who are ashamed to ask," 



1899-] CHARITY AS IT WAS AND Is. 87 

as St. Thomas of Villanova expresses it, who but God knows 
how they suffer ? No reason, or words, or cries will cause the 
state to open its charity to them. To them it is a living stock 
or stone, blind and deaf and conscienceless. When self-respect 
is lost it will relieve, but not till then. 

The multitude are but little better than the state. They have 
human hearts that may be moved at times by cries of distress, 
but they give by impulse, or refer the applicant to the authori- 
ties. When they neither see nor hear of human suffering, they 
take for granted that it does not exist, and do not look for it. 
They are too busy to discuss principles which apply to human 
society, and after the first impulse of pity has expended itself, 
they cease to care about their poorer fellow-creatures until 
something arouses their sympathies again. 

But they ought to appeal with hope to Christians Catholics 
and Protestants. These must see that they are but stewards 
of God for the wealth they possess ; they must see in the poor 
the image of their crucified Lord ; they must know that in re- 
lieving the poor they are relieving their Lord, and that to at- 
tain the reward of Christians in heaven, they must feed the 
hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, help the 
sick and the unfortunate, especially those in prison. How poor 
and naked will we be if, when called to judgment, we cannot 
show we have been faithful stewards of God in using the means 
he has put into our hands, or if we have been unable to dis- 
cern in the poor the image of our Lord and Saviour ! 




IN TOLAFAA LAND. [April, 



IN TOLAFAA LAND. 

BY MARY F. NIXON. 

{Illustrated by kodak views taken by one of the officers of the " Vandalta."} 
\ 

OLAFAA!" (Love to you) is the salutation as 
one steps upon the shores of those fair isles of 
the Pacific, midway between Hawaii and New 
Zealand, and so pervading is the spirit of char- 
ity among these gentle and generous islanders 
that the greeting carries with it no end-of-the-century insincerity, 
but bears the stamp of truth. 

Savaii, Upolu, and Tutuila, three large islands and five small 
ones, three thousand square miles in all this is Samoa. Yet how 
small an idea do the bare statistics convey of the beauties of 
these ocean gems. 

They were discovered by Roggewein, a Dutch navigator, in 
1722, but Bougainville visited them in 1768 and named them 
the " Isles of the Navigators," from the extraordinary skill 
which the natives displayed in the management of their bark 
canoes. 

In 1830 English missionaries went to settle in the islands 
and found the natives gentle, peaceable creatures. As a race 
they came from the Malay archipelago and they are a light 
brown in color, with rich olive tints, the women perfectly formed 
and graceful, the men sinewy and strong. 

The hair is straight and black, but red hair is much admired 
and Samoan beauties often bleach and dye their locks by means 
of coral lime, which is also used to stiffen the ringlets so that 
they will stand straight out from the head. Flower-wreaths are 
very fashionable, and the Slite of the isles deck themselves 
gaily, and many of these women are very beautiful. They have 
a natural and unconscious grace, and swaying from a grape-vine 
or seated in the gnarled trunk of a mighty palmetto they pre- 
sent a pleasing picture of untamed femininity, charming and 
often lovely. 

Living upon cocoa-nut, bread-fruit, banana, and taro, the 
Samoan diet is simple and healthful for so warm a climate. 
The cocoa-nut milk makes a cooling drink, the meat is eaten, 
and although the mighty groves of trees grow wild in the 



IN Jo LA FA A LAND. 



89 




islands, the na- 
tives prize the 
fruit so greatly 
that one of the 
unwritten laws of 
the land is that 
new trees shall be 
planted each year. 

Roasted bread- 
fruit golden discs 
cut from among 
the dark green 
serrated leaves 
and the taro, grow- 
ing in patches with 
its shiny, heart- 
shaped leaves, are 
delicacies to the 
Samoan palate, 
but luxury of lux- 
uries is kava. This 
beverage is made 
from the root of 
the pepper-tree, 
and its curious 
concoction is well 
described by Hen- 
ry Whitakerin his 
interesting sketch 
of Samoa : 

"A wooden 
bowl, a cocoa-nut 
cup, and a strain- 
er are the imple- 
ments used in 
making the brew," 
he says. " That 
personage of the 
chief importance in Samoa, ' the Maid of the Village,' is in- 
variably called upon to brew the beverage, which ceremony, 
with her attendants, she conducts with becoming dignity. 
After carefully washing out her mouth in the presence of 
all assembled, she seats herself upon the matted floor with 





A SMALL IDEA DO BARE STATISTICS CONVEY OF THE 
BEAUTY OF THESE ISLANDS." 



90 IN TOLAFAA LAND. [April, 

the bowl in front of her and, with resigned manner and pre- 
occupied countenance, begins to masticate the bits of root 
handed her by the attendants. Piece after piece is chewed un- 
til the mouth is full and the cheeks bulging out, when the 
mass is ejected into the palm of the hand and with a graceful 
swing deposited in the bowl. 

"This operation is repeated until a proper quantity of the 




"THE NATIVES DISPLAY EXTRAORDINARY SKILL IN THE MANAGEMENT, OF 

THEIR BARK CANOES." 

root is secured. Then the hands are washed scrupulously clean 
and an attendant, having poured the required amount of water 
into the bowl, the maid proceeds with the compounding. With 
a rolling and twisting movement of. the hands she mixes all 
the undissolved portions of the root in the fou (strainer), which, 
after wringing, is shaken out and the straining repeated until 
the brew is finished. 

" A vigorous clapping of hands announces that it is ready to 
be served, whereupon the highest chief, in a loud voice, ex- 
claims, 'Ah, here, is kava! Let it be served.' One of the at- 
tendants produces the cup and presents it at the bowl to be 
filled by the maid. This she does by plunging the strainer in 
the liquid, afterwards squeezing it over the cup. 

She will then face about and, .with the cup held delicate- 
ly by the outer rim and level with her dimpled chin, with her 



1899-] I jV ' To LA FA A LAND. 91 

arm raised, stand in the most charming attitude of expectation 
awaiting the crier's instructions as to whom to take the cup." 

People are always served according to rank in Samoa, the 
greatest chief first, and as each is served he either returns the 
cup to the maid with thanks or and this is considered a great 
feat with thumb and finger he spins it along the floor mat, 
causing it to stop exactly before the bowl. 

A woman may make kava and serve the men, but she may 
not taste it except upon great occasions. 

Dancing is one of the favorite pastimes of this fun-loving 
people, and the national dance is the Siva, made up as are so 
many of the beautiful Spanish dances more of graceful pos- 
turing and gestures than of set figures or revolutions. The 
maidens dance and sing, gliding into a score of easy postures, 
waving their polished, bronze-like arms, with flower garlands 
and palm branches twined about their full, dark, column-like 
throats. Very lovely they look against a background of cool 
green taro and huge palmetto and banana trees waving in the 
soft, languorous tropic breeze. 

Costumes are scanty, consisting 
of tafia, or cloth, wound about the 
loins and extending to the knees. 
This is called lava-lava, and the wo- 
men wear in addition to it a drapery 
over the shoulder. 

Tapa was formerly the great in- 
dustry of the island, with fish- ^ 
ing, planting taro and fruits, 
and collecting copra. Tapa is 
made from the inner bark of 
the mulberry-tree and pieces 
of it are stuck together with 
paste made from the arrow- 
root. The old women color 
and fashion the 
cloth, and Samo- 
an styles are by 
no means so diffi- 
cult to follow as 
in more (so-called) 
" civilized " coun- 
tries, for certain 

Colors and Figures A NATURAL AND UNCONSCIOUS GRACE. 




IN To LA FA A LAND. 



[April, 



are assigned to the chief's family and commoners are not per- 
mitted to wear them. 

A dainty bit of scenery is a Samoati house entwined with 
vines amidst the soft luxuriance of a tropic landscape. Some 
one likens it to a huge bee-hive set on posts. The rafters, 
made of the bread-fruit tree, slope down to the ground, and 
they are crossed with ribs lashed together with sennit. The 
roof is heavily thatched with sugar-cane leaves, the open sides 
of the hut hung with cocoa-nut leaf plaited mats which are all 
let down at night, and the floors are of bright sea-pebbles and 
covered with home-made straw mats. There is but one room 
where all the family live, the cooking being done in an out- 
house, and at night curtains of tapa are let down from the 
roof to form chambers. The beds are made of mats and folded 
tapa, with an excruciating pillow of a bamboo rod set upon 
legs. 

From a business point of view there is little opportunity for 
rivalry or jealousy among the islanders, for by tribal inheritance 
they are Communists pure and simple. They borrow or take 
froin each other with bland serenity. " Stingy " is an insulting 
word and never applied except to offend, and as a man's earn- 
ings all belong to his tribe, he follows the Biblical saying about 
the mean between " poverty and riches." Of very old lineage 
are the royal Samoans, for King Malietoa Laupepa was in the 




STRANGERS IN THE LAND. 



1 899-] 



IN TOLAFAA LAND. 



93 




A SAMOAN CHIEF. 

twenty-first generation of kings, and recognized as such by 
Germany, England, and the United States. He was an ex- 
cellent king, educated in the mission school, wise and laboring 
for the good of his people, but the revolution of 1888 lost him 
his throne, the rebels being supported by foreign officials. 

The missions in the islands are for the most part Catholic, 
the church at Apia being the oldest on the islands. At the 
schools the natives are educated, many of them as missionaries 
to their own people, and a large number of the native women 
have entered the convents as Sisters of Charity. 

The early religion of the islanders was a curious one. At 
birth each Samoan was dedicated to an imaginary god, who 
marked out for him his destiny or fate. The god was incar- 
nate visibly, in a tree, a flower, or some other object, and 
was always greatly revered. The Samoan believes in the soul, 
saying that it takes a journey when a person sleeps and that 
awakening means the return of the Anganga. Their mythology 



94 



IN TOLA FA A LAND. 



[April, 



is vast and interesting, and the tales are handed down from 
father to son by word of mouth. 

Truth, politeness, and gentleness are the favorite virtues for 
womankind ; the men are enjoined to be courageous, truthful, 
and strong, while hospitality is urged upon all. Each village 
contains a Tale-tale, or guest-house, where strangers are enter- 
tained at the public expense for weeks at a time, the whole 
village sending the strangers contributions of fruit, fish, and 
delicacies. When the Tuscarora was sent to convey Colonel 
Steinberger to Samoa, in 1875, the captain of the vessel received 
at one time presents of four hundred and fifty chickens, seven- 
teen pigs, and a ton of yams and potatoes. 

Exquisite beyond description is the scenery of this tropic 
island. <$$ 

" The sky is blue and gold and pearl-besprent ; 
High blazes color, roses, poppy, pink; 
The air is incense ; it is joy to live." 

Here is a group of banana trees, palms, and cocoa-nuts ; 
there cool and limpid streams flowing ever to the sea ; further 
inland, when the glowing beams of the vigorous sun cause 
the traveller to seek the woodland shade 




THE LAVA-LAVA COSTUME. 



1 899.] 



Iff TO LA FA A LAND. 



95 



" The shadow of the palms is still, but stiller the tall lilies' flame 
(Emblems of Venus and Lilith), and blazes the sun like a boss 
A boss on the Archangel's shield hung in the blue of the sky, 
For the Lady of Noon has arisen and scattered her poppies 
abroad. 



''* t 



A SAMOAN SETTLEMENT. 

The flower narcissus is bending, drooping, yet loath to die, 
But the lilies are scarlet, defiant ; they, stately, with one accord 
Face the fierce gaze of the sun-god, knowing no pain nor 

shame, 
While fauns in the groves are moaning, mourning a nameless 

loss." 

It is all nature, lovely, human, speaking of nearness to God 
the Creator perhaps more than more civilized scenes, and it is 
difficult to comprehend how the passions of man could rend to 
atoms the peaceful beauty of the scene. Yet sorrowful has 
been the lot of the Samoans in the last quarter of a century. 

The United States asked for a coaling station in the isles, 
and in 1872 the lovely, land-locked harbor of Pago-Pago, south 



g6 IN TOLAFAA LAND. [April, 

of Tutuila, was granted to our government for this purpose. 
But the group had long been a bone of contention to Germany 
and England, although treaty rights provided that the three 
nations should have equal privileges, and in 1888 it became 
evident that Germany desired to violate the treaty and possess 
herself of greater commercial opportunities than were granted 
to others. 

Interference in the affairs of islands seems to be a specialty 
of the German Empire, and Americans in Samoa regarded it in 
about the same light as Admiral Dewey appears to have looked 
upon it in the Philippines. When the rebel Tamasese was upheld 
by a German war vessel and King Malietoa deported to the 
Solomon Isles, it seemed time for the United States govern- 
ment to interfere, tyranny in any form being something Ameri- 
cans will not permit. 

In a scuffle with native troops a German officer had been 
killed and the commander of the warship then in the harbor 
announced that he intended to bombard Apia in revenge for 
the death of his countryman, although that individual had been 
justly punished for interference entirely unwarranted and against 
neutrality laws. 

Our consul protested but to no avail, and he hastened to the 
United States ship Adams, stationed in the harbor, and asked 
the commander to intervene. The captain seems to have been 
of the customary type of American seaman, brave, ready, dis- 
creet, for his trumpet gave forth no uncertain sound in reply. 
He immediately steamed the Adams between the German ship 
and the town, sending word to the rival captain, "You may 
bombard Apia whenever you wish, but it shall be through my 
ship and over my body, sir, and I shall not be responsible for 
the consequences!" It is needless to add that the bombard- 
ment of Apia by the Germans was indefinitely postponed, 
thanks to the courage and discretion of a brave American. 

The Navy Department ordered the Vandalia, Nipsic, and the 
flag-ship Trenton, under the command of Rear Admiral Kimber- 
ly, to make for Samoan waters, and the fleet reached there in 
March, 1889. Besides these war vessels there were in the 
harbor three German men-of-war and one British, and there was 
a lull in the storm of war upon the shore. 

The harbor was an impressive sight. Within its horse-shoe 
curves were seven mighty warships, besides many merchant 
vessels, large and small. 

The Samoan warriors gazed in wonder at the strange vessels. 



1899.] 



IN TOLAFAA LAND. 



97 




" THE KING'S DAUGHTERS." 

Very different were their own preparations for a sea battle.- 
The native canoe, long, slender, graceful as a bird on the wing, 
fairly skims the water, and manipulated by the skilful paddlers 
it is a beautiful sight ; but the large canoes are made of small 
peces welded together with sennit and they hold fifty or sixty 
people. In war-time the chiefs lash two of these together, 
thatch a roof over the small decks situated in the middle of 
the boats, and accommodate two hundred warriors, using sails 
of cocoa-nut leaves, while the rowers, with heart-shaped paddles, 
sit facing each other. 

When the great hurricane in which so many lives were lost 
came upon the foreign vessels, the simple islanders said, " The 
great God was displeased at such warlike demonstrations and 
he decided to settle the conflict before it began." 

Often has the story of the Samoan disaster been told. 
Words could not describe the terrific grandeur of the scene 
when the mighty ocean and mightier winds of heaven rose up in 
wrath and played havoc with the works of man as though sport- 
ing with childish toys. Tossed up and down, thrashed hither and 
yon, the great ships were as bubbles upon the waves of the sea. 

The German Eber was the first to go down, only four of 
her crew being saved, and the Adler was lifted bodily into the 
air and dashed down upon a coral reef. 
VOL. LXIX. 7 



98 IN TOLAFAA LAND. [April, 

The Nipsic was beached by her commander to save her from 
a worse fate, and her crew was saved by the natives, who 
bravely risked life and limb to carry out a life-line, dashing 
through the boiling surf to help the sailors to the shore. 

The danger was not only from the winds and waves but, in 
so small a harbor, that the ships would collide with each other. 
Many of the captains endeavored to run their vessels out of the 
harbor into the open sea, but some of the engines were so injured 
that nothing remained but to accept their fate as calmly as possible. 

The Vandalia was beached, and her captain and forty-three 
of the crew were drowned while the greatest heroism was dis- 
played by both officers and men. 

In the hope of bringing the Trenton around so that it might 
escape a reef, since no sail could be set in such a storm, it 
was determined to endeavor to form a human sail, and all hands 
were ordered into the rigging. For a moment the crew hesi- 
tated. Then a young cadet named Jackson, the merest boy, 
ran forward crying, " Follow me, boys ! " and he climbed to 
the topmost point of the mast-head, followed by the crew 
to a man. The experiment was successful and the Trenton 
was saved by the brave boy who was not afraid to lead. 

Generous as well as brave were our gallant sailors. As 
the British ship Calliope swept past the Trenton, in the hope 
of making the open sea, the American sailors, in sight of almost 
certain death, gave their British comrades a hearty cheer, and so 
sped them on to safety. The English captain said that cheer 
saved his ship, for his men had become utterly demoralized, 
and the nobility and unselfishness of the Trenton s crew spurred 
their faint hearts to renewed efforts, and the Calliope was saved. 

The noble seamen of the Trenton had their reward, for they 
not only survived but were able to rescue their comrades of 
the Vandalia. 

A curious story is told of an incident which occurred upon 
the unfortunate Vandalia before the Trenton collided with her. 

The surgeon of the ship, Dr. Henry P. Harvey, of Mississippi, 
one of the ablest and bravest men of our navy, had been going 
from man to man trying to save the sick or injured. He had 
exhausted all the stock of life-preservers and had but his own 
.left when he found a seaman who had a severely fractured leg. 

" I'm on my last pins now, doctor," said the man cheerfully. 
" There's nothin' but water to walk on, and I ain't got no legs 
to walk. It's Davy Jones' fur me." 

" Nonsense ! " said Dr. Harvey with a brusque kindliness 
peculiar to him. He took off his life-preserver, put it on the 



1899-] I N To LA FA A LAND. 99 

man and tied him in a wash-tub, the only pretence of a boat 
left, and set him afloat. The man floated off toward shore, but 
the doctor was, at the moment of launching him, struck in the 
head with a boom, receiving injuries from which he never re- 
covered, dying a year later, as truly laying " down his life for his 
friend " as many for whom the world sounds a trumpet of fame. 

Six months after the hurricane, which took place on March 
14, 1889, Dr. Harvey was in the hospital in San Francisco when 
a. lame sailor hobbled up to him, asking, "Doctor, dear, could 
you identify me ? You saved me from Davy Jones's locker, 
but I'll never ship again with this bad leg. I can't get my 
pension 'cause all my mates was drowned off Apia, worse luck 
to 'em, an' there's never a man to tell I'm tellin' the truth !" 

The doctor asked him the circumstances, and said that he 
remembered the sailor's face but could not be sure of his name 
or as to which ship he had served upon, statistics very neces- 
sary under the circumstances. 

The sailor gave all the details of the doctor's saving him 
from the Vandalia, speaking of his broken leg, the way he was 
given the life-preserver and strapped into the tub, and he said : 

" Bein' a doctor, sir, it '11 be your business to be savin' 
lives, an* you '11 not be thinkin' so much about it " he was an 
Irishman, with a truly Hibernian unconscious wit " but I 've 
got but wan life, an' I 'm not forgettin' the man that saved it. 
If you '11 swear to me, sir, you '11 save me another wan with a 
pension, for I haven't a penny to bless myself with." 

Dr. Harvey identified the man and was able to see him 
comfortably ensconced in a sailor's home, making one less 
victim of the terrible hurricane which brought sadness into 
many American homes. 

The death of King Malietoa in August and the attitude 
of the Germans in the Pacific, as well as the magnificent 
deeds of Admiral Dewey, bring again to notice the southern 
isles of the sea, and one cannot help but wonder what changes 
the "whirligig of time " will accomplish in the destinies of the 
4t Isles of the Navigators," sunny, peaceful, lovely Talafaa Land. 

Mataafa, the present claimant of the throne, is a devout 
Catholic. The people almost unanimously want him for their 
ruler. He is a man of commanding presence and great adminis- 
trative powers. Monseigneur Broyer, the Marist bishop and 
Vicar-Apostolic, who spent more than twenty years in Samoa, 
speaks with unaffected admiration of him : 

" This descendant of those savages, who no longer ago than 
the last century murdered the distinguished navigator La Peyrouse, 



IOO 



TOLA FA A LAND. 



[April, 



was brought up in the Protestant religion. About thirty years 
ago he was received into the church, and it was no lukewarm 
conversion. With devout and ardent faith he practises the 
Christian virtues. Every day he makes the Stations of the 
Cross and says the Rosary, which he always carries wound 
around one hand. Each Sunday he receives Holy Communion. 
Great chief as he is, he learned the mason's trade that he 
might help to build the church with his own hands, and set the 
example to his labor-scorning subjects of Christian humility 
and to show them the true dignity of service paid to God. At 
the time of his conversion he had several wives ; immediately 
he repudiated all but one, to whom he was remarried by a 
priest. Fifteen years ago she died, and since then he has re- 
mained true to her memory. Every day, when he is in Samoa, 
he goes to her grave and recites one decade of the Rosary. 
With this light thrown on his character one can no longer be 
surprised at his magnanimity in saving so many of his ship- 
wrecked foes at the time of the great tornado. ' God is pun- 
ishing these white men ; let us be merciful,' he said to his 
men. In regard to recent happenings Monseigneur Broyer can 
only speak from hearsay, since he is now in France, but of the 
character of King Mataafa he is able to speak with authority, 
and he thinks that no happier fate could befall the Samoans 
than to live under the rule of Mataafa." 




THE NATIONAL DANCE is THE "SIVA," MADE UP OF GRACEFUL 

POSTURING AND GESTURES. 




THE AUTHOR OF "IRISH IDYLLS." 




MISS JANE BARLOW. 

BY KATHARINE TYNAN HINKSON. 

Y friendship with Miss Barlow is something of 
which I am very proud. This writer, so retiring, 
so modest, so simple, is not to be heard of in 
London drawing rooms. Even Dublin drawing- 
rooms know nothing of her. You will find her 
in her own village of Raheny, in an old-fashioned, cool, bright 
house, part of it a real thatche'd cottage, or in her walled gar- 
den with its beautiful stretch of turf, gay with flowers in their 
seasons. She will never be drawn very far from her own home, 
where she keeps an almost nun-like seclusion ; but though her 
feet stay at home, her mind travels abroad. Again and again her 
breadth of view, her tolerance, her wide sympathy, have filled 
me with admiration. 

When I saw her first she had been coaxed to a little party 
in a Dublin studio. She came in closely veiled, a shy, slender 



102 Miss JANE BARLOW. [April, 

figure in black, keeping close to the side of her benignant-faced 
mother. It was a trying ordeal for her to be there. After- 
wards she said to me: "I felt inclined to turn back and run, 
run, run never stop running till I got home again." 

Since then she has lost something of her fear of her fellow- 
creatures, which is entirely a matter of personal shyness. Of 
anything farouche in this shyness there is not a trace. With 
those who are admitted to her friendship there are no visible 
barriers. Her letters are beautiful, so simple, so frank, so full 
of revelation of her 'mind and heart. Once when I wanted to 
write about her and asked her for some material, she supplied 
me abundantly. Her attitude was : " If you want to write about 
me, and if people care to hear about .me, which is to me quite 
inexplicable, I must do all I can to help you." It impressed me 
so much, having had experience of people self-assertive and 
worldly, who yet professed a fierce abhorrence of the public 
gaze. 

I first knew Miss Barlow's work about ten years before 
" Irish Idylls " made her famous. She was contributing prose 
and verse then to a review called Hibernia, which appeared in 
Dublin in the early eighties. Most of the verse had a strong 
classical influence. Miss Barlow has considerable scholarship, 
and at that time her poetry was just what you would expect 
from the daughter of a university don. I remember, however, 
one lovely poem on a late spring more lyrical than anything 
else of hers I can recall : 

" Heavy-hearted doubters we, 

Now when April's core is cloven, 
Fade our Spring faiths all disproven ; 

Still by woodland, lawn and lea 
Skies like chinkless iron barred, 
Boughs as black as rafters charred, 

Where long since we looked to see 
Veils of living emerald woven. 

" For a weary while ago 

Round about our fields we heard 

Such a clear, prophetic word 
Breathed, where Southern winds did blow, 

And the sky grew all one plot. 

Daisy and forget-me-not 
Laughing to the vales below, 

' Let the primrose make a third.' ' 



1899-] Miss JANE BARLOW. 103 

That was in 1883, and I remember asking Mr. George Noble 
Plunkett, the editor, about the authorship, and then for the 
first time hearing Miss Barlow's name a name to become so 
dear to me in time. 

During the eighties Miss Barlow assiduously wrote, and 
burnt most of what she wrote. One of her " Bogland Studies," 
"Walled Out," appeared during these years, about 1886 I think, 
in the Dublin University Review, but Miss Barlow kept the secret 
of her identity carefully, even though the editor of the Review 
appended a note to several issues asking for the name of the 
contributor of a poem he rightly thought so remarkable. 

" Bogland Studies " appeared in 1891, and gave us the first 
indication that there was a new writer amongst us. It was fol- 
lowed a year later by " Irish Idylls," written at the earnest per- 
suasion of Dr. Robertson Nicoll, who seems to have a special 
gift for finding out as yet unsuspected capabilities. " Irish 
Idylls " assured Miss Barlow's reputation ; and she has added 
to it since by the even more beautiful " Strangers at Lis- 
connel." She has also published one or two volumes of short 
stories, and a longer book, Kerrigans Quality ; this last hardly 
reached the level of the short stories as a whole, but the early 
chapters were as fine as anything Miss Barlow has ever done, 
and in Kerrigan she has shown us that she can create a man. 

As readers of discrimination will probably be interested in 
the evolution of a writer, I will let Miss Barlow speak for her- 
self. Her mother, who died in 1894 an irreparable loss seems 
to have been all that is most beautiful of womanly and motherly 
nature. She brought up her children to the utmost gentleness, and 
gentleness shines like a light from Miss Barlow's delicate face. 
She loved " all things both great and small," and Miss Barlow 
wrote to me once of her and her old home this lovely bit 
which I transcribe : 

" It seemed as if she could not help trying to do some 
kindness to any live thing that came in her way. I have 
known her to make pets of such unlikely things as stray bats 
and water-esks. Bats really are attractive, they have such wise 
faces, and water-esks have a weird charm of their own ; their 
orange markings are very pretty, and they have such beautiful 
bright eyes. We used to catch them when we were children 
in a ditch in one of my grandfather's fields. Once I remember 
she reared a large family of very tiny wild rabbits whose 
mother had been killed by a dog. When they were old enough 
she brought them out into the fields to let them go, as we 



104 Miss JANE BARLOW. [April, 

could not keep them in captivity ; but they had grown so fond 
of her that they ran after her and wanted to follow her home. 
Those fields at Sibyl Hill would have amused you. They were 
full of old beasts, living and dead, for they always were given 
decent burial there when they died of old age. On the same 
principle the place was pervaded by ancient men, who were 
long past their work, and never were supposed to do any. 
Our old nurse sometimes said that when she saw their foot- 
kerns about the place, she thought it would be a charity if 
some one would tie them together with a rope and throw them 
into a ditch. I remember the saying because it always struck 
me as such a singularly eccentric form for charity to take." 

In an earlier letter Miss Barlow says, in answer to my ques- 
tions : 

" My people say that I always knew how to read, and 
though I think this is hardly possible, I never remember being 
unable to do so. I dimly recollect learning to write when I 
was five or six, and one of the earliest things I remember is 
dictating to my aunt my first poem, which I enclose. I sup- 
pose it is an imitation of something I had been reading. I was 
about five years old at the time. My impression is that in 
those days I used to read all the time I was awake, except 
when I was sent out for a walk, which I detested. My favor- 
ite books were Kingsley's Heroes and Hawthorne's Tanglewood 
Tales. I also delighted much in two bound volumes of the 
earliest numbers of The CornhilL One of them contained Mrs. 
Browning's " A Musical Instrument," which I used to read over 
and over. I always covered up the picture of Pan, which I did 
not like, with both hands. I think it was that poem made me 
resolve to be a poet myself. I don't know why, for it takes 
rather a melancholy view of the poet's lot. Other poems that 
were much in my mind were, one of Barry Cornwall's, beginning 
'The Summer Night is all star-bright,' and Tennyson's ' Brook,' 
' Lady of Shatott,' and ' Mariana.' But more than those Long- 
fellow's ' I Stood on the Bridge,' which our nursery-maid used 
to sing. I always identified the bridge with the wooden bridge 
at the Bull close by Clontart, where we then lived, and I really 
believe it is in a considerable measure responsible for my pes- 
simistic turn of mind. We left Clontarf for this house at 
Raheny when I was about eight years old. Very soon after 
that I began to write a novel (I read innumerable novels in 
those days, which is perhaps the reason why I can read hardly 
any now). I remember nothing about it except that the hero- 



1899-] Miss JANE BARLOW. 105 

ine's name was Alice and that she lived in Rotten Row, which 
happened to be the only London name I knew. The work re- 
mained a very small fragment. I rather think that some deri- 
sion expressed by my family on discovering the heroine's address 
brought it to an untimely end. After that I did not attempt 
any prose for a long time, but I wrote many ' poems/ which I 
periodically burnt with scorn and loathing. 

" At last, somewhere towards the end of the seventies, I be- 
gan to write short stories, and sometimes sent them to maga- 
zines ; but I daresay they were very bad and nobody wanted 
them, and I always burnt them too. I often resolved not to 
try any more and to content myself with my books and music, 
but somehow I never could. Then in 1883 or 1884 Mr. Payn 
accepted a short story for Cornhill, and after that he occasion- 
ally took one, and I had a few in the Whitehall Review and 
Times. When I came back from Greece in 1889 I contributed 
a good many papers to the Graphic. That is all, I believe, that 
I did in my silent years, except what I contributed to Hibernia 
and the Dublin University Review. I wrote a metrical transla- 
tion of the Batrachomyomachia, and translations, for private use, 
of parts of Kant, and I learned some Greek. I know enough 
to know how little of it I know." 

It is not easy to believe that Miss Barlow's work is not writ- 
ten out of intimate knowledge of Irish peasant life, but such is 
the fact. " Irish Idylls " was written after a two months' stay in 
Connemara, the scenery of which is the scenery of the Idylls. 
But if you know anything of her great shyness you will know 
that she could never sit by cabin fires and coax the reticent 
peasants to unveil themselves as she seems to have done. 
Raheny village is close to her home, but I am sure its half- 
moon of cottages remains uninvaded for her. The old nurse 
of whom she speaks and the old servants of the house are 
probably the only peasants she ever knew intimately. From 
this old nurse she gathered many a delicious phrase. Hers is 
a striking example of the genius of insight and sympathy. 




io6 THE NEW EDUCATION BILL. [April, 



THE NEW EDUCATION BILL IN NEW YORK STATE. 

|N the Report of the Superintendent of Public 
Instruction of the State of New York just pub- 
lished there is a recommendation that "The 
Education Bill" be pushed through both branches 
of the Legislature and enacted into a law as 
early as possible. To the public at large this is a very inno- 
cent recommendation, and very few even of professional edu- 
cators gave it but a passing notice ; but beneath this placid 
statement there lies a very large scheme of a very shrewd 
schemer to concentrate all the educational interests of the 
State into his office and control all their dependencies accord- 
ing to his pleasure. 

The primogeniture of the bill is as follows: In 1889 a 
statute authorized a Commission of Statutory Revision, whose 
business would be to rearrange, revise, and codify all the laws 
of the State of New York under their proper heads, so that 
out of the existing confusion, which no mere layman and very 
few expert lawyers could penetrate, there might be evolved 
some order, classification, and harmony. So far such a com- 
mission was harmless, for it was only authorized to clean house. 
It could not create anything new ; but in 1893 new and addi- 
tional powers were given to this Commission whereby it was 
made the legal adviser of both houses of legislature as well as 
a standing committee of each. In this capacity it acquired 
reproductive powers. It has been known for some time that 
there has been some close relationship between this Commission 
and the office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

The character of this latter office has been thoroughly in- 
vestigated, and is well known to the public at large. First of all, 
it seems to be possessed very largely by the latter-day idea of 
the omnipotence of education to cure all the ills that human- 
ity is heir to. Education, in its estimation, is like the black 
bottle into which the druggist gathered all the sweepings of 
the prescription table. When one came with a disease that 
could not be diagnosed he gave him a dose from the bottle. 
He was pretty sure something therein would knock out the 
disease. In the minds of many of the educationists of the day 
when religion and philanthropy and charity organization so- 



1899-] THE NEW EDUCATION BILL. 107 

cieties and Keeley cures have done their utmost to solve the 
social problems and have failed, the only resource left is the 
modern fad of education. However, it is not proper that we 
should find fault with the office of the Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, if it believes in the efficacy of its public instruction, 
nor do we. But we have a right to complain if the Superinten- 
dent should use his office for partisan purposes by discriminating 
against a certain class of citizens. It is well known that Charles 
R. Skinner, the present incumbent of the office, has no love for 
any volunteer forces in the educational world, particularly if 
those forces are Catholic and manifest their energies through 
the system of parochial schools. He is closely in league with 
the men who hatched that infamous conspiracy against the 
freedom of educational facilities at the Constitutional Conven- 
tion. In the old country a man of his stripe would be called 
an Orangeman the country over he is known as a bigot. In 
New York State he is furbished up and known as a " protector 
of American institutions." Since the Constitutional Convention 
he has been devoting a good deal of time and energy in tak- 
ing from the back of the good sisters who have been teaching 
in Poughkeepsie and elsewhere the distinctively religious garb 
they wear. This is Charles R. Skinner. It is well that we 
label him and put him away for future reference. 

But we were saying the fruit of the mesalliance between 
the office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the 
Commission on Statutory Revision is this Education Bill. From 
such parentage we are quite prepared to expect a misshapen, 
unprincipled, dangerous thing. 

The bill comes up to our expectation in every regard. Its 
real danger is that if it becomes a law it will take from several 
State officials rights and privileges that are theirs, and place 
the whole authority of the children in matters of education in 
the hands of an official who we know has no sympathy with 
the most sacred relations we have, and who to-day stands with 
his hand against every (Catholic in this State. The bill is a 
"grab-all" for Mr. Skinner's office, and in order to succeed in 
its policy of sequestration it violates many of the fundamental 
principles of our commonwealth. By natural law to educate 
the child is a parental right and responsibility. If the State 
does it at all, it is done by implicit consent of the parents; it 
having been judged by them to be far more convenient that 
the State take on itself this responsibility because of better 
opportunities and more extended facilities. But while a parent 



io8 THE NEW EDUCATION BILL. [April, 

gives over his child to the State, it is only that the State may 
assist, and this assistance is accepted only in as far as the 
parent wishes, and just in the way the parent desires. A 
parent can never abdicate that inalienable right of educating 
his child. This new Education Bill, fathered by the office of 
the Superintendent of Public Instruction, brushes aside the 
natural law as well as the parental right just as easy as if they 
were some withered flowers that had done service for the pre- 
ceding day. 

The tendency of a good deal of legislation nowadays is to- 
wards the concentration of rights and powers in certain individu- 
als, and it is a dangerous tendency. It often leads to acts of 
tyranny. In any case it savors more of autocratic Russia than 
it does of liberty-loving America. Especially is this the case 
when such individuals are responsible to no one. And more 
particularly is this tendency to be feared when it deals with 
matters which are to us of most vital importance the educa- 
tion of our children. 

Strange to say, too, this bill is not content with assuming 
all right over the secular education of the children of the State, 
but it invades the realm of religious instruction, and it pro- 
vides that " the Bible may be read either as a part of school 
exercises or otherwise." Such reading may be from any ver- 
sion, but must be without note or comment. We have nothing 
against the reading of the Bible, but we are decidedly against 
Protestantizing our public-school system, which is supported by 
the money of all the citizens, and particularly are we against 
the " Protestantization " of our children who by law are com- 
pelled to attend these public schools. 

It may be said that the mere reading of the Bible is not 
a religious act. Whether that be so or not, it is not so much 
the reading of the Bible that we object to as it is the reader 
of the Bible and the way in which it is read. It is quite 
possible within the limit of this law to turn the public-school 
system into a huge proselytizing institution ; especially is this 
the case when there is an anti-Catholic sitting in the chair of 
the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and when he has in 
his hands the extended powers which this bill endows him 
with. 

There are many other provisions of this new bill which are 
just as worthy of condemnation as the few we have merely 
hinted at. We have not gone into them more deeply because 
we desire rather to sound the note of alarm and awaken the 



1899-] THE NEW EDUCATION BILL. 109 

consciences of the Catholics of this State to the dangers that 
lurk beneath the placid exterior of this bill. Already has the 
Committee on Catholic Interests of the Catholic Club, a com- 
mittee that has at a time previous to this done yeoman's ser- 
vice in guarding the civil interests of the Catholic people, 
started its work. It has retained Nelson G. Green, a lawyer of 
talent and prestige, to interest himself in the matter. Mr. 
Green, with a number of other gentlemen, appeared before the 
joint Committee on Education at a special hearing on February 
8, 1899. At this hearing Mr. Green had not proceeded very far 
with his address when he was suddenly cut short by the ruling 
of the chair, though he earnestly protested that he was there 
representing the three million Catholics of the State and speak- 
ing in their name. 

He subsequently obtained permission to submit the argu- 
ment and brief in writing. The same has been printed and it 
is a masterly presentation of the rights of the Catholic people 
in the matter of education. All the way through his argument 
is characterized by the lofty tone of the dignified statesman 
as well as by the grasp of principles which belongs to the 
philosopher. Mr. Green comes into the arena as a new cham- 
pion of Catholic rights. He is a convert to the church of some 
few years standing, and is a lawyer who has attained an en- 
viable place in his profession. 



I 




i io A SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOWN IN MEXICO. [April, 



A SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOWN IN MEXICO. 

i 

HE name of Tlaxcala will be known to many of 
our readers through the engrossing pages of 
Mr. Prescott's history or romance but it is not 
probable that many of them have any further 
acquaintance with it, for a careful examination 
of the register at the Hotel San Carlos in the town indicated 
a patronage of some twelve guests monthly, and before ours, no 
foreign names had graced its pages. What an excitement in 
the deserted little hostelry at the advent of five living visitors ! 
An intelligent lad appeared promptly, sole occupant of the es- 
tablishment, speedily brought light cots, sheets, and chairs from 
an inner repository, and with them equipped for our entertain- 
ment sundry of the void quadrangular cells which flanked the 
cobble-stoned court with its central well and monastic cloister. 
Our flaxen-haired children provided a gratuitous exhibition for 
the swarthy alumni of the neighboring college, who crowded 
the entrance gateway of the inn much as the denizens of a 
West Virginian mountain settlement might gape on a belated 
party of Sioux braves, should they stray by chance into 
their vicinity in Fenimore Cooperian glory of war paint and 
plumes. 

The hotel, as is often the case in Mexico, is merely a 
maison meubtte, providing a cellar wherein to repose, but mak- 
ing no provision for the inner man. Recourse was had to the 
hospitable dame, Petra why have we no feminine equivalent 
for Peter in our speech ? who was fairly staggered at the pros- 
pect of victualling such a multitude and they, too, foreigners. 
" Ah, seflor, what do they eat soup ? " " Yes ! " " And eggs ? " 
"Yes!" "And meats?" "Oh, yes, just the same as other 
people. What are your charges for it all?" " What, for break- 
fast, dinner, and supper for five ? Ah, goodness only knows 
quien sabe ? what a lot of people ! " And abandoning this 
abstruse problem in mental arithmetic she left its solution to 
our superior powers of computation. 

But where is this isolated mountain fastness, leading its self- 
contained life remote from the din and turmoil of the outer* 
world ? Well, that's the marvel of it, that it is so easily acces- 
sible about an hour by rail from Puebla to Santa Ana, whence 



1899-] A SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOWN IN MEXICO. in 




THE TEMPLE WAS BUILT IN 1521. 

there is a tram-car service four times daily ; and yet the nu- 
merous parties of winter visitors to Mexico habitually neglect 
one of the most interesting spots in the republic. The antiqua- 
rian especially will here revel in romantic visions of the past 
here where every house and site has its memory. Even as, 
crossing the Atoyac River, we enter the suburbs of the decayed 
little city the Church of San Esteban to our right marks the 
spot where at the conquest dwelt that doughty chieftain, 
Tlahuexolotzin, who, if his quiver contained as many arrows as 
his name letters, should have been a formidable antagonist. 
However, his Castilian allies in giving him their faith conferred 
on him a manageable cognomen, and as Sefior Don Gonzalo 
the chief of Tepeticpac could take rank amongst Christian po- 
tentates. 

He was, in fine, baptized with three other magnates, his 
compeers whose names in pity for the compositor we omit to 
transcribe and there in the Casa Municipal, or town-hall, is 
the portrait of these four staunch henchmen of Cortes, whose 
adherence to the becastled banner of the invader rendered the 
temerarious attempt on the crown of Montezuma an audacious 
possibility. It is well that this copy of the original painting 
was made, for it, together with numerous other treasures of 



ii2 A SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOWN IN MEXICO. [April, 

New Spain, being shipped to Europe during the last century 
by a certain Boturini, found a resting place in that capacious 
lumber chest, Davy Jones's locker. What a blessing that their 
baptismal robes were allowed to remain at home, where the 
visitor may behold them hanging in the chamber of archives ! 
Here, too, is the genealogical tree of Xicohtencatl hispanicized 
by the conquerors into plebeian Vincente. If his posterity could 
only dispose of it in an anglican garb to some shoddy aristo- 
crat greedy of ancestral glory he, the enterprising Tlaxcalan, 
might become possessed of silver pesos galore wherewith to en- 
joy nocturnal revelry at the monte table for the residue of a 
lotus-eating existence ! The Yankee, however, who formerly 
strayed into Tlaxcala did " get away " with a valuable relic, 
and in this wise. Amongst the treasures is a magnificent silken 
banner of crimson and gold, bedizened with the lions and tow- 
ers of Castile and Aragon, which is commonly said to have 
been presented to the Tlaxcalan chieftains by Cortes, a state- 
ment stoutly controverted by the patriotic custodian : " Don't 
you believe it, seftor ; they took it from Cortes." " Well," we 
asked, " why is that large piece missing from the corner of the 




GATHERING IN THE ANCIENT PLAZA. 

banner ? " " Alas, seftor ! " is the reply, " a gringo was once here 
who was looking at the flag and gave the attendant two pesos 
to watch at the window for his friend's arrival in the plaza, 
but, sir, no friend was to be seen ; and shortly after it was 
noticed that a portion of the silk had been cut away." 



1899.] A SIXTEENTH CENT UK Y TOWN IN MEXICO. 113 

Formerly the city hall contained treasures which possessed 
a more general interest than banners and baptismal robes, to 
wit, a store of circular discs of copper, gold, and silver, im- 
pressed with the likeness of his most Catholic Majesty of Spain. 




CURIOUS CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE. 

The funds of the state and city of Tlaxcala are now deposited 
in the little bank on the far side of the neglected plaza, but the 
treasure chest may yet be seen, open to all, for the four keys 
which used to fit the four locks, and which were held one each 
by four responsible officials, have ceased to be of value. 

We can only hint at rows of idols unearthed now and 
again ; at marvellous illuminations from Spain ; the grant of arms 
to the city with the signature of Charles V. ; the city charter 
similarly endorsed by his son Philip, and the like. Here are 
land titles three centuries old, various venerable records of 
local proceedings, and a sort of Tlaxcalan Bayeaux tapestry, 
in which Spaniards and Indians are substituted for the retainers 
of hapless Harold and Norman William. 

Hard by is the parish church, whose pleasing front of red 
and blue tile-work hints at artistic treasures within. The first 
thing noticed on entering is an entablature recording the de- 
struction of the dome by an earthquake a generation ago. 
Doubtless the mischief did [not stop there, and the atrocious 
VOL. LXIX. 8 



ii4 A SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOWN IN MEXICO. [April, 

frescoing of the nave replaces worthy decorations ruined by the 
shock. In the baptistery is a painting of the baptism of the 
four chiefs, and in the sacristy appears a representation of the 
apparition of Nuestra Seflora de Ocotlan, whose famous shrine 
we must visit later on. But in a Mexican church the sagrario 
usually contains some worthy artistic feature, and so is it here : 
opening from the upper nave on the left is a richly gilded 
treasury in the gorgeous fashion of the seventeenth century, 
the .painting of Nuestra Seflora de la Luz being the gem of 
the collection. Close to the parish church is the Capilla Real, 
so called from its statue of Philip II., whilst on the towers 
are the Spanish arms. But of this ancient fane, built expressly 
for the use of the Indians, no other portion is left standing. 
In fact the question arises, "Why does the town remain at all? 
what useful purpose does it serve ? " The quondam thriving 
city of forty thousand inhabitants scarce can count a tithe of 
its former numbers ; muster them all from the tumble-down 
adobe hovels and from the decrepit palaces which are grouped 
around in mournful array, and they would make but a scanty 
gathering in their vast wilderness of a plaza. 

Regarded as a quaint monument of a bygone age, however, 
this out-at-elbows village is replete with interest, and the neigh- 
boring Sierra de la Malitzin, resembling at the summit a 
shrouded corpse, suggests an analogy. With what awe did the 
idolaters behold in the wizard's mountain blinding sheets of 
flame, and hear appalling discharges of electrical artillery be- 
fore the advent of the white man ! The anciently fertile val- 
leys which sustained so numerous a population, warlike rivals 
of the Aztec empire, are sterile now ; centuries of extravagant 
farming have impoverished the soil, and thus country harmon- 
izes with town. Such musings are suggested by the aspect of 
the place viewed from the commanding terrace* of the old 
Franciscan establishment. A blue-coated, musket-bearing multi- 
tude now occupy the buildings, sharing them with a fraternity 
of public criminals who unwillingly expiate their misdeeds by 
penitential exercises. Below is the bull-ring, and hard by a 
market-place where a few beans and eggs are offered for sale. 
Eventually an aged, key-bearing crone is unearthed, and with 
effort the massive portals of the friars' temple are thrust in- 
wards. What a magnificent high-pitched roof ! supported by a 
forest of cedar, the only one we can recall having happened 
on in this land of vaulted ceilings of masonry. Sundry ancient 
dames took advantage of the open doors to venerate the sacred 



1899.] A SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOWN IN MEXICO. 115 




SITUATED IN THE ISOLATED MOUNTAIN FASTNESS. 

places. To us the font in which the chiefs already noticed 
were baptized, and the first church-pulpit from which a sermon 
was ever preached in the new world, possessed a unique inter- 
est. For our benefit were then produced the original church 
vestments of the city, richly embroidered robes of silk and 
velvet, the colors still fresh and vivid. Curious also is an 
ex-voto painting presented by Zitlalpopoca (one of the four 
worthies), an ancient carved table, images arid screens, and a 
confusion of gilded scroll work. One allegorical representation 
arrested the attention : a triumphal chariot, bearing St. Thomas 
of Aquin with piles of weighty tomes, passing triumphantly 
over the prostrate forms of Calvin, Luther, Beza, and other 
sixteenth century malcontents. This temple was built before 
they attracted notice, dating, so they say, from 1521. The 
gray-frocked followers of the saint of Assisi dwelt here for over 
three centuries. Their only present chance of gaining lodg- 
ment in their former abode is, possibly, to be ensconced in their 
ancient cells cheek by jowl with brawlers, pilferers, and high- 
waymen. 

But no Mexican town is without its pious tradition, and 
Tlaxcala in this matter stands in the first rank. Shortly after 
the conquest, a fatal pestilence prevailing, one Juan Diego be- 
stirred himself to aid his afflicted fellows. Being at the river 



n6 A SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOWN IN MEXICO. [April, 

to draw water for the sick, the Blessed Virgin appeared to 
him, directing him to a grove of pine-trees or ocotes, containing 
a spring whose waters would not only relieve the sufferings 
but heal the ills of the fever-stricken patients. Also she said 
that near the spring he would find her image. All happened 
as our Lady promised, and over the spring, which burst forth 
from the roots of a large ocote, the grateful population raised 
a dome which still remains, its walls abundantly decorated 
by graffiti for the scribbling custom prevails even in remote 
Tlaxcala. The waters from this source flow rapidly between 
the precipitous, tree-clad banks of a lovely glen, and a wealth 




HIGHER UP WE CAME TO THE PILGRIMAGE CHURCH. 



1899-] A SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOWN IN MEXICO. 117 

of brilliant wild-flowers accentuates the beauty of this refresh- 
ing oasis amid these niggard wildernesses, the venerable stream, 
moreover, meeting utilitarian necessities and furnishing motive 
power for a flour-mill. 

Higher up we came on the pilgrimage church of Our Lady 
of Ocotlan, where the miraculous image is preserved above the 
high altar. The facade of brilliant white and red forms a 
landmark, crowning as it does the crest of a considerable emi- 
nence. This is attained by one of the penitential cobble-stone 
roads which for some occult cause the Mexicans are so en- 
amored of, but the pedestrian has the privilege of diverging on- 
to the rock-strewn hill-side, which is preferable. By the church 
cluster a group of adobe dwellings, a store, and a school, whilst 
the ample dimensions of the adjacent presbytery suggest a large 
concourse of clergy and dignitaries for the annual celebration 
on the 3d of May. The nave is uninteresting enough, having 
been restored by a worthy but unaesthetic lady during the 
present generation, and a number of Scriptural texts on the 
walls form its most noteworthy adornment. The camarin, or 
chamber, behind the main altar is, however, a repository of 
treasures of considerable antiquity and rare merit, amidst which 
one would willingly linger for hours. There is grouped to- 
gether in charming confusion a unique bewilderment of aesthetic 
delight, carvings and paintings, ebony and ivory, gilding and 
the choicest marquetry, whilst in one of the passages was dis- 
covered the only well-executed ex-voto painting yet found in 
the republic a masterly portrayal in water-colors of the peril 
from which a horseman is persuaded that he was supernaturally 
freed. The sanctuary of Ocotlan is the gem of price of this 
most fascinating of bucolic capitals, and gazing on the cluster 
of towers, domes, and house-tops from the porch of this worthy 
temple of Mary we cannot but envy the hand-to-mouth con- 
tentment of its simple inhabitants, parted from the gaieties 
of giddy Mexico by heaven-seeking snow-clad altitudes, and 
separated from this faith-lacking age by yet more trustworthy 
barriers. 




THE Novel generally has a distinct purpose in 
England. Over there, when one has something 
very serious to say in his day and generation, he 
conceives a story and makes his characters speak 
his thoughts. If he can leave his purpose some- 
what vague, so as to lead the intellectual world to discuss what 
his real meaning is, he will have accomplished his purpose the 
more effectually. Dr. William Barry may or may not have had 
some such end in view when he published The Two Standards* 
It is nevertheless a fact that some readers have seen in it a 
deep-seated meaning, and have taken his characters for types 
of modern life and their statements as indications of the move- 
ments of modern society, while others see but a well-constructed 
story with nondescript people living an aimless life. Dr. Barry 
is one of the great thinkers in our English intellectual world, 
and we are inclined to believe that he would not spend his 
time merely " spinning yarns." 

The Two Standards is a book of much more value and com- 
prehensiveness than his last production, The Neiv Antigone. At 
present we can but give the story of the book. We give it, 
however, with the hope of having in the future a more appre- 
ciative criticism. 

The book opens with the scene of the heroine, Marian 
Greystoke, writing in her diary some of the moods of feeling 
that are passing through her soul. Hers is a dangerous nature 
craving liberty from the restraints of home. She is one of three 
poor daughters of an aristocratic but poor vicar of the little 
town of Rylsford. Her mother is virtuous but strict and nar- 
row. Marian reads deeply and well the philosophy of St. Simon 
and books which she finds stuffed away in an old attic of the 
house. Her sister's lover proposes to her, but he is tame, poor, 
and without passion. She refuses him he does not appeal to 
her. She runs away to London and for protection lives with a 

* The Two Standards : An International Romance. By Rev. William Barry, D.D., au- 
thor of The New Antigone. Union Square, New York : The Century Co. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 119 

woman doctor. Here she meets a woman named Harland, who 
has a brother of immense wealth. He has a country house, 
where she is invited. She sings at one of his receptions ; she 
does it so as to prove the breadth of her genius. She resolves 
to become an actress. Harland is smitten and proposes mar- 
riage. The rejected suitor, Latimer, learns of it, and is so vio- 
lent that she strives to leave Harland. Her worthless father, 
however, prevails upon her and she becomes Mrs. Harland. Lati- 
mer, through jealousy, resolves to ruin her husband financially. 

She comes up to London, makes a stir in society, and as a 
student studies much of the vice of the world. She is sud- 
denly estranged from her husband by finding a mass of pas- 
sionate love-letters written to him by an Italian actress, La 
Farfalla. So husband and wife separate. 

Alone in the world, she meets a musical genius, Gerard El- 
ven. Appreciation ripens into admiration ; admiration becomes 
mutual and gives birth to love, until in an unguarded moment 
of passion they resolve to risk their reputations by travelling 
together on an operatic tour to America. On the brink of dis- 
grace a priest the brother of Gerard steps in and purifies the 
moral atmosphere. He is keenly alive to the disastrous situa- 
tion. He has known something of the world, having in his 
early life desired and sought the affection of a married woman 
by killing her husband in a duel. 

Marian conquers her temptation, and sails for America under 
the name of Mademoiselle Jasmin. Then Father Rudolph takes 
his brother to a monastery in Wales, where the musician studies 
the meditation of " The Two Standards " in the Exercises of 
St. Ignatius. 

While on a singing tour in Chicago Mademoiselle Jasmin 
learns that Latimer has ruined Harland financially. Harland is 
tried and sentenced for his unscrupulous methods of specula- 
tion. He attempts suicide ; then is released from prison, a 
moral and physical wreck. His wife flees to his bedside, but 
he does not know her ; in his delirium, however, he craves her 
presence. Then in a lucid interval, having regained full con- 
sciousness, he bequeaths her to her lover, Gerard Elven ; then 
he dies. 

Espiritu Santo* is the name of a young Spanish maiden 
whom Henrietta Dana Skinner makes the heroine of a very 
sweet and pleasing story, full of bright, wholesome descriptions 

* Espiritu Santo: a Novel. By Henrietta Dana Skinner. New York and London: 
Harper & Brothers. 



120 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [April, 

of family life and the loves and sorrows of kindred souls. 
The characters she has chosen are a little group of Spanish, 
Italian and English artists of the musical profession who are 
drawn together in a small colony in Paris by the magnetism of 
sympathetic tastes and temperament. Indeed, while this similar- 
ity of sympathy between her characters at first pleases the 
reader and warms him towards the subjects and their pursuits, 
it presently becomes somewhat wearisome and he longs for the 
spice of a little variety, a little greater contrast, even for the taste 
of a little friction in the general harmony that prevails among 
these kindred spirits. The author, however, does not seem to 
have the heart to keep up the tradition as to the course of 
true love, and the little deviations she makes in it now and 
then make one feel rather as though one were playing the 
children's game of hide-and-seek, or taking the part of the 
blind man in blind-man's-buff. 

She has conceived a scheme for her novel on which might 
be built a very noble story, but her main execution of it is 
weak, and while she has created some splendid parts the com- 
plete work lacks dignity. It is rather trifling with the reader's 
imagination or " fooling " it to work it up, as she has done in 
the description of Adriano's conversion, to the point of being 
prepared for a grand move on the part of Adriano, nothing 
less indeed than the renouncement of his magnificent success 
and his splendid worldly position for the life of the cloister. It 
seems to be the evident purpose of the writer to create this 
idea in the mind of the reader in order to give him another 
surprise by making Adriano turn about almost the next moment 
and flippantly discuss with himself or his valet the shade of hair 
and eyes of a future possible wife. Perhaps we miss the true 
inwardness of Miss Skinner's meaning in putting her hero through 
a change of heart and soul that would drive an ordinary man 
into a cloister (even if he didn't stay there), and she wants to 
show us that such a change would be no less becoming in one 
who, having sown his wild oats, would prepare himself to be a 
fitting partner in life to a pure-hearted woman. We can for- 
give her for the disappointment if this is her meaning, but one's 
imagination feels tricked just the same, although this seems to 
be the favorite business of the story-teller. 

Espiritu Santo is a character as sweet as her name, which, 
by the way, reveals another exquisite little custom among the 
Spanish : that of naming a child after a religious devotion, or 
a feast day, or anything lovely in religion, if the child happens 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 121 

to be born on a day connected with such. Espiritu was born 
on the feast of Pentecost, and the child's life throughout seemed 
as a mission of peace and love and inspiration. In the closing 
chapters of the book this mission is exalted to the highest 
pitch of ideality in the deeply touching death of Espiritu and 
her young lover Theodore, a very Angel Gabriel in character. 
If the story were about one-half as long as it is, or if the mid- 
dle part of it, with its interminable descriptions of opera re- 
hearsals and musical performances, were left out, we should 
have had a really exquisite story. 

Assuredly, variety has been consulted in the selection of 
subjects made by the author of Three Studies* Francis Jeffrey, 
John Henry Newman, and Matthew Arnold afford full oppor- 
tunity for the display of different subject-matter and greatly 
varied treatment of the same. Let us say that the variation is 
but from one bit of skilful and delicate workmanship to an- 
other. Their reading will recall to us what we learned so long 
ago, that each advance in study means growth in appreciative 
power, and that the trained litterateur is as specially favored in 
his enjoyment of good reading as is the master of music to 
whose ear a .symphony is rich in beauties, suggestions, and revela- 
tions, that escape the nqvice, no matter how music-loving. 

In the sketch of Newman we fancy the writer is almost ex- 
cessively professional and analytical, discovering conscious 
elaboration and deliberate attempt in many a grace that proba- 
bly sprang full-grown from its maker's brain. There is deep 
analysis that commends itself as true, and warm admiration, 
fervent and manly ; but withal we suppose, as being merely 
literary for the nonce, Mr. Gates could assume no other rdle a 
lack. For no word is given no trace of sympathy as to what 
is so largely in evidence through every written line of New- 
man of his soul and its feelings. Perhaps our comment is hyper- 
critical, but this divinity is so sacred to us, that we shudder to 
have him handled by a mere litterateur, even though the 
handling be done artistically well. 

In dealing with Arnold, the writer gets more in touch with 
his subject, brings out the ensemble of a high-grade, many-sided, 
rather uneven soul with such deftness and kindly sympathy 
as to give great help to students. And in he study on Jef- 
frey we find a painstaking and successful representation of a 

* Three Studies in Literature. By Lewis E. Gates. New York : The Macmillan Com- 
pany. 



122 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [April, 

brilliant, argumentative literary critic, sovereign in his own day, 
and now nearly forgotten. On the whole, the reading of our 
book makes us hope for more studies in literature from the 
graceful and smooth-running pen of the writer. 

The first volume of lectures that are to become a perpetual 
foundation in Harvard University is a memorial to the late 
William Belden Noble, a devoted disciple of Phillips Brooks. 
William Noble is known to have shared the religious views, 
deep earnestness, and spiritual enthusiasm of his master, and 
the tribute thus paid his memory is a fitting one. The present 
series of lectures* consists of six commentaries on the message 
of Christ to mankind under various aspects. Dignified utter- 
ance and high moral tone mark each contribution, and they 
will doubtless serve a great end if they stir the young men for 
whom they are intended to strive for development of an inner 
spiritual existence. But they contain nothing very remarkable 
or original in fact seem at times superficial and disappointing. 
It is rather unusual to read any modern contributions to spir- 
itual literature without reflecting that individual writers, be 
they never so learned, so earnest, so religious, cannot possibly 
offer suitable substitutes for that rich and lovely heritage of 
saintly science that lasts and grows from age to age in the 
church of the centuries. 

Emerson was right when he pictured Emanuel Swedenborg 
as one of the most remarkable men of his century. It was 
grotesquely absurd that an essay on Swedenborg should repre- 
sent him as the Mystic, in the same sense that Shakspere was 
the Poet, or Plato the Philosopher ; and the vagueness and 
shallowness of Emerson's " religion " never presses upon us 
more sharply and painfully than when we read what he con- 
sidered to be a list of typical mystics : Socrates, Plotinus, Por- 
phyry, Behmen, Bunyan, Fox, Pascal, Guyon, Swedenborg. 

The bookf we notice now is a popular unfolding of ideas 
that Swedenborg stood for sweet, comforting, sublime, enno- 
bling many of them. But the short-sighted critic who thinks, 
as Emerson, that such are a surprise and a revelation to the 
" withered, traditional church," is babbling of great truths 

* The Message of Christ to Manhood.' By Rev. Alexander V. G. Allen, D.D., Rev. 
Francis G. Peabody, Rev. Theodore T. Munger, D.D., Rev. William DeW*. Hyde, D.D., Rev. 
Henry Van Dyke, D D., Right Rev. Henry C. Potter, D.D. Boston and New York : Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co. 

t God Winning Us. By Rev. Clarence Lathbury. Germantown, Pa.: Swedenborg Pub- 
lishing Association. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 123 

whose names he cannot spell. Ah ! thrice true, thrice sweet, 
thrice certain is the teaching that comes to us in the guise of 
dogmatic instruction, stately, dignified, tested by its centuries 
of history and its endless succession of marvellous accomplish- 
ments in the souls of men and women whose names are un- 
known at Concord. The Fathers of the Desert they are lesser 
lights to Emerson. The Imitation, perhaps, is easy of compre- 
hension, and not rich in sublime mysticism. St. Teresa and 
St. John of the Cross are shallow or narrow, may be, and Eman- 
uel Swedenborg, learned, scientific, saintly, is type of that caste 
that reigns in the Divine Kingdom. 

No, indeed ! Most of the new volume is healthy, elevated, 
instructive reading, and it may help certain minds to spiritual 
progress, but it is partial and one-sided, and but as the sound 
of a crying infant, when contrasted with what has already been 
spoken to him that hath ears to hear. 

This last century has been a day of transformation in the 
English Church, and that day's story has been matter for 
volumes almost innumerable. The new one that has come to 
us lately is a welcome contribution.* 

The student of history who has realized that almost every- 
where the eighteenth century was a period of depression, will 
note especially the decadence of English letters, statesmanship, 
and military power ; but what will without doubt seem equally 
remarkable is the degenerate condition of religion and church- 
men throughout the Establishment generally at the beginning 
of the current century. It was into this sort of world that 
Newman, Pusey, Keble, Arnold, Wilberforce, and their peers 
were introduced, to rouse their generation into unexpected 
vigor and produce lasting transformations in existing order. 

Of course their stories have been chronicled, each at length, 
and it is impossible to find complete information upon so many 
persons and subjects in any single volume. But Mr. Rogers' 
collection of studies on some dozen of the most prominent 
men in the Church of England during this century possesses 
real value, and will prove a serviceable guide to those who de- 
sire accurate sketches, fairly and artistically drawn, with im- 
partial handling of well-digested information. The book is 
clearly, admirably written, conceived in a spirit of thorough 
fairness, and is to be commended heartily. That the writer's 

* Men and Movements in the English Church, By Arthur Rogers. New York : Long- 
mans, Green & Co. 



124 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [April, 

sketch of Newman should give evidence of comprehensive ap- 
preciation of that " character divine " is certainly not to be 
expected only a Catholic could do that ; but his reverent, 
affectionate treatment of a lost friend satisfies and pleases us. 
Pusey and Keble the writer naturally appreciates at more 
advantage, and portrays more sympathetically. Church, Kings- 
ley, Maurice, and the rest are presented in detail sufficient for 
the general reader's purpose, and will introduce him to a circle 
of accomplished and entertaining writers if he has been unac- 
quainted with them hitherto. 



I. CHRISTIANITY OR AGNOSTICISM.* 

The Abb Picard is a French ecclesiastic who in every sense 
is thoroughly awake to the needs of the church in France. It 
would be good if a like statement could be made of all the 
French clergy. As a body they represent a great deal of learn- 
ing and virtue, but to some extent they are apart from the 
world and not in touch with its aspirations. There is no one 
for whom we have greater admiration than the old professor 
who has grown gray in his association with books, who has spent 
his days in assimilating vast stores of learning until he has be- 
come an animated encyclopaedia, but such a one is very wise 
to remain far from the practical administration of the church. 
The church in her practical administration of affairs has to do 
with hearts that are full of passion, living and throbbing with 
every-day impulses, and to touch such hearts or to mould 
their impulses in accordance with the divine law requires con- 
summate tact. It is not the fossilized book-worm whom we 
would chose for the office, but a man of affairs who can 
speak to the age in its own language. 

It is twenty years and more since the system of secularized 
education has come into vogue in France, and the generation 
which has grown up under its influence is more or less weak in 
its faith. The young men are easily caught by the polished sen- 
tences and fascinating thoughts of the modern pagans, and unless 
their faith is placed on a rational basis they are easily led away 
from their anchorage in the truth. The Abb6 Picard has ap- 
preciated this danger, and in this goodly volume of six hundred 
pages he presents in a most attractive way the reasons for the 
Christian Faith as against the apostles of unbelief. In the first 

* Christianity or Agnosticism. By the Abbe Louis Picard. Authorized translation 
Revised by the Rev. J. G. Macleod, S.J. London: Sands & Co.; New York: Benziger 
Brothers. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 125 

part he treats of Spiritualism, or the supernatural, and as against 
those who deny that there is anything beyond matter or above 
the skies. His reasoning is put into good form and has a crisp- 
ness about it that savors more of the business mart than of the 
musty book-shelf. He discusses, too, many of the later questions 
of anthropology and biology. His second part is " Christianity," 
in which Jesus and His Religion, the Authenticity and Inter- 
pretation of the Scriptures, the Church as against the Churches, 
are admirably treated. 

It is good to see that books of this kind, in which these 
vital questions are handled in such an up-to-date manner, are 
already appearing in France both as the product of and the 
auxiliary to the religious revival among the intellectual classes. 
There have been times in the history of the French Church 
when imprudent obscurantists have crushed a healthful renais- 
sance because it was not in accord with the ways of doing 
when they were young, while if, on the other hand, they had 
the tact to direct and to guide such awakening, it would ulti- 
mately have contributed to the glory of God and the welfare 
of the church. 

Right glorious is this stirring among the young French 
minds, and such books as Abbe" Picard's will assist it and lead 
it on to greater triumphs. 

Father Macleod, S.J., has done the English-speaking world a 
service by putting Abb6 Picard's work within its reach. 



2. ST. EDMUND OF CANTERBURY.* 

The better we become acquainted with those who by their 
unselfish devotion to Almighty God and Holy Church defended 
the faith, the more we are compelled to admire their sterling 
qualities, and the more we are inclined to emulate, so far as 
we may, the noble example of their lives. The early English 
Church produced many such men. How contradictory were the 
characteristics that seemed to make up their being : studious, 
devoted men shrinking from everything savoring of publicity, 
yet how grandly they sprang into their places, firm and fearless 
like the prophet of old, ready to say " Thou art the man," even 
though it were the king on his throne ! Such a man was the 
son of Reynald Rich St. Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of 
Canterbury. He was born near the close of the twelfth cen- 
tury, and educated at Oxford and Paris. 

* Life of St. Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury. By Frances de Paravin- 
cini. New York : Benziger Brothers. 



126 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [April, 

Too often the tendency of the biographer is to incorporate 
in his work much that is hearsay evidence. Frances de Para- 
vincini has given to the public a book that is comparatively free 
from such evidence. In the preface she states the feeling that 
decided, her method of procedure : " I felt strongly that the 
actual statements of contemporary writers in most cases men 
who knew St. Edmund intimately would add greatly to the 
value of this book." 

Following this sentiment she consulted original manuscripts, 
and by means of the " deadly parallel " she forces the ancient 
records to prove her statement. The careful research evident 
from a perusal of the introductory pages is the best assurance 
of the historical accuracy of the biography. The author por- 
trays somewhat fully the conditions existent in England in the 
first part of the thirteenth century. She thus wisely associates 
the man and the times, recognizing that each is the standard by 
means of which the other must be judged, if judged fairly. 

In the first part of the chapter which describes St. Ed- 
mund's appointment as treasurer of the cathedral at Salisbury, 
a somewhat irrelevant though very delightful sketch of old 
English cathedrals and English saints is given. For this irrele- 
vancy the author pleads that the bypaths to which she has 
been attracted in her endeavor to realize the wider background 
of our saint's life will be as full of interest to her readers as 
they were to herself. 

This book, considered in every way, is a valuable contribu- 
tion to Catholic history. 



3. HISTORIC NUNS.* 

In the present day to write of people as they were too 
often consigns the work to the back shelves of both salesroom 
and library. What a blessing it would be if many of the ac- 
tive writers of fiction were to turn their facile pens to the 
work of presenting characters as they really are, not as their 
imagination makes them. The world has produced real men 
and women who have proven their value and worth for the 
people's good. Bessie R. Belloc, in Historic Nuns, presents to 
the world a volume of condensed verbal portraits of women 
who have done much for the world's betterment. She has 
selected as types of valiant women Mary Aikenhead and Cathe- 
rine McAuley, Madame Duchesne and Mother Seton. It would 

* Historic Nuns. By Bessie R. Belloc. New York : Benziger Brothers. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 127 

be hard to select four other women whose works have left a 
deeper impress on the church among English-speaking people 
than these. They were all founders of religious communities. In 
every religious community some one is selected, because of some 
intimate association with the subject to be portrayed, to write the 
full story of that life, its experiences and labors. Into this well- 
ploughed field the author enters, realizing fully, as she states, 
her presumption in touching the same themes. But with the 
knowledge that humbler pens may be useful in shedding light 
upon the characters, giving due credit to the sources of her 
information as well as to their inestimable value, she seeks in 
this volume to gratify the natural desire for a connected picture 
or an abridged and compacted story of these devoted nuns. 

She seeks in the artistic condensation to more vividly pre- 
sent the salient points of their life story. The incidents and 
the anecdotes in the lives of these noble and devoted women 
judiciously selected by the author only intensify the conclu- 
sions at which she arrives. 

Owing to the popular demand for condensation the value 
of this book is in its compactness, enabling the reader to easily 
obtain the important characteristics and incidents in the won- 
derful lives of these devoted women. As we read these pages 
we must conclude, with the author, that "the imagination of 
man cannot create anything so vivid as the unpremeditated re- 
velation of man himself." 



4. THE MASS BOOK.* 

There is undoubtedly an urgent demand for a nandy, com- 
pact, cheap and at the same time comprehensive prayer-book 
for the masses of the people. Of making many prayer-books 
there is no end, but most of the devotional manuals on the 
market to-day are lacking in good taste in their get up, stilted 
in their style, and so high priced as to place them beyond the 
ability of the ordinary church-goer to possess them. The result 
is that half the people who go to Mass go without any prayer- 
book. The Catholic Book Exchange is putting before the pub- 
lic a prayer-book which it calls by the plain old Saxon name of 
THE MASS BOOK, which has all that any Catholic needs in his 
devotional life and much more that is useful by way of explana- 
tion of essential Catholic doctrine and practice. It sells at 
the convenient price of five cents. 

* The Mass Book. Together with Prayers useful in Catholic Devotion and Explanations 
of Catholic Doctrine. Catholic Book Exchange, 120 West 6oth St., New York. 




IT will be an untoward state of affairs if the 
Holy Father is excluded from the Peace Congress 
when it assembles. Italy is evidently afraid that 
his representative will reopen the Roman Question. The wisest 
statesmen of the century have declared that there is no hope 
for continuous and lasting peace in Europe without an equit- 
able settlement of the rights of him who represents the God of 
Peace. 



No man has done so much to make the Peace Congress a 
reality as the Pope. The enlightened policy that he has always 
voiced, as well as the fact that he wields the greatest authority 
in Europe without the backing of an army, has done more to 
demonstrate the feasibility of the ends proposed by the Congress 
than any other one thing. To bar Leo's representative from 
the Congress is to invite defeat. 



The Holy Father's marvellous vitality has again demon- 
strated itself. He has said that he not only hopes but that he 
will live the century through. Such statements from one SQ 
near the veil may be taken very nearly in the exact mean- 
ing of the words used. 



A commission headed by Cardinal Richard has been appoint- 
ed to gather material for the Paris Exposition demonstrating 
the wonderful advancement made by the church during the 
nineteenth century. The commission ought not to confine its 
investigations to Les Missions Etrangeres, but it would be 
quite proper to learn something of the quantity and quality 
of the Catholicity that is prevalent in the United States. 
Many French ecclesiastics can learn a little more of this to 
their own profit. 



1899-] CATHOLICS IN THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. 129 



CATHOLIC OFFICERS IN THE ARMY AND THE 

NAVY. 



CAPTAIN JOHN E. McMAHON, U.S.A. 

Captain McMahon is the son of a soldier and belongs to a 
military family. His father, Colonel John E. McMahon, was 
colonel of the i$5th and afterwards of the i64th N. Y. V., 
and died in command of his regiment in the third year of the 
Civil War. Admiral Ramsay, who married his father's eldest 
sister, served with distinction during the Civil War, and is now 
represented in the service of his country by his son, Martin 
McMahon Ramsay, U.S.N. An uncle, Colonel James Powers 
McMahon, who had just been admitted to the bar at the out- 
break of the war, joined his eldest brother as lieutenant-colonel 
of the 1 55th, and succeeded him in the command of the i64th. 
He led the Corcoran Legion at the battle of Cold Harbor, and 
after the wounding of General Tyler, while planting his flag on 
the enemy's works, fell riddled with bullets. The death of the 
gallant officer is thus described in a long poem by David Gray, 
called " How the Young Colonel Died," from which we give the 
following extracts : 

"You want to hear me tell how the young colonel died? 
God help me ! memory will not fail on that, nor tongue be tied ; 
Ay ! write it down and print it in your biggest types of gold, 
For sure a braver heart than his no mortal breast could hold. 



We charged at dawn ; the colonel led green Erin's old brigade ; 
'Twas Longstreet's blazing cannon behind their breast-works 

played ; 

We charged till, full in front, we felt their fiery breaker-swell 
A sea of rattling muskets in a storm of grape and shell ! 
The colonel led in fire and smoke his sword would wave and 

shine, 
And still the brave sound of his voice led on the struggling 

line ; 

VOL. LXIX. 



130 CATHOLIC OFFICERS IN [April, 

As o'er the surf at Wicklow I've seen the sea-gull fly, 

His voice sailed e'en above the storm and sounded clear and 

high- 
Then all at once our colors sank, I saw them reel and nod ; 
The colonel sprang and took them before they touched the sod. 
Another spring, and with a shout the Rebs will mind it well 
He stood alone upon their works, waved the old flag and fell! 

Twas vain to stand up longer; what could they do but yield? 
Our broken remnant melted back across the bloody field. 
I stayed to help the colonel, and crept to where he lay ; 
A smile came tender o'er his face, but he motioned me away. 
1 I'm torn to pieces, George,' he said. ' Go, save yourself, 

good-night ! ' 

As tender as my mother's that smile came up and shone 
Once more upon his marble face, and the gallant soul was 

gone ! " 

Another uncle, General Martin T. McMahon, now judge of 
the Court of General Sessions, served to the end of the war 
in the Sixth Corps. A brother officer describing his own mess, 
of which the judge was a member, says : " McMahon soon be- 
came my idol. Born of Irish ancestry, and wonderfully edu- 
cated by the Jesuits, of high and chivalrous aims, he was the 
Chevalier Bayard of the corps, and wherever one of the Sixth 
Corps dwells, does he not remember and love McMahon?"* 

The three brothers were educated with the Jesuits. Captain 
McMahon also had the benefit of their training ; he was sent 
by his uncle, the judge, to St. John's, Fordham, where he kept 
up the family reputation for manliness and scholarship, being 
one of the best base-ball players and the leader in his classes, 
winning at graduation the gold medal for the best essay. He 
displayed at an early age, together with the tastes of a student, 
a fondness for military life which was a great grief to his 
mother, for he was her only son and she was a widow. In 
vain did she keep his father's sword and all his military relics 
concealed from him, hoping he might be persuaded to follow 
the more peaceful, or rather less dangerous, profession of law. 
At twelve his favorite book was Casey's Tactics, and he com- 
manded as captain a very creditable company which he raised 
among his playmates. His uncle's friend, General Anson G. 

* Following t he Greek Cross ; or, Memories of the Sixth Army Corps. By General 
Thomas W. Hyde. 



1 899.] 



THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. 




CAPTAIN JOHN E. MCMAHON, U. S. A. 

McCook, one of the "fighting McCooks," gave him a West 
Point appointment. The year of his graduation he was within 
one of " the first five " in his class when an accident in the 
riding hall sent him to the hospital, and caused him to drop 
to No. ii. After graduation he was assigned to the Fourth 
Artillery, at Fort Adams, Newport, R. I. Here he married 
Miss Caroline Bache, daughter of Dr. Dallas Bache, U.S.A., 
a lineal descendant of Benjamin Franklin. His next station 



132 CATHOLICS IN THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. [April, 

was Fortress Monroe ; from here he went to West Point as 
instructor in Spanish and French. From West Point he was 
transferred to the department of Arizona, where he served four 
years on the staff of General Alexander McDowell McCook. 
At the outbreak of the war he was at Fortress Monroe pre- 
paring guns for active service. Hearing that his battery was not 
going to the front, he succeeded in having himself transferred 
to one of the volunteer regiments preparing to embark for 
Santiago. He was appointed captain and assistant adjutant- 
general, and served with General Carpenter. When the general 
was ordered to Cuba after the war in command of the First 
Cavalry Brigade, and made military governor of the province 
of Puerto Principe, he asked for Captain McMahon again, and 
he is now serving at Puerto Principe as adjutant-general and 
military secretary of the governor. The governor, being a 
non-Catholic, does not, like his predecessors, go in state to 
Mass on Sunday. Captain McMahon, however, is regarded in 
the church as his representative and occupies on feast days, 
according to the custom of the country, a post of honor in the 
sanctuary. He has always been most popular at all his posts, 
and has the record of great fidelity to his duties and an ex- 
emplary Catholic. 



1899-] I'EO XI I L ON "AMERICANISM" 133 



LEO XIII. ON u AMERICANISM." 

THE following is the official translation of the original text of the letter sent 
by the Holy Father to his Eminence Cardinal Gibbons: 

Most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinal: 

In a former letter of last October I had the honor to make known to your 
Eminence that the Holy Father intended to address in due course of time a pon- 
tifical letter concerning " Americanism," so called. It now devolves upon me to 
remit to you a copy of the promised letter, advising you at the same time that 
other copies will be forwarded to you through Monsignor the Apostolic Delegate. 

I profit by the present opportunity to renew the expression of my profound 
veneration. Kissing your hands, I am your humble servant, 

M. CARDINAL RAMPOLLA. 
Rome, January 31, 1899. 



Pope Leo's letter is as follows: 

To our Beloved Son, James Cardinal Gibbons, Cardinal Priest of the Title 
Sancta Maria, beyond the Tiber, Archbishop of Baltimore : 
LEO XIII., POPE Beloved Son, Health and Apostolic Blessing. We send 
to you by this letter a renewed expression of that good will which we have not 
failed during the course of our pontificate to manifest frequently to you and to 
your colleagues in the Episcopate and to the whole American people, availing 
ourselves of every opportunity offered us by the progress of your Church or 
whatever you have done for safeguarding and promoting Catholic interests. 
Moreover, we have often considered and admired the noble gifts of your nation, 
which enable the American people to be alive to every good work which pro- 
motes the good of humanity and the splendor of civilization. Although this 
letter be not intended, as preceding ones, to repeat the words of praise so often 
spoken, but rather to call attention to some things to be avoided and corrected, 
still because it is conceived in that same spirit of apostolic charity which has 
inspired all our letters, we shall expect that you will take it as another proof of 
our love ; the more so because it is intended to suppress certain contentions which 
have arisen lately among you to the detriment of the peace of many souls. 

It is known to you, beloved son, that the book on the life of Isaac Thomas 
Hecker, owing chiefly tp the efforts of those who undertook to publish and inter- 
pret it in a foreign tongue, has excited serious controversies by introducing cer- 
tain opinions on a Christian manner of life.* 

We, therefore, on account of our apostolic office, having to guard the in- 
tegrity of the faith and the security of the faithful, are desirous of writing to you 
more at length concerning this whole matter. 

The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more 
easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings 
more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity 
and, make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these conces- 
sieas should be made not only in regard to matters of discipline, but of doctrines 

* Messenger translation. 



134 LEO XIII. ON "AMERICANISM" [April, 

in which is contained the " deposit of faith." They contend that it would be 
opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points 
of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and so to tone them down that 
they do not bear the same sense that the Church has constantly given them. 
It does not need many words, beloved son, to prove the falsity of these ideas 
if the nature and origin of the doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled 
to mind. The Vatican Council says concerning this point : " For the doctrine of 
faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical inven- 
tion, to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine de- 
posit to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. 
Hence that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which 
our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to 
be departed from under the pretence or pretext of a deeper comprehension of 
them." (Constitutio de Fide Catholica, chapter zv.) 

We cannot consider as altogether blameless the silence which purposely 
leads to the omission or neglect of some of the principles of Christian doctrine, 
for all the principles come from the same Author and Master," the only begotten 
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father." (John i.iS.) They are adapted to 
all times and all nations, as is clearly seen from the words of our Lord to his 
apostles : " Going, therefore, teach all nations ; teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you all days, 
even to the end of the world." (Matt, xxviii. IQ.) Concerning this point the 
Vatican Council says : " All those things are to be believed with divine and Cath- 
olic faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and 
which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by her ordinary and univer- 
sal magisterium, proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed." (Const, 
de fide, chapter ///.) 

Let it be far from any one's mind to lessen or to suppress, for any reason, any 
doctrine that has been handed down. Such a policy would tend rather to separate 
Catholics from the Church than to bring in those who differ. There is nothing 
closer to our heart than to have those who are separated from the fold of Christ 
return to it, but in.no other way than the way pointed out by Christ. 

The rule of life laid down for Catholics is not of such a nature that it can- 
not accommodate itself to the exigencies of various times and places. The 
Church has, guided by her Divine Master, a kind and merciful spirit, for which 
reason from the very beginning she has been what St. Paul said of himself : " I 
became all things to all men that I might save all." 

History proves clearly that the Apostolic See, to which has been entrusted 
the mission not only of teaching, but of governing the. whole Church, has con- 
tinued " in one and the same doctrine, one and the same sense, and one and the 
same judgment." (Const, de fide, chapter z'v.) 

But in regard to ways of living she has been accustomed so to moderate 
her discipline that, the divine principle of morals being kept intact, she has 
never neglected to accommodate herself to the character and genius of the 
nations which she embraces. 

Who can doubt that she will act in this same spirit again if the salvation of 

souls requires it ? In this matter the Church must be the judge, not private men, 

who are often deceived by the appearance of right. In this, all who wish to es- 

cape the blame of our predecessor, Pius the Sixth, must concur. He condemned 

as injurious to the Church and the spirit of God who guides her, the doctrine con- 



1899-] LEO XIII. ON "AMERICANISM." 135 

tained in proposition Ixxviii. of the Synod of Pistoia, " that the discipline made 
and approved by the Church should be submitted to examination, as if the 
Church could frame a code of laws useless or heavier than human liberty can 
bear." 

But, beloved son, in this present matter of which we are speaking, there is 
even a greater danger and a more manifest opposition to Catholic doctrine and 
discipline in that opinion of the lovers of novelty, according to which they hold 
such liberty should be allowed in the Church, that her supervision and watchful- 
ness being in some sense lessened, allowance be granted the faithful, each one to 
follow out more freely the leading of his own mind and the trend of his own 
proper activity. They are of opinion that such liberty has its counterpart in 
the newly given civil freedom which is now the right and the foundation of 
almost every secular state. 

In the apostolic letters concerning the Constitution of States, addressed by 
us to the Bishops of the whole Church, we discussed this point at length; and 
there set forth the difference existing between the Church, which is a divine 
society, and all other social human organizations which depend simply on free 
will and choice of men. 

It is well, then, to particularly direct attention to the opinion which serves as 
the argument in behalf of this greater liberty sought for and recommended to 
Catholics. 

It is alleged that now the Vatican Decree concerning the infallible teach- 
ing authority of the Roman Pontiff having been proclaimed, that nothing further 
on that score can give any solicitude, and accordingly, since that has been safe- 
guarded and put beyond question, a wider and freer field, both for thought and 
action, lies open to each one. But such reasoning is evidently faulty, since, if we 
are to come to any conclusion from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, 
it should rather be that no one should wish to depart from it, and moreover that 
the minds of all being leavened and directed thereby, greater security from pri- 
vate error would be enjoyed by all. And further, those who avail themselves of 
such a way of reasoning, seem to depart. seriously from the overruling wisdom 
of the Most High which wisdom, since it was pleased to set forth by most 
solemn decision the authority and supreme teaching rights of this Apostolic 
See willed that decision precisely in order to safeguard the minds of the 
Church's children from the dangers of these present times. 

These dangers, viz., the confounding of license with liberty, the passion for 
discussing and pouring contempt upon any possible subject, the assumed right 
to hold whatever opinions one pleases upon any subject, and to set them forth in 
print to the world, have so wrapped minds in darkness that there is now a great- 
er need of the Church's teaching office than ever before, lest people become 
unmindful both of conscience and of duty. 

We, inde,ed, have no thought of rejecting everything that modern industry 
and study has produced ; so far from it, that we welcome to the patrimony of 
truth and to an ever-widening scope of public well-being whatsoever helps 
toward the progress of learning and virtue. Yet all this, to be of any solid 
benefit, nay, to have a real existence and growth, can only be on the condition of 
recognizing the wisdom and authority of the Church. 

Coming now to speak of the conclusions which have been deduced from 
the above opinions and for them, we readily believe there was no thought of 
wrong or guile, yet the things themselves certainly merit some degree of sus- 



136 LEO XIII. ON "AMERICANISM." [April, 

picion. First, all external guidance is set aside for those souls who are striving 
after Christian perfection as being superfluous, and even disadvantageous 
the contention being that the Holy Spirit pours richer and more abundant graces 
than formerly upon the souls of the faithful, so that without human intervention 
He teaches and guides them by some hidden instinct of His own. Yet it is the sign 
of no small over-confidence to desire to measure and determine the mode of the 
divine communication to mankind, since it wholly depends upon His own good 
pleasure and He is a most free dispenser of His own gifts. (" The Spirit breath- 
eth whereso He listeth." John Hi. 8. "And to each one of us grace is given 
according to the measure of the giving of Christ." Eph. i-v. 7.) 

And shall any one who recalls the history of the Apostles, the faith of the 
nascent Church, the trials and deaths of the martyrs and, above all, those olden 
times so fruitful in saints dare to measure our age with these, or affirm that 
they received less of the divine outpouring from the Spirit of Holiness? Not to 
dwell upon this point, there is no one who calls in question the truth that the 
Holy Spirit does work by a secret descent into the souls of the just and that He 
stirs them alike by warnings and impulses, since, unless this were the case, all 
outward defence and authority would be unavailing. " For if any persuades him- 
self that he can give assent to saving, that is, to gospel truth when proclaimed, 
without an illumination of the Holy Spirit, who gives unto all sweetness both to 
assent and to hold, such an one is deceived by a heretical spirit." {From the 
Second Council of Orange, Canon 7.) 

Moreover, as experience shows, these monitions and impulses of the Holy 
Spirit are for the most part felt through the medium of the aid and light of an 
external teaching authority. To quote St. Augustine: " He (the Holy Spirit) co- 
operates to the fruit gathered from the good trees, since He externally waters 
and cultivates them by the outward ministry of men, and yet of Himself bestows 
the inward increase." (De Gratia Christi, chapter xix.} This, indeed, be- 
longs to the ordinary law of God's loving providence, that as He has decreed that 
men for the most part shall be saved by the ministry also of men, so has He 
wished that those whom He calls to the higher planes of holiness should be led 
thereto by men ; hence St. Chrysostom declares "we are taught of God through 
the instrumentality of men." (Homily I. in Inscr. Altar.) Of this a striking 
example is given us in the very first days of the Church. For though Saul, in- 
tent upon threatenings and slaughter, had heard the voice of our Lord Himself 
and had asked, " What dost Thou wish me to do ? " yet was he bidden to enter 
Damascus and search for Ananias. (Acts ix.) " Enter the city and it shall be 
there told to thee what thou must do." 

Nor can we leave out of consideration the truth that those who are 
striving after perfection, since by that fact they walk in no beaten or well-known 
path, are the more liable 'to stray, and hence have greater need than others of a 
teacher and guide. Such guidance has ever obtained in the Church ; it has been 
the universal teaching of those who throughout the ages have been eminent for 
wisdom and sanctity and hence they who reject it, do so, certainly, with rash- 
ness and peril. 

To one who thoroughly considers the question, even under the supposition 
that every exterior guide is withdrawn, it does not yet appear what in the minds 
of innovators is the purpose of that more abundant influx of the Holy Spirit 
which they so greatly extol. To practise virtue there is absolute need of the assis- 
tance of the Holy Spirit, yet we find those who are fond of novelty giving an un- 



1899-] LEO XIII. ON "AMERICANISM" 137 

warranted importance to the natural virtues, as though they better responded to 
the customs and necessities of the times, and that, having these as his outfit, 
man becomes both more ready to act and more strenuous in action. It is not 
easy to understand how persons possessed of Christian wisdom can either pre- 
fer natural to supernatural virtues or attribute to them a greater efficacy and 
fruitfulness. Can it be that nature conjoined with grace is weaker than when 
left to herself? Can it be that those men illustrious for sanctity, whom the 
Church distinguishes and openly pays homage to, were deficient, came short in 
the order of nature and its endowments, because they excelled in Christian 
strength ? And although it be allowed at times to wonder at acts worthy of 
admiration, which are the outcome of natural virtue how many are there really 
strong in the habit of the natural virtues? Is there any one not tried by temp- 
tations of the soul, and this in no light degree ? Yet ever to master such, as also 
to preserve in its -entirety the law of the natural order, requires an assistance 
from on high* These single notable acts, to which we have alluded, will fre- 
quently upon a closer investigation be found to exhibit the appearance rather 
than the reality of virtue. Grant that it is virtue, yet unless we would " run in 
vain " and be unmindful of that eternal bliss which a good God in his mercy has 
destined for us, of what avail are natural virtues unless seconded by the gift of 
divine grace ? Hence St. Augustine well says : " Wonderful is the strength, and 
swift the course, but outside the true path." For as the nature of man, owing 
to the primal fault, is inclined to evil and dishonor, yet by the help of grace is 
raised up, is borne along with a new greatness and strength, so, too, virtue, 
which is not the product of nature alone, but of grace also, is made fruitful unto 
everlasting life and takes on a more strong and abiding character. 

This overesteem of natural virtue finds a method of expression in assuming 
to divide all virtues into active and passive, and it is alleged that whereas passive 
virtues found better place in past times, our age is to be characterized by the 
active. That such a division and distinction cannot be maintained is patent for 
there is not, nor can there be, merely passive virtue. ' Virtue," says St. 
Thomas Aquinas, " designates the perfection of some potency, but the end of 
such potency is an act, and an act of virtue is naught else than the good use of 
free will," acting, that is to say, under the grace of God if the act be one of 
supernatural virtue. 

He alone could wish that some Christian virtues be adapted to certain times 
and different ones for other times who is unmindful of the Apostle's words, 
" that those whom He foreknew, He predestined to be made conformable to the 
image of His Son." (Romans viii. 29.) Christ is the teacher and the exemplar 
of all sanctity, and to His standard must all those conform who wish for eternal 
life. Nor does Christ know any; change,;, as_ the ages pass, " for He is yesterday 
and to-day and the same for ever." {Hebrews xiii. .) To the men of all ages 
was the precept given : " Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart." 
{Matt. xt. 29.) To every age has He been made manifest to us as obedient even 
unto death ; in every age the Apostle's dictum has its force : " Those who are 
Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences." Would to 
God that more nowadays practised these virtues in the degree of the saints of 
past times, who in humility, obedience, and self-restraint were powerful " in 
word and in deed " to the great advantage, not only of religion but of the state 
and the public welfare. 

From this disregard of the evangelical virtues, erroneously styled passive, 



138 LEO XI I L ON "AMERICANISM" [April, 

the step was a short one to a contempt of the religious life which has in some 
degree taken hold of minds. That such a value is generally held by the up- 
holders of new views, we infer from certain statements concerning the vows 
which religious orders take. They say vows are alien to the spirit of our times, 
in that they limit the bounds of human liberty ; that they are more suitable to 
weak than to strong minds ; that so far from making for human perfection and 
the good of human organization, they are hurtful to both ; but how false these as- 
sertions are is evident from the practice and the doctrine of the Church, which 
has ever highly approved of the religious life. Nor without good cause, for those 
who, under the divine call, have freely embraced that state of life did not content 
themselves with the observance of precepts, but, going forward to the evange- 
lical counsels, showed themselves ready and valiant soldiers of Christ. Shall 
we judge this to be a characteristic of weak minds, or shall we say that it is 
useless or hurtful to a more perfect state of life? Those who so bind themselves 
by the vows of religion, far from having suffered a loss of liberty, enjoy that ful- 
ler and freer kind, that liberty, namely, by which Christ hath made us free. 
(Galat. tv.ji.) 

And this further view of theirs, namely, that the religious life is either en- 
tirely useless or of little service to the Church, besides being injurious to the 
religious orders, cannot be the opinion of any one who has read the annals 
of the Church. Did not your country, the United States, derive the begin- 
nings both of faith and of culture from the children of these religious families ? 
to one of whom but very lately, a thing greatly to your praise, you have 
decreed that a statue be publicly erected. And even at the present time 
wherever the religious families are found, how speedy and yet how fruitful a 
harvest of good works do they not bring forth ! How many leave home and 
seek strange lands to impart the truth of the Gospel and to widen the bounds 
of civilization; and this they do with the greatest cheerfulness amid mani- 
fold dangers. Out of their number, not less indeed than from the rest of 
the clergy, the Christian world finds the preachers of God's word, the directors 
of conscience, the teachers of youth, and the Church itself the examples of all 
sanctity. 

Nor should any difference of praise be made between those who follow the 
active state of life from those others who, charmed with solitude, give them 
selves to prayer and bodily mortification. And how much, indeed, of good re- 
port these have merited, and do merit, is known surely to all who do not forget 
that the " continual prayer of the just man" avails to placate and to bring down 
the blessings of Heaven when to such prayers bodily mortification is added. 

But if there be those who prefer to form one body without the obligation of 
the vows, let them pursue such a course. It is not new in the Church nor in any 
wise censurable. Let them be careful, however, not to set forth such a state 
above that of Religious Orders. But rather, since mankind are more disposed at 
the present time than formerly to indulge themselves in pleasures, let those be 
held in greater esteem " who having left all things have followed Christ." 

Finally, not to delay too long, it is stated that the way and method hitherto 
in use among Catholics for bringing back those who have fallen away from the 
Church should be left aside and another one chosen, in which matter it will suf- 
fice to note that it is not the part of prudence to neglect that which antiquity in 
its long experience has approved and which is also taught by apostolic authority. 
The Scriptures teach us (Eccli. xz'ti. 4) that it is the duty of all to be solicitous 



1899-] LEO XIII. ON "AMERICANISM." 139 

for the salvation of one's neighbor according to the power and position of each. 
The faithful do this by religiously discharging the duties of their state of life, by 
the uprightness of their conduct, by their works of Christian charity, and by 
earnest and continuous prayer to God. 

On the other hand, those who belong to the clergy should do this by an en- 
lightened fulfilment of their preaching ministry, by the pomp and splendor of 
ceremonies, especially by setting forth in their own lives the beauty of that 
doctrine which St. Paul inculcated upon Titus and Timothy. But if, among the 
different ways of preaching the Word of God, that one sometimes seems to be 
preferable which is directed to non-Catholics, not in churche's but in some 
suitable place, in such wise that controversy is not sought, but friendly confer- 
ence, such a method is certainly without fault. 

But let those who undertake such ministry be set apart by the authority of 
the bishops and let them be men whose knowledge and virtue has been pre- 
viously ascertained. For we think that there are many in your country who are 
separated from Catholic truth more by ignorance than by ill-will, who might 
perchance more easily be drawn to the one fold of Christ, if this truth be set 
forth to them in a friendly and familiar way. 

From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give 
approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some 
"Americanism." But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments 
of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong 
to various other nations, or if, moreover, by it is designated your political condi- 
tion and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to 
take exception to the name. But if this is to be so understood that the doctrines 
which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can 
be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the Bishops of America, 
would be the first to repudiate and condemn it as being most injurious to them- 
selves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there 
are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America to be 
different from what it is in the rest of the world. 

But the true Church is one, as by unity of doctrine, so by unity of govern- 
ment, and she is Catholic also. Since God has placed the centre and foundation 
of unity in the chair of Blessed Peter, she is rightly called the Roman Church, 
for " where Peter is there is the Church." (Ambrose, In Ps. xi. j/.) Where- 
fore, if anybody wishes to be considered a real Catholic, he ought to be able to 
say from his heart the self-same words which Jerome addressed to Pope 
Damasus : " I, acknowledging no other leader than Christ, am bound in fellow- 
ship with Your Holiness; that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that the 
Church was built upon him as its rock, and that whosoever gathereth not with 
you, scattereth." 

These instructions which we give you, beloved son, in fulfilment of our duty, 
in a special letter, we will take care are communicated to the bishops of the 
United States ; thus testifying again that love by which we embrace your whole 
country, a country which in past times has done so much for the cause of reli- 
gion, and which, with God's help, will do still greater things. To you, and to 
all the faithful of America, we grant most lovingly, as a pledge of Divine assist- 
ance, our apostolic benediction. 

Given at Rome, from St. Peter's, the 22d day of January, 1899, and the twenty*- 

first of our pontificate. LEO XIII. 



140 LEO XIII. ON "AMERICANISM" [April, 

On the appearance of this letter of our Holy Father, the 
Paulists promptly sent to Rome the following cable message : 

" Patres Paulini, litteras proxime missuri, Leonis XIII. doc- 
trinam plene amplectuntur ." Literally translated into English, 
this reads : " The Paulist Fathers, who will shortly send a let- 
ter, fully embrace the doctrine of Leo XIII." 

The letter, which was sent a few days later, is as follows 
in the original Latin : 

NEO-EBORACI, 28 Februarii, 1899. 
BEATISSIME PATER : 

Vixdum Sanctitatis Vestrae litteras circa errores, quibus 
Americanismi nomen datur, E mo Cardinali Jacobo Gibbons 
Archiepiscopo Baltimorensi datas, in ephemeridibus Civitatis 
Neo-Eboracensis anglice redditas perlegimus, statim doctrinam 
in Pontificio documento propositam plene libenterque sumus 
amplexati : idque Sanctitati Vestrae telegraphice incunctanter 
significavimus. His vero Sanctitati Vestrae gratias ex corde re- 
ferimus, quia supremi Doctoris ac infallibilis Magistri munere 
fungens, nos in viis veritatis ducit ac tenebras erroris procul a 
nobis repellit ; eodemque spiritu Pater Hecker, si adhuc inter 
vivos ageret, Pontificium decretum filiali suscepisset veneratione. 

At haud leve animis nostris solamen ingessit lectio litterarum 
Sanctitatis Vestrae, praesertim quia in eisdem asseritur errores a 
Sancta Sede reprobates opinionum Patris Hecker interpreta- 
tionibus esse potius accensendos quam opinionibus in se inspectis. 
Ceterum si quid sit, siye in doctrina sive in " Vita " laudati 
Patris, quod, sapient; Sancfitatis Vestrae iudicio, emendandum 
esse decernatur, nos libehti ammo Sanctae Sedis sententiae ac- 
quiescimus, turn quia yEcctesia Romana est columna et firma- 
mentum veritatis, tarn .qjtfik >iri regulis Instituti nostri mandatur : 
" Sit societatis ipsae riostrae omniumque eius sociorum nota 
praecipua atque insignis, submissio religiosa, alacris et laeta erga 
Sanctam Ecclesiam, omnemque potestatem in ea legitime con- 
stitutam, omnesque ordinationes auctoritate sua sancitas. 
Primum omnium Jesu Christi Vicario, Ecclesiaeque Sanctae 
Romanae, omnibusque Sanctae Sedis Apostolicae decretis atque 
monitis sive ad doctrinam sive ad disciplinam spectantibus, haec 
exhibeatur obedientia." Hujusmodi autem obedientia alte est 
in nostris insculpta cordibus, ita ut nunquam cogitavimus ab 
integritate et severitate Doctrinae Catholicae discedendi. At si 
juxta sententiam Sanctitatis Vestrae, nos hanc propensionem vel 
habuimus,, vel spec-re- saltern demonstravimus, vel nostra agendi 



1899-] LEO XIII. ON "AMERICANISM." 14! 

ratione huic propensioni favorem quocumque modo praebuimus, 
nos grato animo, paternam Sanctitatis Vestrae correctionem 
suscipimus. 

Instituti nostri Constitutiones stricte mandant ut nos per- 
fectae studeamus orthodoxiae, ut pro norma habeamus non tan- 
turn Ecclesiae definitiones sed etiam monita ac probatorum 
auctorum scripta circa vitam spiritualem, et ut devotiones quas 
Ecclesia patrocinatur atque commendat, promoveamus. Et in 
iis, haec declaratio invenitur : " Omnibus, etiam sacerdotibus, 
praescribitur, ut directione spirituali juxta auctorum probatorum 
principia utantur." In his ac in omnibus principia ac monita in 
litteris Sanctitatis Vestrae proposita nos sequuturos declaramus, 
pariterque plenum obsequium ac fidelem adhaesionem Sanctitati 
Vestrae ac S. Romanae Sedi profitemur. Insuper exemplaria 
libri cui titulus Vita Patris Hecker neque vendituros neque 
aliis tradituros promittimus, usquedum correctio, iudicio S. 
Sedis facienda, non sit ad effectum perducta. 

Interim ad pedes Sanctitatis Vestrae provoluti, Apostolicam 
Benedictionem humiliter. postulamus. 

Addictissimus Servus, 

Pro Institute Presbyterorum Missionis 
S. Pauli Apostoli, 
GEORGIUS DESHON, 

Superior Generalis. 
Beatissimo Patri 

LEONI XIII., P.P. 




(Dtxtario 



142 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [April, 



THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 

AT the Tuxedo, New York City, on March 15, the Guild of Catholic authors 
and writers held the third meeting of the year 1899. Miss Marie F. Giles, 
Miss Lida Rose McCabe, and Mr. John Jerome Rooney were selected for the 
leading numbers on the programme. Two very interesting questions were pre- 
sented for discussion : (i) Would the Catholic drama succeed to-day ? (2) What 
is modern criticism ? 

For the February meeting an equally interesting programme was arranged, 
consisting of a sketch of the literary work of Joshua Huntington ; a paper on 
writing stories for the young, by Miss Marion J. Brunowe, and an address by the 
editor of the Penny Magazine, Mr. T. C. Quinn. The topics for discussion were : 
(i) Do Catholic books receive competent and helpful reviews from Catholic pa- 
pers ? (2) Should the art of poetry be more thoroughly cultivated ? 

The officers of the guild are: Rev. John Talbot Smith, president ; Mr. John 
J. Rooney, first vice-president; Miss Ellen A. Ford, second vice-president; Miss 
Marion J. Brunowe, secretary: Miss Marie Giles, librarian ; Rev. John J. Donlon, 
Brooklyn, and Mr. James Clancy, New York, trustees ; Mr. Arthur Ryan, secre- 
tary and treasurer, 27 Barclay Street, New York City. 

The aims of the guild are : To bring Catholic writers of the metropolis and 
of the country together, and to help its members toward success. For this pur- 
pose committees have been appointed to read manuscript, look after copyrights, 
and give advice to struggling and inexperienced writers. To aid in the develop- 
ment of the Catholic idea in literature. To this end discussions at the meetings 
will be directed, new fields of work will be described, and eminent writers will 
address the members. Efforts will be made to revive or keep alive the memory 
and the good work of deceased Catholic writers. 

All Catholic writers are invited to attend the meetings and to become mem- 
bers. The annual fee is two dollars. Applications for membership can be made 
to any officer of the guild. This is the only society of this kind at present exist- 
ing in the United States. 

* * * 

The American Irish Historical Society has for its purposes the study of 
American history generally ; to investigate specially the immigration of the 
people of Ireland to this country, determine its numbers, examine the sources, 
learn the place of its settlement ; to examine records of every character where- 
ever found ; to endeavor to correct erroneous, distorted, and false views of 
history in relation to the Irish race in America; to promote and foster an honor- 
able and national spirit of patriotism ; to place the results of its historical inves- 
tigations and researches in acceptable literary form, and to print, publish, and 
distribute its documents. 

Any person of good moral character who is interested in the special work of 
this society shall be deemed eligible for the same. No tests other than that of 
character and devotion to the society's objects shall be applied to membership. 
The society shall comprise life members and annual members, who shall pay 
dues provided by the by-laws. Payment of fifty dollars in advance at one time 
shall constitute a life-membership. Life members shall be exempt from further 
membership dues. The annual membership fee shall be three dollars, payable 



1899-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 143 

the first day of February in each year. Applications may be sent to Mr. 
Thomas B. Lawler, No. 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 

* * * 

Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, the distinguished physician and scholar, of New 
York City, at the recent annual meeting of the American-Irish Historical Society 
read an instructive paper on Irish Emigration during the Seventeenth and Eigh- 
teenth Centuries. He shows in this learned contribution to American history 
that the early Irish settlers here played an important part in the affairs of this 
country. Dr. Emmet's paper is written from the Catholic point of view, which 
is generally ignored by ordinary text-book writers. The claim is established 
by convincing proof that the Irish people were the pioneers from almost the first 
settlement on the Atlantic coast and continued until the line of emigration had 
crossed the continent to the Pacific. The Colonial records bear testimony that 
the Irish were here at an early period, and so many hamlets on the frontier were 
designated by such distinctive Irish names that, had we no other proof than these 
facts, we could not honestly divest ourselves of the conviction that Ireland con- 
tributed more in numbers for the development of this country than came from 
any other source. 

Great injustice has been done the Irish people by depriving them of credit 
so justly due them. This has resulted partially from ignorance, but to a greater 
extent from an influence exerted prior to the first settlement in this country. 
The purpose which prompts this injustice has been maintained through Eng- 
lish influence, and has always been wanting so much in charity that we can hope 
to accomplish little in any effort to establish the truth, so long as individuals in 
this country are willing to have their judgment influenced by the policy of a for- 
eign power. 

The same influence has been as actively engaged in claiming that we are 
English ; that this country is consequently " a worthy daughter of a more worthy 
mother." Yet my investigations have impressed me with the belief that of the 
seventy-five millions forming our present population there are a far greater num- 
ber of individuals who could be more certain of their African origin than there 
are those who could prove a direct English descent. 

It is not sufficient to show proof of an ancestor sailing from an English 
port, as all were rated during the seventeenth century as English, without refer- 
ence to their nationality. Moreover, the bearing of an English name would be 
no more conclusive, as we shall show a large proportion of the " Wild Irish" 
were compelled by law to assume English surnames which their descendants 
bear at the present time. 

I have no accurate data bearing directly upon the early emigration of the 
Irish to this country, for none exist. On the other hand, the assertion that they 
were among the first settlers, and the most numerous afterward, cannot be dis- 
proved for the same reason. But I will show, as circumstantial evidence, that 
throughout the greater portion of the seventeenth century a dire provocation ex- 
isted, and that the Catholics were driven out of Ireland by a persecution which 
has never been equalled. The world to-day is in ignorance of the fact, since a 
truthful history of Ireland, and of the suffering borne by a majority of the peo- 
ple, has yet to be written. 

Whenever an advantage was to be gained by falsifying a historical event, the 
English government has never hesitated, for centuries past, to exercise its influ- 
ence for that purpose. Yet, with a strange inconsistency, every record in the 



144 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [April, 1899.] 

keeping of the government is zealously preserved, notwithstanding the most 
damning testimony is thus furnished. 

Virginia was undoubtedly first settled by the English, but at an early period 
the Irish began to come in, bound to serve a stated term in payment for their 
passage money ; but eventually these people became free men, settling down on 
the frontier, and their descendants in tne next generation, as indicated by their 
names appearing in the records, began to take part in the affairs of the colony. 

Maryland was chiefly settled by Irish Catholics, and Calvert himself was an 
Irishman, and received his title of Lord Baltimore from a place in the southwest 
of Ireland. 

William Penn spent a large portion of his life in Ireland before receiving his 
grant in America. A number of his followers were Irish, and the most promi- 
nent person next to Penn himself was James Logan, an Irishman, who acted as 
governor of the province for a number of years. He was most tolerant to the 
Irish Catholics, who were allowed free exercise of their religion, and they re- 
ceived protection in this colony from the first settlement. 

Many of those who first settled in New Jersey were from Ireland, and there 
were undoubtedly some Irish in New Amsterdam. In the Jesuit Relations it is 
shown that Father Jogues, who afterward suffered the death of a martyr among 
the Indians of Central New York, came about 1642 from Canada to administer 
to those of his faith then living among the Dutch. 

In 1634 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay granted lands on the Mer- 
rimac River for an Irish settlement, and there were several hundred Irishmen 
who served in King Philip's Indian War whose names are still preserved in the 
colonial records. I have a record of the fact, btit neglected to note the authority 
of a reference to a contemporaneous account of a fearful storm which occurred 
in the winter of 1634-35 off the north coast of Ireland. As one of the incidents 
mentioned is made of the shipwreck of a vessel filled with Irish emigrants, on 
the second day out of their voyage to join, as was stated, the Merrimac River 
settlement in New England, this straw of information is a valuable indication 
in our current of circumstantial evidence. It establishes the fact, by another 
source, that an Irish settlement was planted on the Merrimac River as early as 
1634. It also shows that however intolerant the New England Puritans were 
sometimes in their immediate surroundings to the Catholics, they did tolerate in 
this instance, and likely in many others, the " fighting Irish," as they were 
termed. In fact, they gave little thought to their religious belief so long as they 
remained on the frontier to fight the Indians. This incident shows that emi- 
grants sailed from the north of Ireland for this settlement, notwithstanding it 
may have been necessary to have commenced their voyage from an English 
port, and it also proves that these people were Catholics. The fact as to their 
religion is established by a knowledge of the condition of the country at that 
particular time, as I have attempted v to describe. The Catholics were fleeing in 
all directions from the district of country which had been laid waste, and in 
many instances they had to subsist on the dead bodies of those who had pre- 
ceded them, and who had died on the way from starvation. None but the Catho- 
lics left Ireland at this time, as every individual in sympathy with the English 
was then busy in bettering his condition by securing a portion of the spoils. 

There were a number of Catholics sent out to New England through the 
efforts of Cromwell, and although they may not have come at that time as will- 
ing emigrants their descendants must afterward have become identified with 
the country. M. C: M. 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. LXIX. 



MAY, 1899. 



No. 410. 




SALVE, 



BY R. H. ARMSTRONG. 

HOU little maid among the olive-trees 

That trembled when the angel bade thee 

hail, 
Whose wondering brow paled with the 

winging breeze, 
Whose heart, before his lips had told the 

tale, 

Had all its blessedness quite folded up 
Like golden treasure in a lily cup ! 

Salve, Regina ! 

Ah, mother with the Infant at thy breast, 
So wrapt about in love, given and giving ; 

The little God-child with His wet lips pressed 

And tightening fingers clasped, and through thee living 

Thy God and yet thy babe, thy very own 

Ah, sweet and full the joy that thou hast known ! 

Salve, Regina ! 

O woman at the Cross, and all alone, 

That anguish singled thee as did thy bliss, 

Blest among women. . . . No other moan 
So full of bitterness as thine. 'Tis this 

That doth make Love, remembering thee, more sweet, 

And Sorrow, gentler grown, weeps at thy feet. 

Salve, Salve, Regina ! 

Copyright. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE 

STATE OF NEW YORK. 1899. 
VOL. LXIX. 10 




146 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 

BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D. 

jN our review of the progress of science in the 
nineteenth century let us begin with Astronomy. 
When the century opened astronomy, through 
the labors of Kepler, Galileo, Huygens, Newton, 
Laplace, and Lagrange, had become an exact 
science. These great men had given us the key to the move- 
ments of the heavenly bodies ; we knew that they were all 
swayed by the mysterious force of gravitation, and the work 
of our time has been mainly to discover new planets and stars, 
to make more accurate our knowledge of the positions and 
motions of the ones we already know, and to discover the 
materials out of which the stars and planets are composed. 

The telescopes of the year 1800 might, in certain respects, 
have been called primitive compared with the ones now in use, 
where clock-work regulates the movements, and where a micro- 
scope reveals the most delicate measurements. In 1800 the 
distance of not a single star had been measured ; indeed, this 
was thought to be an impossibility, while even as late as 1836 
Auguste Comte maintained that Newton's theory of gravitation 
could not be proved to extend beyond our own little sun- 
system. And he also believed that the outer stars might be 
composed of matter altogether different from anything known 
to our earth. Not many years before the beginning of the 
century Sir William Herschel who, by the way, constructed 
his own telescope had discovered the planet Uranus, and this 
was almost the only addition to the solar system which had been 
made within historical time. But in 1801 the diminutive planet 
Ceres was discovered. Ceres is only 196 miles in diameter, yet 
it is the largest of the minor planets. Shortly afterv rds two 
more like it were discovered, which were named Pallas and 
Juno, and almost every year since then other little planets 
have come to light, until they now number about 232. They 
have been christened Asteroids, and there are astronomers who 
believe that they may be the fragments of one big planet which 
was shattered in pieces through some mighty catastrophe. 

After the discovery of the asteroids astronomers became 



1899-] THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 147 

greatly interested in two remarkable comets known as Encke's 
and Biela's. In 1819 Professor Encke, of Berlin, discovered the 
comet called after him. It is quite small, and he calculated 
that it returned regularly every three years and a quarter. 
The reason why this comet is more than commonly interesting 
and perplexing to astronomers is because it shows itself two 
hours and a quarter earlier at each appearance. A few years 
later in 1826 an Austrian officer, Biela, discovered the comet 
which bears his name. When Biela's comet returned in 1832 
thousands of people were panic-stricken, for it had been calcu- 
lated that it would cross the earth's orbit and in the collision 
which might ensue the earth would be destroyed. When it 
returned in 1845 it presented an awe-inspiring, never-to-be-for- 
gotten sight. But suddenly one night Lieutenant Maury, of 
the Washington Observatory, found that it had broken in two, 
and each of the two comets had a perfect head and tail. These 
celestial twins, so to speak, kept each other company. They 
returned in 1852 ; then disappeared, and have not been seen 
since. 

After the diminutive planets of whfch we have spoken 
and Encke's and Biela's comets, the next astronomical dis- 
covery in our century was certainly a very remarkable one : 
we allude to the discovery of the planet Neptune. We call it 
very remarkable because it was made quite independently by 
two mathematicians who, without using a telescope, arrived 
almost simultaneously at the same end, namely, they indicated 
the very spot in the heavens where a disturbing body was to 
be looked for, solely by means of Newton's law of gravitation. 
It had been observed by astronomers ever since Sir William 
Herschel the father of Sir John discovered Uranus, in 1781, 
that this planet did not move as it shoujd move according to 
the law of gravitation ; its orbit was not what it ought to be, 
allowing for the attraction of the sun and the planets already 
discovered ; some unknown body must be pulling it out of its 
path. But no eye had yet been able to find the disturbing 
body. But in 1843 John Couch Adams, a student at Cam- 
bridge, England, set to work on this problem, and sure enough 
he accurately calculated precisely where a new planet would be 
found if a telescope were turned to a certain part of the 
heavens. And while Adams was thus at work in his study at 
Cambridge, Leverrier, in Paris, was engaged in the very same 
way. And lo ! when these two mathematicians made known the 
result of their difficult calculations and told astronomers where 



148 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

to point their telescopes, a new planet came to light, and it 
was christened Neptune. After the discovery of Neptune, the 
next interesting discovery we came to was the finding of the 
paths of meteors, or shooting stars. This discovery showed that 
besides the sun, the planets and their moons, our solar system 
consists of myriads of diminutive bodies also revolving around 
our sun, which diminutive bodies are believed to be the shat- 
tered fragments which have been thrown up from the interior 
of other globes, and when these stones enter our atmosphere 
they become heated and glow, owing to the incredible speed at 
which they rush through it. But while they may be said to be 
swarming within our sun system, there is some evidence that 
their proper habitat is interstellar space ; and let us add that 
the composition of meteors now forms a separate branch of 
mineralogy. 

Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer, in 1862 proved that a 
comet which in that year crossed the earth's path, crossed it 
at the same point in the heavens as the earth is in during the 
meteor shower which occurs on August 10, and he suggested 
that the August meteors and the comet were travelling in the 
same orbit. This pregnant suggestion turned out to be correct. 
At about the same time that Schiaparelli made this discovery 
in regard to the August meteors and the comet, Adams in 
England and Leverrier in France determined the orbit of the 
November meteor stream. And lo ! it was found a few years 
later that a comet was travelling along the very path of the 
November shooting stars. Now, this association between these 
two meteor streams and these two comets was too close to be 
accidental ; and it is now believed to be highly probable that 
a comet is a group of meteoric stones whose densest portion, 
the nucleus, is solid matter loosely held together, and cometary 
light is undoubtedly of electrical origin. 

It is also considered probable that the much larger comets 
than Encke's and Biela's, which have appeared at different 
times, are similarly associated with vastly larger meteor systems. 
Professor Lockyer, moreover, has shown that fragments of 
meteoric stones, intensely heated in a vacuum, give a spectrum 
closely resembling the spectrum bf a comet. Nor can there be 
much doubt that the countless millions of so-called shooting 
stars whether grouped together as comets or flying singly 
through space play an important part in the economy of the 
solar system. Indeed, some astronomers maintain that the 
unending downfall of meteoric showers upon the surface of the 



1899-] THE CENTURY'S PKOGRESS IN SCIENCE. 149 

sun is enough to account for the continuance of the solar light 
and heat. The whole immense space between the sun and the 
planets would certainly seem to be swarming with meteoric life, 
and there are even astronomers who believe that not only our 
solar system but the whole universe may have been formed by 
the coming together, under the influence of gravitation, of widely 
diffused meteoric matter; the collision would produce heat and 
incandescence, and they hold to this hypothesis rather than to 
that of a primeval universe in a state of vapor, which became 
solid through cooling and contraction. It must be said, how- 
ever, that the supposition that the sun's heat and light may 
be kept up through a ceaseless down-pouring of meteors upon 
its surface is far from being so generally accepted as the 
theory advanced by Helmholtz. This German physicist sup- 
poses that the heat of the sun is kept up by the gradual con- 
traction of its own mass, and thus the nebular hypothesis of 
Laplace conceived in 1796 would seem as time goes on to 
be more and more securely established. Here let us say that 
Laplace, in his Mecanique Ctteste, taught that in the far distant 
past the matter which at present constitutes our solar system 
was expanded into an immense glowing nebula rotating through 
space and extending far beyond where the farthest planet now 
is, and that this nebulous mass contracted little by little as its 
heat radiated into space, and as it contracted it rotated more 
and more rapidly, until finally smaller rings of nebulous matter 
one after the other were left behind from the central mass ; 
but these smaller rings continued to revolve around it, and thus 
was formed our solar system sun, planets, and moons the sun 
to-day representing the core of the original nebula ; and this is 
what is known as the nebular hypothesis. It may well be, 
however, that Laplace's bold conception applies only to our 
own sun-system, and that it does not account for the origin of 
the double and multiple stars in the visible universe. And let 
us observe that about ten thousand binary or double stars are 
already known. Certainly some of these double stars are of a 
radically different type from our own solar system, and it has 
been asked whether our system may not be unique in its char- 
acter. May it not be an exceptional formation ? 

It certainly is unique among the star systems which have 
thus far been studied. Here let us remark that the theory of 
secular tidal friction developed by George Howard Darwin, son 
of the famous naturalist, and applied to the double stars, is 
conceived by Dr. T. J. J. See to have had not a little to do 



150 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

with modifying their figures and their motions. The masses of 
the dozen double stars which this astronomer has carefully ob- 
served differ but little one from the other, and Dr. See,* who 
has made double stars a special study, contrasts them with our 
own sun accompanied by its many planets, and he supposes 
that they have not developed from their primal nebula in the 
same manner as our sun system has developed. The two stars 
composing a binary system are supposed in the beginning to 
have formed a single nebulous mass ; then, after assuming the 
figure of an hour-glass, the nebula split into two parts, and the 
changes which have come about between them since they split 
in two have been due to tidal friction ; they revolve one about 
the other in highly eccentric orbits, and this high eccentricity 
has been brought about by the action of the tides of each star 
on the other, f 

Whether beyond the tens of millions of stars which com- 
pose our universe there may not be other universes, it is not 
possible to tell. Yet astronomical analogies would indicate that 
the furthest star which the strongest telescope can descry does 
not mark the limits of creation. The immensity of our uni- 
verse may perhaps be grasped but only very faintly if we 
represent our solar system as a ring six feet in diameter with 
the sun in the centre. In this ring Neptune the most distant 
planet, 2,760,000,000 miles from the sun would be seen lying 
near the circumference, or about three feet from the centre of 
the ring. Once outside our imaginary ring and preserving the 
same scale of measurement, we should find nothing at all ex- 
cept some comets speeding from one sun to the other and 
swarms of meteors, until we had gone about three and a half 
miles. No, not until we had gone about this distance beyond 
the circumference of our ring should we come to the very 
nearest of all the outlying stars Alpha Centauri4 

Then from Alpha Centauri let us fancy ourselves journey- 
ing on and on and on into space, passing countless brilliant 
suns, some of them revolving one about the other, until at 
length we arrive at the furthest star which the most powerful 
telescope can faintly discern ; and it is supposed that this al- 
most invisible star may be represented as lying ten thousand 
times further from the circumference of our ring than Alpha 
Centauri. Another way, perhaps, to picture to ourselves the 

* See his very interesting article in the Atlantic Monthly for April, on the Solar System. 

t The Tides. By George Howard Darwin. 

J It is a binary, distant about twenty millions of millions of miles from the earth. 



1899-] THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 151 

vastness of our universe is to state that if our sun (which is 
believed to be moving toward a point in the constellation 
Hercules at the probable rate of 150,000,000 miles every year) 
were to move straight on in the direction of the nearest so- 
called fixed star, Alpha Centauri, and if this star were to stay 
where it is, our sun would barely reach Alpha Centauri in 
139,200 years. But whatever conception we may form of our 
universe, whatever hypothesis we may adopt in regard to its 
formation, we are still left in the midst of a mystery. 

W^hence arose the first nebula? How was meteoric dust 
developed ? We are told that our sun system and other sun 
systems are controlled by the force of gravitation. But whence 
comes the force of gravitation ? We know that our sun and 
many so-called fixed stars have a proper motion through space, 
and we know pretty well the direction of this motion. But is 
it consistent with the theory of gravity that the path of our 
sun or any other body should be a straight line ? Moreover, 
there are a few stars which are known to be moving through 
space at a rate so terrific that it has been questioned whether 
these stars, which are moving at this indescribable, bewildering 
speed, may not be merely visitors, birds of passage, so to speak, 
from some remote universe, some outlying, far-off part of God's 
creation. 

As we have already said, when our century began the dis- 
tance of not a single star had been measured, while any know- 
ledge of the chemical nature of the planets and stars by direct 
observation was believed to be an impossibility. Yet the nebu- 
lar hypothesis requires, for its complete confirmation, that the 
matter which exists throughout our solar system should be the 
same matter as composes our earth. What at that time was 
thought to be an impossibility has been achieved : the dis- 
covery of the chemical nature of the heavenly bodies has been 
made through spectrum analysis. Here we may remark that 
the seven colors pointed out by Descartes, viz., red, orange, 
yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, were called by Newton 
a spectrum, from specto I behold. There are, however, an 
infinite variety of colors, and they were roughly divided into 
seven merely for convenience sake. To be brief, spectrum an- 
alysis means analyzing and studying the different kinds of light 
when viewed through a prism. And it is fortunate that light 
is of a complex nature that there are many kinds of light 
rays, and that they become widely scattered differently re- 
fracted in passing through a piece of glass cut in the shape of 



152 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

a wedge or prism. Moreover, some of the rays of light may 
be blotted out while other rays are made brighter, and it is in 
these differences that we have, as it were, a code of signals 
which, correctly interpreted, convey to the astronomer the chem- 
ical nature of the gases by which certain light rays have been 
blotted out and others have been made brighter. Newton, in 
his work on the solar spectrum, failed to perceive on his screen 
the dark lines which cross the colors of the spectrum. These 
significant dark lines, or narrow gaps, were first pointed out 
by Wollaston, in 1802. But this eminent English chemist 
missed their true significance. He viewed the dark lines in the 
colors of the solar spectrum as the boundary lines of the spec- 
tral colors, and it was left to a German, Joseph Fraunhofer, 
not only to trace a great number of these dark lines crossing 
the solar spectrum (the principal ones are now called Fraun- 
hofer's lines), but also to discover similar dark lines although 
differently arranged in the spectra of several stars ; and let 
us say that in his observations he placed a prism before the 
object-glass of his telescope a star spectroscope was an instru- 
ment not yet invented. But although Fraunhofer made some 
suggestive experiments and found that two dark lines in the 
spectrum of the sun apparently corresponded in their place in 
the spectrum, and in their distance from each other, to two 
bright lines which were generally present in artificial, terres- 
trial flames, he advanced no further and left us in ignorance 
of the cause of these dark lines of these rayless bands. 

It was not until 1859 that another German physicist, Kirch- 
hoff, told us what these dark lines in the spectrum of the sun 
meant. He proved that they are due to the absorption of the 
vapors of similar substances which when heated give out cor- 
responding bright lines. Here was the answer, the correct in- 
terpretation of the dark lines as a code of signals : correctly 
interpreted, they gave a clue to the chemical constitution of 
our sun. And as it is the light of the sun which gives the 
moon its light, he perceived that the dark lines come in the 
same place in the spectrum of the moon. 

But when Kirchhoff examined the light of the stars with a 
spectroscope (all the so-called fixed stars are suns) he found 
that the dark lines in the star spectrum did not all occupy 
the same place as the dark lines in our sun spectrum, and he 
argued that some intrinsic difference must exist between the 
light of our sun and the light of the stars. 

This brief work of Kirchhoff may be called the first step in 






1899-] THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 153 

our study of the solar system and the stellar systems by spec- 
trum analysis. 

Since 1859 great progress has been made through this ingen- 
ious method of research. We know to-day not only that cer- 
tain earthly substances are present in the stars, but that in 
some stars there are substances which are not found on our 
earth. Spectrum analysis has also enabled us to separate into 
double stars systems whose component parts are too close to- 
gether for the largest telescope to resolve ; these intimately 
connected double stars are detected through their giving a com- 
pound spectrum. Moreover the spectroscope has enabled us to 
calculate the rate at which a star may be travelling towards 
us or away from us ; for the rate at which a star moves may 
be measured by its change of color : the color-change depend- 
ing on the fact that if a star is coming towards us, the succes- 
sion of light waves strike upon the eye more rapidly than if 
it is receding from us. If a star is receding it sends fewer 
vibrations in a second : hence a change in its color ; its lines 
move towards the red end of the spectrum. But if it is mov- 
ing towards us, it will appear tinged with blue. Here let us 
say that two centuries ago Huygens assumed as a good work- 
ing hypothesis yet one most difficult to conceive that the 
vast, airless space between our earth and the stars was filled 
with an elastic, invisible substance to which he gave the name 
of ether ; and he assumed that this subtle substance is set in 
wave-like motions by the sun and all luminous bodies, and that 
these waves or undulations when they strike upon the eye 
cause the sensation which we call light. Accepting as true 
this hypothesis, let us say that when the ether waves set in 
motion by the sun strike the earth they are impeded in their 
motion, for it is harder for them to travel through the solid 
earth than through the ether, and consequently a number of 
the ether waves bound or vibrate back from the earth to the 
eye, and as they vibrate differently according to the condition 
of the earth its roughness, its dryness, its softness they 
impress the eye differently and make an impression of the 
earth as it is. But a perfectly transparent body lets nearly 
all the ether waves pass through it ; in this case very few of the 
ether waves vibrate back to the eye, and so you might walk up 
against a glass door without seeing it. But put some mercury be- 
hind the glass, and you have a reflected image of yourself, a 
looking-glass ; because the mercury lets hardly any of the ether 
waves pass through it it makes them vibrate back to your eye. 



154 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

A leaf looks green because all the ether waves, except the green 
waves, are supposed to be absorbed by the leaf ; only the green 
waves vibrate back to your eye, and vibrate just rapidly enough 
to make on your eye the sensation called green. A red object 
is supposed to absorb all the ether waves except the red ones, 
which vibrate back and give the sensation called red. A blue 
object is supposed to absorb all the ether waves except the 
blue ones, which vibrate back and give the sensation called 
blue ; and so on with all the other colors. In a word, the 
colors of objects are supposed to be due to the unequal ab- 
sorption of rays of light of different refrangibility. But spec- 
trum analysis has done more than separate double stars and 
tell how fast stars may be travelling to or from us. It has al- 
so thrown not a little light on the nature of the nebulae. Sir 
William Herschel supposed that the nebulas were all star 
clusters which were too distant for any telescope to discover 
the stars which compose them. Now we know that, while stars 
and nebulae are often closely connected, many nebulae consist 
entirely of glowing hydrogen and nitrogen gases. 

But wonderful as have been the results achieved through 
spectrum analysis, we have discovered by means of photogra- 
phy things almost as wonderful. By applying a sensitive pho- 
tograph plate to the telescope instead of the human eye, we 
have obtained photographs of comets, stars, and nebulae which 
it was utterly impossible for the eye to see through the tele- 
scope ; the retina of the strongest eye soon wearies, whereas 
the metallic plate does not weary, and the cumulative effects 
of many hours' exposure reveal depths in our universe un- 
dreamed of before. Astronomers are even preparing to photo- 
graph the entire heavens, and when this task is completed we 
shall have photographs of between ten and twenty millions of 
stars. 

PHYSICS. 

From astronomy let us pass to the domain of Physics. 
Here we may confidently say that one of the most important 
discoveries of our century is the law of the conservation of 
energy. What led up to this discovery was the determination 
by many experiments of the mechanical equivalent of heat. A 
century ago Sir Humphry Davy concluded that heat was a 
mode of motion, " probably a vibration of the corpuscles (that 
is, the little particles) of bodies tending to separate them." 
Thus, if we set a pan of water on some burning coals, the vi- 



1899-] THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 155 

bration which takes place in the coals as they burn passes into 
the metal of the pan, and through the pan it passes to the 
water. Presently the minute particles which compose the water 
tend to push apart. But being bound to one another by the 
force of attraction, they quiver and vibrate, for they cannot 
yet get away from each other ; and it is this vibration which 
gives you the sensation of heat if you touch the water with 
your finger. But by and by, as the water in the pan gets hotter 
and hotter, the quivering and vibration of its tiny particles become 
more and more violent, until at length the force of attraction 
which holds the particles of water together is overcome by the 
force of motion, and then away fly these little particles in the 
shape of steam. But we have not space to tell all the ways 
whereby it has been shown that heat is not a material substance 
but a mode of motion, and that energy may be converted into 
heat. Let us merely observe that it is generally held that 
James P. Joule, of Manchester, in 1849, was the first to establish 
that a certain force exerted would produce a corresponding 
amount of heat ; that there was a mechanical equivalent of 
heat. By a very ingenious experiment he showed that a weight 
weighing one pound must fall 772 feet in order to raise the 
temperature of one pound of water by i Fahrenheit. And 
Joule's conclusions led to the more general law known as the 
conservation of energy. By this is meant that the energy, the 
power to do work in the operations of nature which a body 
possesses, may be transformed but cannot be destroyed. The 
energy which converts heat into work or work into heat remains 
always the same ; if it be lost in one form it will reappear in 
another. A ball that falls to the ground rests there, but the 
energy of the falling ball has been converted into heat, which 
heat, if it were stored up and utilized, would again lift the ball to 
the height from which it fell. This important principle would 
seem to show that all the forces of nature depend one on the 
other ; and moreover, that force does not originate on the 
earth, but comes to us from the sun, or had its source in the 
sun before the earth parted from it.* 

ELECTRICITY. 

We shall now speak of electricity. Our century has wit- 
nessed marked advances in this science, although we do not 

* Memorandums found among the papers of the French scientist, Sadi Carnot, prove 
that he had come to believe that heat is in reality motion motion which has changed its 
form. A number of years before Joule, Carnot had convinced "himself of the doctrine of 
the conservation of energy. 



156 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

yet know what electricity re'ally is. But while we take a rea- 
sonable pride in what has been achieved in the past hundred 
years through this form of energy, we should not forget what 
was done by Galvani and Franklin. These great men prepared 
the way for Volta. 

In 1800 Alessandro Volta, an Italian, made the first step 
toward the electric telegraph by showing that two different 
metals say, zinc and copper joined by a wire and placed in 
acid and water, will set up a current of electricity from the 
one to the other. And in the electric battery which Volta 
made, and which is known as the Voltaic pile, a constant cur- 
rent of electricity will pass along the wire for any distance as 
long as the circuit is not interrupted. 

The next discovery, namely, that electricity is in some mys- 
terious way connected with magnetism, was made by a Dane 
named Hans Christian Oersted, in 1819. It had been known 
since the fifteenth century that a needle after having been, 
rubbed on a loadstone* always points north and south; and 
this kind of needle, as it is very useful to mariners, became 
known as the mariner's compass. 

But why did one end of the needle point to the north and 
the other end to the south ? Not a few scientists answered 
this question by saying that the needle must be acted upon in 
some way by electric currents, which are known to be con- 
stantly streaming to and fro in the atmosphere. But it was 
not until 1819 that Oersted found that when an electric cur- 
rent is made to pass from south to north along a conducting 
wire which is placed parallel to a magnetic needle, the north 
end of the needle will turn towards the west until it lies at 
right angles to the path of the current. For example, if a 
copper wire be placed so that its two ends point north and 
south, and if a magnetic needle be poised right below it, the 
needle will now lie in a line with the wire, because a magnetic, 
needle always points north and south. But if the wires of a 
Voltaic battery be made to join the two ends of this copper 
wire so that an electric current passes along it from south to 
north, then, as we have said, the north end of the needle be- 
gins to move away from the north towards the west, viz., to- 
wards the left side of the electric current, and it will keep 
moving until it points to the west. 

* It had long been known that a mineral called loadstone (iron in union with other sub- 
stances) attracted iron ; the- loadstone is called a magnet because it was first discovered at a 
place called Magnesia, in Greece. 



1899-] THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 157 

This discovery (the importance of which Oersted did not 
perceive) marked the very first step in 'a new science, the 
science of electro-magnetism. Shortly after Oersted's discovery 
a French physicist, Andre Ampere, heard about it and he set 
eagerly to work, and in less than a week brought to light some 
curious facts about electro-magnetism. First he found that 
while the magnetic needle does indeed always lie across the 
path of the electric current, the north end of the needle turns 
different ways according to the direction in which the electric 
current flows. Arguing also from the hypothesis that magnetic 
force is caused by electric currents, Ampere tried to magnetize 
a bar of steel by running an electric current round it ; and by 
an ingenious method he succeeded. He wound a copper wire 
enveloped in silk round a steel bar; then joining the two 
ends of the wire to a Voltaic battery, he sent a current of 
electricity through it ; and thus did he make the first electro- 
magnet. 

Moreover, Ampere conceived the pregnant idea that if an 
electric current may change a piece of metal into a magnet, 
the whole earth might be viewed as a gigantic magnet (being 
acted upon by the electric currents flowing from east to 
west) : and might not this give a clue to the direction of the 
magnetic needle? 

Here let us observe that to-day the magnetism of the earth 
is supposed to be influenced by spots on the sun. The expla- 
nation commonly given of sun spots is that luminous clouds 
which envelop the sun open at times and give us a glimpse of 
the body of the sun within ; and these small parts of the sun's 
body look like spots. It has been found also by observation 
that the spots regularly grow less during a period of five and 
a half years, after which they gradually increase again in num- 
ber. There is, therefore, a regular cycle of about eleven years 
in the growth and diminution of sun spots. And that they do 
exert some influence upon our earth is perceived by their effects 
on the magnetic needle and the electric telegraph. Moreover, 
as grand displays of the aurora borealis very often appear at the 
same time as the breaking out of uncommonly big sun spots, 
there is reason to believe that the Aurora and magnetic storms 
set in motion by the sun, 92,000,000 miles away, are intimately 
connected. 

But to come back to electro-magnetism, let us say that 
even as Oersted's discoveries had kindled the genius of Ampere, 
so did Ampere's successful work in this new science impart in- 



158 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

creased enthusiasm to an English scientist, Michael Faraday. 
Deeply impressed by Ampere's experiment whereby a steel bar 
had been made into a magnet by passing an electric current 
through it, Faraday determined to see whether by reversing 
the experiment he might not set up a current of electricity by 
means of a magnet. In this he succeeded, and the many feet 
of wire which in his experiment he wound round a hollow 
wooden cylinder into which he thrust and drew out a power- 
ful bar magnet (while it rested in the cylinder no electric cur- 
rent was set upon the wire) led the way to what is known as 
the induction coil, by which powerful electrical effects are pro- 
duced. Here we may observe how electricity and magnet- 
ism through the discoveries of Volta, Oersted, Ampere, and 
Faraday surely led up, step by step, to the invention of the 
telegraph and the telephone. 

We remember how in 1800 Volta showed that a current of 
electricity may be produced by placing two different metals, 
joined by a wire, in acid and water and the current sent for 
any distance along the wire. Shortly afterwards it began to 
be asked whether this current might not be used in some way 
to make signals. 

Different plans were tried and failed, until, as we have said, 
Oersted discovered that an electric current made to flow from 
south to north near a magnetic needle caused the needle to 
turn and point west at right angles to the path of the current ; 
and until Ampere further showed that the north end of the 
needle might be turned from side to side, in different direc- 
tions, by changing the direction of the electric current ; the 
direction of the needle depending on the direction of the cuV- 
rent. What was afterwards accomplished by Wheatstone, 
Morse, and others was merely to invent practical methods of 
utilizing the discoveries of these scientists. An electric current 
is sent along a wire and a message is framed according to the 
way in which the current flows round a magnetic needle ; the 
direction of the needle depends on the direction of .the current ; 
so many turns of the needle to the right or to the left mean 
this or that letter. Herein lies the whole secret of the electric 
telegraph. 

But perhaps as useful as the telegraph has been the inven- 
tion of the telephone. In 1876 Professor Graham Bell, of Bos- 
ton, after several other inventors had tried and failed, produced 
an instrument which enables one person to speak to another at 
a distance. And this invention largely depends on a discovery 



1899-] THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 159 

by Faraday which we have mentioned, namely, that an electric 
current may be set up in a coil of wire wound round a wood- 
en cylinder through the motion of a magnet drawn in and out 
of the cylinder. Now, a telephone is a small instrument contain- 
ing a permanent magnet at whose upper end is fastened a piece 
of soft iron, around which is coiled some copper wire envel- 
oped in silk, and this wire is made to connect with another 
telephone perhaps many miles away. At a little distance above 
the piece of soft iron, around which the copper wire is coiled, 
rests an iron plate or disc enclosed in a wooden frame which 
has an opening at the top, and into this opening the person 
speaks. 

The vibrations of the voice cause the particles of the disc 
to vibrate or quiver ; this vibration or quivering of the parti- 
cles of the disc affects the soft iron bar set a little below it 
and around which the wire is coiled. Now, this bar of soft 
iron which has become magnetized by touching one end of a 
permanent magnet has its magnetization changed according to 
the rate at which it vibrates and according to the form of the 
vibration or quivering ; and this change in the magnetization 
of the iron immediately sets up currents of electricity in the 
coil of wire, and these currents flow instantaneously to the other 
end of the wire, which is connected with another telephone, 
and at this other end they flow around another coil of wire, 
affect another piece of soft iron, and cause the particles of 
another plate or disc to vibrate in exactly the same manner as 
the plate into the wooden frame of which the words were spoken. 
But if the same sounds are given out, it is not because the 
sound vibrations have passed along the wire, but because the 
vibrations, which at the speaker's end were changed into 
electric currents, are changed back again by these currents into 
identical sound vibrations in a similar plate or disc at the 
listener's end ; and these vibrations reproduce the very tone of 
the speaker. Surely if we analyze this invention we cannot fail 
to see how much it owes to Faraday's discovery that an electric 
current may be set up in a coil of wire by means of a magnet 
drawn in and out of the coil. 

But many as are the uses to which electricity has been turned 
in our wonderful century, we do not yet know what it really is. 
It may indeed be a fluid of a most subtle character. Yet this 
is merely a descriptive hypothesis. Here we quote from W. 
Stanley Jevons : * " An infinitely closer analogy exists between 

* The Principles of Science, vol. ii. p. 154. 



160 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

electricity and light undulations, which are about equally rapid in 
propagation ; and while we shall probably continue for a long 
time to talk of the electric fluid, there can be no doubt that this 
expression merely represents some phase of a molecular motion, 
some wave of disturbance propagating itself at one time through 
material conductors, at another time through the ethereal basis 
of light." 

GEOLOGY. 

From electricity let us now turn to Geology. A century ago 
the history of our earth was read very differently from the way 
we read it to-day. It was then the common belief that our 
earth had existed not very much more than five or six thou- 
sand years, and that the mountains and valleys, the tilted rocks 
and caflons, were evidences of mighty catastrophes. But a 
poor English surveyor, William Smith, well named the Father 
of English Geologists, was at work making a map of the various 
geological formations of his country, and in this map he showed 
how the strata were placed one above the other and how each 
stratum was characterized by different fossils ; and the work he 
accomplished contributed not a little to a correct reading of 
the earth's past history. It was not, however, until 1830 that 
the old-time views were seriously questioned by a famous 
geologist, Sir Charles Lyell. After patiently and carefully 
studying the changes which were going on around him during 
his own life-time, and the causes of those changes, Lyell wrote 
a book entitled Principles of Geology, in which he argued that 
the crust of the earth as we behold it now is not the work of 
any uncommon violence of nature, but is the result of causes 
which are still active ; but so gradually, so imperceptibly are 
changes brought about that we do not observe them. We do 
not see Nature ever at her work carving out valleys, levelling 
mountains, making the beds of rivers, raising land above the 
sea in one place, submerging it in the sea at another. And we 
believe we are correct when we say that to-day Lyell's views 
prevail among the great majority of geologists, and they are 
called Uniformitarians. But whether we range ourselves with 
the Uniformitarians or not, the geology of our century has made 
it highly probable that our globe is millions of years old. It 
has also come to be generally accepted that at no very remote 
period in the past it may be not more than eight or ten 
thousand years ago there was what is called an Ice-age, or 
glacial epoch. It was Louis Agassiz who first pointed out, in 



1899-] THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 161 

the different countries which he visited about fifty years ago, 
the scratchings on rocks seemingly made by ice. He also 
showed the remains of ancient moraines in places where to-day 
no glaciers are to be found, and he called attention to huge 
boulders erratics which must have been carried from a dis- 
tance by ice. From all his observations Agassiz concluded that 
at one time a field of ice, not unlike the ice-field which in our 
age covers Greenland, must have spread over a portion of North 
America and Europe. 

Since Agassiz studied the subject many others have taken 
it up ; and let us observe that quite recently Dr. James A. 
Mitchell, professor of geology at Mount St. Mary's College, 
Emmitsburg, has written a very interesting paper on glacial 
action in permo-carboniferous time. There is, therefore, not a 
little evidence to show that at one period of the earth's history, 
and it may be at different periods, a marked change of climate 
occurred in certain parts of the globe. This change may have 
been brought about by changes in the distribution of land and sea, 
and with this change of climate many regions became covered 
with a mantle of ice. 

NATURAL SELECTION. 

While the geologists of our century were at work studying 
the rocks, naturalists were endeavoring to explain how the 
different kinds of plants and animals which they saw around 
them had come to be what they are. The doctrine that they 
had been separately created by a distinct act of the Creator 
was almost universally held up to the beginning of the century. 
But in 1809 a great French naturalist, Lamarck, in a book too 
little read, entitled Philosophic Zoologique, taught that organic life 
had developed from lower into higher forms. Not many per- 
sons, however, accepted Lamarck's view. The great majority 
still held to the belief that Almighty God had created animals 
and plants pretty much as we see them to-day. What the 
great St. Augustine had written fifteen hundred years before 
about the operation of natural laws and creation by means of 
secondary causes seemed to be utterly forgotten. But as the 
century advanced, naturalists, although they had turned a deaf 
ear to Lamarck and had ignored St. Augustine, became more 
and more impressed by the fossils which they discovered in the 
rocks. In the lowest and oldest fossil-bearing strata, laid down 
millions of years ago, were found only shells of sea animals. A 
little higher up came fish. Above the primeval fish appeared 
VOL. LXIX. ir 



162 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

the remains of swimming reptiles, some of them of gigantic 
size. In a little higher strata still were discovered reptiles with 
wings, and birds with teeth and long reptilian tails. Above the 
winged reptiles and reptilian birds were found lowly organized 
mammals of a distinctly reptilian type ; transition forms, as it 
were, leading up to typical mammals, which finally appeared in 
the highest and newest rocks. It was interesting, too, to observe, 
in studying these numberless fossil remains, that the nearer 
the strata came together in rocks nearly of the same age 
the more closely did the fossils contained in the strata re- 
semble each other ; while the farther apart the strata, the more 
unlike were the fossils. And naturalists began to ask them- 
selves whether this might not point to genetic affinity. Did it 
not look as if new forms had not merely succeeded each other, 
but that there had been some special link connecting the num- 
berless forms which appeared one after the other in the various 
strata ? And the more they studied the fossils in the rocks and 
saw evidence of a gradual advance from the general to the 
special, from the low to the high, from the simple to the com- 
plex, and when naturalists became aware, too, of the striking 
facts revealed by embryology, the more convinced did they be- 
come that the organic life which they saw around them, instead 
of having been separately, specially created, had been gradually 
unfolded from a few simple types which God had created in the 
beginning. They only waited for some plausible explanation of 
how this unfolding might have come about in order to accept 
the doctrine of development. This plausible explanation was 
at last given by two naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred R. 
Wallace who had been working at the problem thousands of 
miles apart, and who, without knowing what the other was 
doing, adopted the same line of argument. Their solution of 
the problem which was Natural Selection* appeared in two 
essays which were read the same evening July i, 1858 at the 
Linnaean Society, London. 

It was, however, Darwin's work The Origin of Species 
which appeared in November, 1859, that made so profound an 
impression on the scientific world and persuaded so many 
naturalists to accept the doctrine of development. In this 
work Natural Selection, as the main but not the only cause of 
change of species, is made to explain so many difficulties, gives 
such satisfactory reasons why in the lowest and oldest rocks we 

* Darwin called it natural selection in order to mark the analogy between it and artificial 
selection. 



THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 



163 




ALFRED R. WALLACE PROPOSED THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION THE 

SAME EVENING, JULY I, 1858, WITH DARWIN. 

should find the lowest types of life, and why little by little, as 
organic life multiplied and the struggle increased, more com- 
plicated forms appeared better fitted to survive in changed 
conditions that we can hardly wonder at the impression which 
this book made. Nevertheless, Lamarck's explanation of de- 
velopment still counts for not a little with some well-known 
naturalists, especially in America, where they are termed Neo- 
Lamarckians. 

Lamarck's theory is that development has come about mainly 



164 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

through the direct action of the environment upon internal 
structure and the transmission of the modifications thus pro- 
duced. He tells us, in Philosophic Zoologique, that species vary 
under changing external influences. While Lamarck firmly be- 
lieved in a Creator, he rejected the doctrine that animals had 
been created for a certain mode of life. He taught that a 
certain mode of life had, so to speak, created the animals. 

And let us add that Lamarck's definition of species is per- 
haps the best definition we have. " A species," he says, " is a 
collection of similar individuals which are perpetuated by gen- 
eration in the same condition, as long as their environment has 
not changed sufficiently to bring about variation in their habits, 
their character, and their form." 

But, as we have observed, it was the theory of natural 
selection, as propounded by Darwin and Wallace and elaborated 
in Darwin's epoch-making book, that gave the first rude shock 
to the belief in separate, special creations. And now when our 
century is closing we find the doctrine of evolution opposed only 
by well-meaning persons who have not made natural history a 
special study.* With little or no knowledge of classification, of 
geographical distribution, of geology, of comparative anatomy, 
or of embryology, these persons do not hesitate to set up their 
own crude opinions against the opinions of authorities like St. 
George Mivart, Romanes, Cope, Marsh, Leidy, and hosts of 
other world-known students of nature. Their opposition, how- 
ever, is of no avail, and we may confidently assert that while 
naturalists are not all of one mind in regard to the causes of 
development (some holding natural selection to be the main 
factor, others adopting Lamarck's view, while a very small 
number believe that we have yet to find a vera causa), no 
naturalist of any repute declares his disbelief in the progressive 
evolution of species from other species. But, while naturalists 
differ in regard to the factors of development, we ourselves 
believe that the greater popularity of natural selection is largely 
owing to the fact that it does not require a naturalist to think 
it out. Its very simplicity has done much to make it popular. 
But it does require a naturalist's knowledge to discover the 
slight, promiscuous variations which exist in all groups of ani- 
mals and plants. And it is from these variations (which are 

*See Monsignor Beaunard's earnest letter on the Scientific Instruction of the Clergy, in 
Annales CatJioliques, 6th August, 1898. He calls his letter a " Cri d'alarme." 

See also Dublin Review, October, 1898, page 246, where Bishop Hedley of Newport says : 
"... the foremost Catholic men of science of the day not only hold a theory of evolu- 
tion, but consider that there can be do doubt on the matter." 



1899-] THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 165 

probably largely due to the direct action of the environment) 
that favorable ones are seized upon and developed by nature. 
In the struggle for life nature selects, so to speak, the varia- 
tions which are most fitted to survive : the variations best 
adapted to thrive on a certain food, to live in a certain climate, 
to escape certain enemies. And climate, food, and enemies are 
not always the same ; there is some little change, impercepti- 
ble to us, going on all the time. And thus in the course of 
years the race becomes changed to suit the changed conditions. 
This is what is meant by natural selection. And we may add 
that Lamarck's explanation of the origin of species is not really 
opposed to Darwin and Wallace's view. It is rather comple- 
mentary to it. 

MEDICINE. 

We shall now conclude our brief review of science in the 
nineteenth century with a few remarks on the progress of 
Medicine. Perhaps no discovery has done so much to lessen 
pain as the discovery of chloroform. The use of this anaes- 
thetic for producing unconsciousness was first made about fifty 
years ago by Sir James Y. Simpson ; and by means of chloroform 
surgeons are not afraid to perform operations which used to 
be considered impossible. Before its use the shock to the sys- 
tem was too great for recovery. 

Almost as useful to mankind as chloroform has been Dr. 
Lister's antiseptic treatment of wounds. By this treatment 
freshly cut surfaces may be exposed to the air and will soon 
heal ; for it has been proved that suppuration and putrefaction 
are not due to normal changes, but are caused by the presence 
of bacteria. Lister's method consists in carefully washing every 
instrument that touches a wound in a solution of corrosive 
sublimate, and in filling the air which surrounds the patient 
with an abundant spray of carbolic acid. The microscopic 
disease-germs are thus kept away or destroyed. Here let us 
say that we owe to the brilliant researches of Pasteur the 
foundation of modern bacteriology. Through Pasteur the mi- 
croscope has lifted physiology and pathology into new realms 
of discovery. The minute, injurious animal organisms which 
may gain an entrance into our blood or tissues, bringing with 
them disease and death, have in a number of cases been checked 
and destroyed ; and it was mainly upon Pasteur's researches 
and upon the discovery of chloroform that modern surgery 
waited before it made its stupendous advance. 



1 66 THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. [May, 

Quite recently we have seen another discovery open the 
way to still further progress in medicine. The wonderful phe- 
nomena of the X rays, as they are sometimes called, have ren- 
dered many opaque objects transparent, and have allowed the 
surgeon to see where calcareous deposits and foreign metallic 
substances may be hidden in the body. We owe the discovery 
of these mysterious rays to William Konrad Roentgen, profes- 
sor of physics at Wiirzburg, Germany. For many years he had 
made a special study of phenomena which spring from the ac- 
tion of electric currents in glass tubes exhausted of air and 
known as Crookes, or vacuum, tubes. He found that the rays 
emanating from a Crookes tube, excited by an electric current, 
produced an effect in many ways like the effect produced by 
ordinary rays of light, yet with this singular difference, viz., 
that they would penetrate certain substances which ordinary 
light rays do not penetrate. Like electricity, these rays are in- 
visible and are recognized only by their effects. Their exact 
nature we do not know, and hence the name of X, or unknown, 
rays given to them by their discoverer. There is a high proba- 
bility, however, that they are transverse vibrations in the ether, 
but of vastly shorter wave-lengths than the vibrations of ordi- 
nary light rays. And they differ from ordinary light rays in the 
fact that they cannot be deflected or refracted or brought to a 
focus : they proceed only in straight lines. Let us add that 
the picture of the object which we obtain through the X rays 
is not, strictly speaking, a photograph, although developed in 
the same manner ; the picture (or radiograph, as it is called) is 
a shadow-picture of the object. 

But, great as has been the progress in medicine during the 
past hundred years, we may confidently look for still greater 
progress in the not distant future through the solution of the 
great problem of immunity and its practical corollary, artificial 
immunization (the new doctrine of antitoxins), as well as 
through a profounder study of cellular pathology, with which 
Professor Rudolph Virchow's name is closely associated. This 
eminent German biologist tells us, after long observation and 
experiment, that we must give up the idea that highly organ- 
ized living things are units ; they are organisms each constitu- 
ent part of which has its own special life. Ultimate analysis 
of higher animals brings us to the cell, which is composed of 
chemical substances not in themselves alive. The organism, ac- 
cording to Virchow, is not an individual but a social mechanism ; 
as a nation is to its citizens so is man to his cells. The 



1899-] THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 167 

cells are the factors of existence ; all life comes from antece- 
dent life ; every cell springs from another cell. And while he 
admits that many diseases are caused by invading microbes, he 
maintains that microbes apart disease is due to the inherited 
properties of the cells of the organ affected. And in the treat- 
ment of disease we should strive to affect the cells. 

Here we end our review of what science has accomplished 
in this wonderful century. But before we dismiss the subject 
let us ask what may have been the century's note its distin- 
guishing mark? To our mind it has been its closer touch with 
nature ; it has looked more to achievement than to sterile rheto- 
ric ; it has seen, with the monk Roger Bacon, that it is only 
by observation and experiment that we can pass the golden 
gateway which leads into the domain of the physical sciences. 
And while our century has not denied to tradition its due 
value, it has refused to let tradition lay too heavy a hand on 
freedom and originality of thought. It has aimed, as never be- 
fore, to trace phenomena to their sources, and the study of 
Origins is leading to a revolution in our conception of every 
branch of study. But having said this, we may add that the 
truly great and wise among us recognize how little we know 
compared to what there is to be known. We recognize that 
we are finite minds attempting infinite problems, and in the 
words of one of the profoundest thinkers of our time on the 
Philosophy of Science, we say:* "From science modestly pur- 
sued, with a due consciousness of the extreme finitude of our 
intellectual powers, there can arise only nobler and wider no- 
tions of the purpose of creation. . . . Our science will not 
deny the existence of things because they cannot be weighed 
and measured. It will rather lead us to believe that the won- 
ders and subtleties of possible existence surpass all that our 
mental powers allow us clearly to perceive." 

* W. Stanley Jevons, The Principles of Science, vol. ii. page 468. 




St. Catberine of Siena. 

HER carved semblance hangs upon my wall : 
The meek-bowed head within the halo wide, 
The pierced hands folded o'er the wounded side; 

Against her breast the lily petals fall, 

Herself a fragile lily, pale and tall, 
Siena's old-time Saint and present pride : 
A. face not beautiful, but calm, clear-eyed 

To look through visions to the heart of all. 




O Caterina, thou whose simple feet 

To lowly needs in loving service bent, 

Trod life's plain ways, whence came thy skill to move 

The destiny of states with influence sweet ? 

A messenger of peace from heaven sent 

With serpent's wisdom in the harmless dove ! 

CAROLYN SAGE. 



1 70 



RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. 



[May, 



RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. 




BY E. McAULIFFE. 

" The rills that glitter down the grassy slope 
Of Casentino, making fresh and soft 
The banks whereby they glide to Arno's stream, 
Stand ever in my view." Dante. 

" Florence, within her ancient limit mark, 
Which calls her still to matin prayers and noon, 
Was chaste and sober, and abode in peace." Ibid. 

; E had our first experience of Italian life in Flor. 
ence, where we took a suite of rooms in a private 
family. Our rooms fronted on a sunny square 
opposite the Pitti Palace, and not far from Casa 
Guidi ; we had those beautiful windows before 
us, which Ruskin says are the finest in Europe ; we had a view 
of the Boboli gardens, which I think the most beautiful in 
Italy, and of the Fortezza Belvidere, a fortress which stands 
on the summit of the hill, behind the gardens and overlooking 
them. The first sound we heard on awakening in the morning 
was the bugle call, the first sight that greeted our eyes was the 
regimental drill in the camp-field, where the men looked as 
though they were exercising in the clouds. Then followed the 
march down the winding paths to the city, with pennons wav- 
ing and lances glittering in the sun. 

But it was not alone the exterior attractions that pleased 
us so much ; it was beyond all else the sweet, pious interior. 
The family consisted of a young widow, beautiful and not at 
all conscious of it ; not learned, 

" Save in gracious household ways "; 

and a little child of four years, whose prattle was a continual 
Italian lesson. We encouraged her to visit us; so her mother 
brought her in for one or two hours every evening after dinner. 
Little Adelina's first care was to instruct us in our religion. 
She commenced by asking us if we were Christians ; we an- 
swered in the affirmative, but she shook her head incredulously, 
saying : " Forestieri non sono Cristiani, tutti sono eretici " 
(Foreigners are not Christians ; they are all heretics). Then she 



1 899.] 



RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. 



171 




"LINGERING UNDER ARCADES FILLED WITH THE WORK OF FRA ANGELICO." 

ordered us to " segna " (make the sign of the cross). We asked 
her to teaqh us how ; then she took the right hand of each in 
turn, and taught us how. Next she brought a prayer-book, 
and, opening it at a picture of the crucifixion, told us the history 
of our redemption, and then held it up to each one's lips to 
be kissed. After which she would kiss us herself, and say 
"brave bambine " (good children). 

Now, there was a considerable distance to be traversed 
from my rooms to those occupied by the family ; the house 
was immense and old-fashioned, built around a square central 
court, which was not lit by gas, or in any other way. When 
it was time to leave, Donna Louisa lighted her lamp, and it was 
an art study to watch the little group going down the long, 
gloomy passage ; Adelina skipping like a fawn beside her grace- 
ful young mother, who carried in her hand the antique Etrus- 
can lamp which shed its little halo of light around them ; it 
was like a picture from the illuminated border of an old manu- 
script. 

Our mornings were spent in the churches ; the monasteries, 
art galleries, museums, etc., occupied the afternoons, besides 
many expeditions outside the walls. Even at this distance of 



i/2 . RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. [May, 

time the memory of those days of ecstasy makes my pulses 
throb : Santa Maria Novella, where St. Dominic preached ; 
Santa Croce, full of the spirit of St. Francis ; San Marco 
what hours of delight we spent in those cloisters ! lingering 
under arcades filled with the work of Fra Angelico, of whom 
Ruskin says : " A man who smiled seldom, wept often, prayed 
constantly, and never harbored an impure thought. His pic- 
tures are simply so many pieces of jewelry." We saw those 
massive books of which Longfellow speaks in repelling the 
aspersions cast by Protestant writers on the monks of the mid- 
dle ages : " That they slept their lives away is most untrue. 
For, in an age when books were few, so few, so precious, that 
they were often chained to their oaken shelves with iron chains, 
like galley slaves to their benches these men, with their labori- 
ous hands, copied upon parchment all the lore and wisdom of 
the past, and transmitted it to us. Perhaps it is not too much 
to say that, but for these monks, not one line of the classics 
would have reached our day." 

We visited the Certosa, in the beautiful Val d'Eura, and 
saw the remnant of a once numerous community, a few aged 
men in the white robes of their order. This is one of the sup- 
pressed monasteries. The government makes money out of it 
by taxing visitors; United Italy makes quite a revenue out of 
the sacred shrines and places of pilgrimage all over the op- 
pressed land. 

One of our favorite walks was up the narrow, steep road to 
San Miniato, where a deed of grace was accomplished centuries 
ago. Giovanni Gualberto, a young knight belonging to a noble 
family, was descending the hill on Good Friday, after Mass. 
He had been strongly wrestling with himself that morning, be- 
cause a beloved brother had been cruelly slain and vengeance 
was in his heart. Now, however, he was calmed by prayer, 
and in a better frame of mind, when midway on the hill he 
met the slayer face to face. All his good resolutions vanished ; 
like a flash of lightning his sword was out and raised to strike, 
when the offender, falling on his knees, besought him, for the 
sake of Him who died on that day, to spare and pardon him. 
Gualberto sheathed his sword, but never returned to his ances- 
tral home. Filled with horror at himself for the crime he was 
so near committing, he sought the desolate heights of Vallom- 
brosa, where he founded a monastery of the most austere rule, 
and soon gathered about him a number of holy men. He lived 
here a life of great sanctity, and was canonized after his death. 



1 899.] 



RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. 



173 




" THE REMNANT OF A ONCE NUMEROUS COMMUNITY, A FEW AGED MEN IN THE 
WHITE ROBES OF THEIR ORDER." 

Alluding to such foundations, Bulwer writes : " There was a 
certain vastness of mind in the adoption of utter solitude, in 
which the first enthusiasts of our religion indulged. The remote 
desert, the solitary rock, the rude dwelling hollowed from the 
cave, ... all make a picture of severe and preternatural 
grandeur." On the very spot where this noble victory over 
self was achieved, on the hill-side at San Miniato, a fine fresco, 
in good preservation, perpetuates its memory. It represents 



174 RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. [May, 

the knight standing and sheathing his sword, while his foe 
kneels at his feet, with hands raised in an attitude of supplica- 
tion. 

The cloisters of Vallombrosa are now deserted, except by 
a few aged monks who show the place to strangers. When 
they die, their places will not be filled by religious. Thus goes 
on the work of de-Christianizing the land. 

In spite of religious persecution and infidel rulers, there 
exists in Florence to-day one of the greatest and most useful 
religious societies in the world. I speak of the " Misericordia." 
This extraordinary society was founded in the thirteenth cen- 
tury, and has gone on extending its labors, insomuch that it 
still possesses the vigor of youth. The members are all men : 
laborers, mechanics, men of business, bankers, nobles, even the 
grand dukes have not disdained membership. A certain num- 
ber are appointed for each day's work ; the tolling of a bell 
gives notice when and where they are wanted, like our old sys- 
tem of fire-bells. They are called for all accidents, they bring 
the injured to the hospitals ; they visit the sick and the needy 
in their homes, provide nurses when necessary, and all comforts 
that the sick require ; and they bury the dead. For all this no 
pay is received or thought of ; it is pure charity, unostentatious 
charity, for the recipients only know them as " brothers of the 
Misericordia " ; their faces, when in the discharge of their good 
works, are never seen. Every brother wears a black domino, 
with holes to accommodate his eyes, thus keepirfg literally the 
Gospel precept of not letting his left hand know what his right 
hand doeth. Boxes, labelled " For the Misericordia," are 
placed in different parts of the city, and the alms collected in 
these boxes, together with private donations, comprise their 
entire revenue. 

In Italy funerals generally take pake at night, and it is a 
weird and thrilling sight to see the long procession of black 
dominoes winding through a narrow street by torchlight, and 
chanting the psalms that compose the office for the dead. In 
funerals of the poor they dispense with a hearse, and the mem- 
bers bear the coffin (generally covered with flowers) on their 
shoulders to a chapel near the cemetery, where it is left for 
the night and quietly buried next morning, none but relatives 
attending. White dominoes are worn in processions of the 
Blessed Sacrament. Every Sunday morning, at the early Masses, 
when the priest has finished giving Communion to all who ap- 
proach the altar, he descends the steps bearing the ciborium, 



1 899.] 



RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. 



and passes down the aisle and into the street, and so on to 
the houses of all who have sent notice that they are unable, 
through sickness or infirmity, to come to the church. A band 
of the Misericordia accompanies the priest. One goes in 
front, ringing the little bell ; four carry the small canopy over 
the Blessed Sacrament, others following, all chanting as they 
go. Many persons join the ranks through devotion, and even 




CAMPANILE AND CATHEDRAL, FLORENCE. 

go into the sick person's roorh, or kneel on the landing if the 
room is crowded, while the holy rites are being administered. 
As the priest, bearing his sacred burden, passes through the 
streets all who meet him kneel, except those unhappy ones 
who know no God but United Italy. On week-days this devo- 
tion is more noticeable, as there are more people in the streets, 
and they are mostly intent on business. Once I saw a poor 
bill-poster who was on the top of a ladder when he heard the 
bell, and he hurried down at the risk of breaking his neck, in 
order to be in time to kneel as the Santissimo passed. The 
Society of the Misericordia is highly reverenced by all creeds 
and classes. I have never heard it sneered at or ridiculed by 
our brethren outside the church. 



176 RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. [May, 

Another wonderful Florentine custom is that of keeping 
lamps burning before holy pictures in their places of business, 
thus placing religion above all. The picture is attached to the 
wall, near the ceiling, at the end of the store, so that when the 
lamp is lit it can be seen from the street. As you pass through 
a street at nightfall they are like so many stars, glimmering 
through the gloom before the gas is lighted. We used to buy 
fruit from a young man who kept a little shop lose to one of 
the bridges (Ponte Santa Trinita) ; he was very handsome and 
polite, and a good father to his little family. One day, on going 
into the store, I noticed that Auguste was in a state of pleased 
excitement. After he had received my order and selected 
for me his best fruit, he took down from a shelf a long roll, 
which on unrolling proved to be a brand-new print of the 
Madonna. He looked at the bright hues of the picture in per- 
fect ecstasy ; then at me, saying: " Bella, signora, non e vero ? " 
(Is it not beautiful, madam ?) The picture which hung above 
the lamp was faded and smoky, and this was to take its place. 
Of course I admired it immensely, and applauded him for his 
devotion to the Blessed Mother. There is another store, near 
the Mercato Vecchio, a very fashionable establishment for fine 
handkerchiefs, laces, and white goods in general, where the 
proprietor sends out all packages wrapped in the sheets of a 
religious newspaper ; no other kind of paper is used ; and this 
is done with the pious intention of enlightening the heretics. 
These are the really good Italians, for there is not the slight- 
est doubt that such things stand against them in a. business 
way. 

Christmas came, and all Florence poured into the churches 
for the novena. The chapel of the royal palace opposite our 
house was opened to the public for the occasion, and we went 
every evening with the family, to which were added two grand- 
fathers and a beautiful young aunt (Zia), who was sister to 
my little landlady. When the eve of Natale (Christmas) came 
we went with them to midnight Mass, in the Cathedral of Santa 
Maria del Fiore. I felt, with the Ancient Mariner : 

" O sweeter than the marriage feast, 

'Tis sweeter far to me, 
To walk together to the kirk 
With a goodly company ! " 

But we were more favored than the Ancient Mariner, for we 



1899-] RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. 177 

had the " wedding feast." Adelina, the little gossip, had told 
us how Signer Alberto came every evening and stayed with 
Zia and Nonno (grandpa) talking ; and so it happened that there 
was a wedding soon after Christmas, and Zia was the bride 
and Signer Alberto the bridegroom. This is a digression ; to 
return to my subject. 

I have seen Florence under many aspects, but never so 




PORTA ST. NICOLA, FLORENCE. 

beautiful as on that starry Christmas eve. All the ways that 
led to the cathedral were crowded ; none but the sick stayed at 
home. There were no disorderly characters abroad ; " silent 
and devout," like the spirits whom Dante met, they wended 
their way past the marvels of art in the streets and squares, 
past the Baptistery gates, past San Michele, past Giotto's 
tower, not giving a thought to art ; all minds intent on one 
subject only : the Divine Inspirer of all art. As the clock 
VOL. LXIX. 12 



178 RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. [May, 

strikes the hour of midnight, the priest standing, vested, at the 
foot of the altar, a silken screen is suddenly withdrawn, which 
reveals a little waxen image of a new-born babe in front of the 
tabernacle. A low murmur of love and adoration runs through 
the multitude, which is quickly hushed as the Mass begins. 
Numbers approach the holy table. In such scenes one feels 
as though heaven was not so far off. At the close of the 
ceremonies the scene changes ; we are on earth again. In the 
streets now the crowd is all joy and gladness. Christmas wishes 
are interchanged, the restaurants are opened, the people pour- 
ing into them for early breakfast whole families have come 
from a distance, and remain up all night in order to attend 
the four o'clock Mass, before returning to their homes in the 
distant hills. 

How pleasant it was to hear on all sides the soft Tuscan 
tongue ! We had drifted quite out of the region where English 
prevailed. It is a curious thing that the most perfect lan- 
guage, language grammatically correct, is spoken intuitively by 
all, even the uneducated. The maid who waited on us, and 
who was neither refined nor delicate in appearance being, on 
the contrary, rather coarse and masculine used the most beauti- 
ful forms of expression. I never asked her a question without 
being astonished at the poetic imagery of her reply. One 
evening, when she came in to light the lamps, I asked : " Is it 
raining, Annunziata ? " " No, signora," she replied, " il cielo e 
sereno e stellato " (the sky is serene and starry). Listening to 
the music of the bella lingua was an unceasing delight ; .receiv- 
ing the parting wishes at night, for instance : " Felice notte alle, 
signore," " Felicissima notte," " Buon riposo," " Buoni sogni " 
a rippling stream of graceful words that left the hearers re- 
freshed by its sweetness. 

The Tuscans are essentially religious and good ; all their 
faults may be attributed to misgovernment. They forgot the 
admonitions of St. Catherine, who wrote such stirring epistles 
to them in her day : " Is it not better to remain united to our 
own father and mother (the Pope and the holy Church) than 
to a tyrannical government ? Better to lean on a strong pillar 
(which, though shaken by persecution, is not broken) than on 
a straw, that we are certain will be blown down by the first 
gust of wind ? " There is no nation so crushed and over- 
burdened by taxation as the Italian. United Italy devours her 
offspring ; it is a modern Minotaur ! The oppressed people fly 
to our friendly shores, but many have lost their faith, and the 



1 899.] 



RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. 



179 



Masonic lodge has done its work of destruction. Freemasons 
and Jews rule the kingdom, hence the temptation to youth; 
there is no promotion in army, navy, or civil service unless at 
the cost of religion. Knowing all this, the real piety which I 
witnessed was most gratifying, because it involves a kind of 
martyrdom. 

We were in the habit of going to Rome always for Lent, 
but the last year we were in Italy we kept Lent in Florence. 



E../- jS" 1 * ,;-..** S *5t~ 



* MT- ~ *~ ~ 



PANORAMA FROM PORTA ST. NICOLA. 

The ceremonies of Holy Week were well attended. On Holy 
Thursday the shops were all shut, and the churches filled. On 
the afternoon of that day the crucifix is laid on the steps of a 
side altar, so that every one may adore the sacred wounds, 
and an unceasing stream of people perform that act of homage. 
Whole companies of soldiers especially interested me ; they were 
young and still true to their faith. On Good Friday, and until 
noon of Holy Saturday, all business is suspended. A very in- 



i8o 



RECOLLECTIONS OF FLORENCE. 



[May, 



teresting ceremony is performed in connection with the new 
fire on Holy Saturday. The flint used is a piece that a zealous 
young knight of the Pazzi family chopped off from the Holy 
Sepulchre with his battle-axe, at the time of the Crusades, 
and brought in triumph to his native city, where it was 
received with great veneration and guarded among the trea- 
sures of the cathedral. The palace of the family is opposite 
the cathedral, and the Pazzis always bear the expense of 
the Holy Saturday pageant. An immense car, drawn by four 
large, beautiful white oxen (all decorated with ribbons and 
flowers, their horns gilded, and chains of roses around their 
necks), stands on the square, in front of the main entrance of 
the cathedral. The car is loaded with fireworks, and when the 
new fire is struck, a dove, bearing in his bill a taper kindled 
from it, flies down the central aisle, across the square, and 
drops the taper into the car, which at once explodes with a 
tremendous noise, to the great delight of thousands of country 
people, who have waited for this since early morning. This is 
called the scoppio del carro. At the same moment all the bells 
ring out, and Lent is over. 

4 

"Yet, Italy! ... 
Parent of our religion ! whom the wide 
Nations have knelt to for the Keys of Heaven ! 
Europe, repentant of her parricide, 
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, 
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven." 

Byron. 





1899-] CYRANO DE BERGERAC. 181 

CYRANO DE BERGERAC.* 

BY REV. GEORGE McDERMOT, C.S.P. 

ROSTAND recalls by the title of this play the 
name of a dramatist almost forgotten. Yet Ber- 
gerac was a noted character in his day, and the 
impress of his literary work survives in one of 
the classics of the English language, Gulliver's 
Travels. Notorious as a duellist, we have him in the work before 
us reckless and defiant, but more than this, he is put before us 
as one imbued with a spirit of knight-errantry, vaunting and 
exaggerated in its own way as that satirized by Cervantes. He 
is at war with meanness, sycophancy, dishonesty, the courtier's 
unscrupulous ambition, the churchman's complacency to power. 
These are the dragons, giants, and wizards of the new Don 
Quixote. 

The opening and the main part of the action are fixed in 
the year 1640, but the influences belong to the age of Louis 
XIV. It was not till the year 1645 that the fashionable world 
flocked to the College Royal to hear Gassendi lecture on 
astronomy, but we find the word Gassendist a commonplace of 
our play. Though we hear of the great Cardinal, the lights 
and shadows are of the era of the Great King. With a pre- 
cise knowledge of the history of French dramatic literature, he 
lays the first scene in the Hotel de Bourgogne, but we venture 
to say'that.neither the Prdcieuses nor the-wits and fops who paid 
court to them at the Hotel de Rambouillet, ever witnessed any- 
thing which for softness, delicacy, boldness, and invention ap- 
proached the work of M. Rostand. There are hints which 
make us think he is unjust to Moliere, but of this anon. 

The stage directions are very full, but invaluable as acces- 
sorial stimulants to the imagination. We are in the hall of 
the Hotel de Bourgogne, a sort of tennis-court arranged for 
the production of a play. In this play the whole first act pro- 
ceeds, and the spectators have before them the very form and 
manner of the time when the reckless spirit of the days of the 
Fronde were blending into the pride and authority which so 
mark the era of Louis XIV. from the moment he emancipated 

* Cyrano de Bergerac. A play in five acts. By Edmond Rostand. 



1 82 CYRANO DE BERGERAC. -[May, 

himself from tutelage. The anachronism of a few years so 
we read it is nothing; it is the living force, the intense vital- 
ity we look at. Action, thought, humor, fire, frenzy, folly, 
play before us, and yet we are conscious of an invisible pres- 
ence called the Cardinal, but to us it seems the majesty of 
Louis, which awed while it inspired all classes from the great 
noble to the roturier. 

The Burgher, in answer to his son's question, while they are 
waiting for the play within the play, " Is the Academy here ? " 
says, "Oh, ay! I see several of them all names that will live." 
Among them he mentions Bourdon, who was not born until 
1638 ; so that he was just two years old when our friend was 
classing him among the Immortals. But is there not a truth 
of time, a dramatic truth, superior to the calendar? And it is 
vindicated by the next interlocution, we should think. First 
Marquis : " Here come our Precieuses," etc.; and he gives an 
account of them. 

In passing we may say that the translation by Gladys 
Thomas and Mary F. Guillemard is sprightly in the comic 
parts, notwithstanding the difficulty of turning into English the 
subtleties of French pleasantry. We can give no better proof 
of this than the opinion of judicious critics that all attempts 
to render the shades of Moliere's humor into English verse liave 
failed. It is said that the imitations or paraphrases in the 
plays of Sheridan are without the latter's own sparkle or the 
slyness of Moliere. If this be true in the main, we say a great 
deal for the translation of the work before us. Yet there is a 
delicacy in the following passage not caught in the translation. 
The admiring comments following the entrance of Roxane lead 
up to this one by the second Marquis : 

" Et si fraiche : 
Qu'on pourrait, 1'approchant, prendre un rhume de coeur!" 

is translated : " And what freshness ! A man approaching her 
too near might chance to get a bad chill at the heart ! " The 
play of the thought is lost. It really means the grapes hang 
too high; for she is compared to a peach smiling at a straw- 
berry in the preceding cue. 

We learn at this point that Roxane, the beauty who re- 
minds the first marquis of a peach smiling at a strawberry, is 
a cousin of Cyrano, for whom all are looking out eagerly. 
Cyrano has deadly skill of fence, and it is hoped by the young 
men that some way he will protect his cousin ; for there are 



1899-] CYRANO DE BERGERAC. 183 

dangers ahead, some scandal such as might be expected when 
a noble of great influence, the Count de Guiche, shows an in- 
terest in Roxane. Christian, who is in love with her, has just 
heard that De Guiche intends a Viscount de Valvert shall marry 
her; for he is " triste " and "complaisant" and De Guiche 
is " puissant." A very odious idea, to be sure ; and on hear- 
ing Valvert called by De Guiche, Christian puts his hand into 
his pocket for a glove to throw at him, but finds there the 
hand of a pickpocket. The latter, who adds murder in the way 
of business to larceny, sends Christian off to warn Ligniere, a 
drunken friend of his, that a hundred assassins are to attack 
him, of whom he is one. The information may be relied upon, 
for the " distinguished-looking roue"," this Ligniere, has exposed 
the De Guiche cum Valvert plot in a song, and so made ene- 
mies in high places. 

The fun goes on in the play-theatre as in the theatre of a 
play. The wig of our friend the burgher is fished from the pit 
by a string, let down from the upper gallery by a page amid 
cries of delight when the bald crown is exposed, but a word, 
" the Cardinal," creeps through the house, and silence falls 
upon the wild pages above, whispering disgustedly that they 
must behave now. The curtain of the theatre on the stage 
rises, and we have the opening of the action when an actor, 
Montfleury, possibly the dramatist, begins the part of Phaedon 
in the play of the play-theatre. 

Montfleury has recited three lines of Phsedon's speech when 
a voice from the middle of the pit cries : " Villain ! did I not 
forbid you to show your face here for a month ? " A friend 
recognizes it as the voice of Cyrano and is uneasy at the 
desperate hardihood of the interruption ; but the voice again 
is heard : " King of clowns ! Leave the stage this instant ! " 
Now the house gets excited and rises into moods of passion, 
various, interesting, weak, fierce, and appalling as the conflict- 
ing elements release themselves. The frightened actor is urged 
to continue by the crowd from all parts of the house as with 
increasing excitement it tries to quell Cyrano, whose sang- 
froid amid it all seems more terrible than the fnry of the mass. 
We are reminded of one scene like it in real life, but whether 
M. Rostand had it in his mind or not we do not know ; and 
that is when Mirabeau tamed for one immortal instant the 
National Assembly, maddened at what it called his great trea- 
son, or rather the " Great Treason of Mirabeau," when with 
his influence fled the last hope for the monarchy. 



184 CYRANO DE BERGERAC. [May, 

The opposition to Montfleury is too pointed not to mean a 
hit at La Vengeance des Marquis and L f Impromptu de PHdtel de 
Monde. In the time at which we hold the play is placed the 
attack might also be on " Scaramouch " (Torelli), the manager 
of the Italian farce-company ; at present it may represent the 
revolt of purity of thought and taste against the school which 
has been debasing the mind and heart of France since Balzac 
entered on the inauspicious reign which prepared for the cor- 
rupt hour of Zola and the oligarchy of the morgue and the 
stews. The actor has to leave the stage and Valvert takes up 
the quarrel, which he begins by an insulting reference to Cyra- 
no's nose, which was a portentous feature like that of Glorieux. 
How to insult himself about his nose Cyrano tells Valvert in 
a speech that may be compared with Touchstone's. The duel 
begins, Cyrano composing a lyrical account of what he intends 
to do to the rhythm of the passes : 

" At the envoi's end I touch." 

Very fanciful this and possibly Gascon-like. 

There is later on a balcony-scene in which Christian, prompt- 
ed by Cyrano, makes love to Roxane. By and by the prompter 
in the darkness assumes his principal's place, but acting for 
the latter. This seems rather absurd on the bald statement, 
and yet how is it that we hardly take into account the decep- 
tion or the grotesqueness ? Don Giovanni sheltering himself 
behind Leporello is in his element ; but the hero Cyrano, the 
purger of the stage and the man of lofty ideals, is rather out 
of his role in such a performance. Yet we think the incongru- 
ity of circumstance and character, together with our insensibil- 
ity to it, can be explained by the greatness of the sacrifice 
Cyrano makes for love. We go at once with Romeo's submis- 
sion to the insults of Tybalt and Cyrano's to those of Chris- 
tian because of his promise to Roxane to watch over the 
favored lover. This is the first step, the laying down a soldier's 
and a Gascon's pride. Any act of self-effacement becomes in- 
telligible after this ; so we are prepared for the putting at his 
rival's service fancy, passion, purity of soul, and the high pur- 
poses which made him a Don Quixote without a craze. The 
extravagance of sentiment woven into his mental texture and 
the majesty of his self-extinction saved the conception from 
passing to the ridiculous. It was a perilous enterprise, but 
M. Rostand has a love for the difficult. It is this hardihood 
of temperament which will doubtless produce the new variety 



1899-] CYRANO DE BERGERAC. 185 

in literature, as M. Brunetiere would say, on the analogy 
of natural selection. In any case an act of heroism wins 
one ; and admiration is not diminished when the heroism 
means the tragedy of a life. The most that can be said in 
criticism of this balcony incident is that Cyrano failed to esti- 
mate the true proportions between sacrifice and duty. He lied, 
but the lie was the laying down of his happiness for the woman 
he loved. 

Christian, who was a very dull lover, had disgusted the 
Prcieuse Roxane by his want of eloquence. He was exceed- 
ingly handsome, but his tongue was a non-conductor of the 
electricity within. A pebble is thrown at her window. She 
comes out and asks, "Who is that?" He replies, "Christian." 
She (disdainfully), " Oh ! you ? " So far this is rather like bur- 
lesque, but he says : " I would speak with you." She : " No ; 
you speak stupidly." Then Cyrano prompts, but Christian halts 
in repeating the words supplied to him, as might be expected. 
However, she recognizes an improvement ; for she was about 
to shut the window. Instead she pauses and says : 

" Hold ! 'tis a trifle better ! ay a trifle." 

This is severe, but there is some encouragement in it ; and 
Christian proceeds with such energy as he can command : 

" Love grew apace, rocked by the anxious beating 
Of this poor heart, which the cruel wanton boy 
Took for a cradle ! " 

and so on ; his fancy, or rather his prompter's manifesting pas- 
sion in conceits of a rather commonplace character.* She 
remarks the faltering of the words, and asks has palsy seized 
on his imagination, whereupon Cyrano steps into his place and 
pours out - his * passion with great fire and energy. There is 
such an improvement that she proposes Precieuse that she is ! 
to go down to join him below. Cyrano, not wishing the plot 
to be discovered, objects ; then she suggests his climbing to 
the balcony, and is most naturally amazed at his refusal. But 
gradually the fencing of their wits gives way in Cyrano to a 
passion rising like the waves of the sea and sweeps away her 
spirit by its force. It is his own love he pours out, though 
in the standing-place of Christian ; his own soul that declares 
its frenzy, its wishes, its unselfishness and despair. Here we 
have the enchantment which puts away the paltry imposition 

*The translation is excellent here. 



1 86 CYRANO DE BERGERAC. [May, 

from our minds and leaves us only with a love boundless as 
the sea and the surrender to another of all it asks, feeling rich 
in the memory which it consecrates : 

"Ah! que pour ton bonheur je donnerais le mien, 
Quand meme tu devrais n'en savoir jamais rien, 
S'il se pouvait, parfois, que de loin, j'entendisse 
Rire un peu le bonheur n6 de mon sacrifice!""* 

We pass over the scene in which a friar, ignorant of the 
purport of a letter from De Quiche, presents it to Roxane, 
and the manner she prevails on him to marry her to Christian. 
Cyrano has undertaken to keep De Guiche in play during the 
quarter of an hour the marriage ceremony is being performed. 
This scene is admirable, and perhaps in it, more than in the 
reckless, flashing, fighting ones, the true Gascon character 
comes out. The early princes of the House of Bourbon had a 
liking for this bragging, harebrained, witty, shrewd people. A 
Gascon was the captain of the king's mousquetaires under 
Louis XIII., and another the D'Artagnan who shakes hands 
with Cyrano after his song-duel was captain in the reign of 
the Great King himself. We have a notion that some one says 
the Scotch were the Gascons of England well, in the play 
Cyrano flung down his purse to compensate the manager for 
driving Montfleury from the stage, but if this munificence be 
characteristic of Gascons, the saying quoted is " gasconade " of 
another and a tolerably bold description. However, in the scene 
we have just referred to, Gascon meets Gascon, and Cyrano's 
lies (scientific ones, Munchausen-like and immense) take in De 
Guiche, and this result having regard to circumstances and 
coloring so far from violating probability, possesses dramatic 
propriety of a kind which marks out the author as a playwright 
of no common skill. 

At the siege of Arras Cyrano has the chance to guard over 
Christian, now the husband of Roxane. The Cadets of Gas- 
cony is the title of Act IV., and the poor fellows are sleeping 
their hunger off. We note when Le Bret swears " Mordions ! " 
Carbon tells him: "Curse under his breath," from which re- 
quest we have new testimony to a practice which seems to 

*The translation of the entire speech beginning " Certes, ce sentiment," Act III. Sc. 6, 
gives no idea of the force and delicacy of the original. " Entre les blues temeaux " is 
translated "throned there in the branches." The purple of the night through which she 
trembles among the branches, as "a leaf among the leaves," is the objective association of 
the idea. 



1899-] CYRANO DE BERGERAC. 187 

have prevailed in the army at different times and among dif- 
ferent nations. Mercutio tells us that when Queen Mab drums 
in a soldier's ear he starts and wakes, 

" And thus being frighted, swears a prayer or two," 

and on the authority of Sterne we have it that the troops swore 
horribly in Flanders. 

Firing is heard in the distance, and again, but nearer. 
Carbon, the officer in command, says: " 'Tis nothing!, 'Tis 
Cyrano coming back ! " We learn that at the risk of his life 
Cyrano takes letters at each day's dawn, the letters he prom- 
ised Roxane Christian should write her. The Cadets complain 
of hunger ; Cyrano mocks them with what one of them calls 
pointed words. He opens with a speech to encourage them 
with the thought how much better it is to die like a soldier 
than on a bed of fever ; from each and all the cry : " I am 
hungry!" He directs the piper to play old country airs and 
points out the associations they are to call up in a speech 
the insight of which may be compared in its influence on the 
memory with the fancifulness of Mercutio's just cited on the 
imagination. The stage direction ends in something like mock- 
ery et des larmes sont furtivement essuy/es, avec un revers dc 
mancke, un coin de manteau but for all that the smoke-wreaths 
of home are in the tones, the forest, the shepherd-boy, even- 
ing on the Dordogne River it was Gascony, .their own land ; 
and so the hungry lads were moved deeply, their eyes had a 
far-off look as if dreaming, and the tears came. The idea 
wrought out so exquisitely is a familiar one, but it acts on the 
memory like Queen Mab's doings on the imagination. 

Roxane arrives in the camp by the aid of a most powerful 
dens ex machina, or the superlative courtesy of Spanish war- 
riors. M. Rostand is really a magician, and makes us accept 
things which would cause Mr. Grant Allen or some such per- 
son to be set down as a liar beyond all credibility. This power 
may be explained by the proportion of things in the imagina- 
tion, the harmony of their relations to each other and the 
whole ; so that they constitute a thing consistent in itself and 
fitted to the condition of the mind which receives as well as 
that which creates it. How long minds working in such a 
realm will continue to produce works of originality or freshness 
is another question, nor is this 'the place to discuss it. It may be 
supposed that a mathematical or chemical exactness of corre- 
spondence between things and the ideas which represent them 



1 88 CYRANO DE BERGERAC. [May, 

has been sought by those who found works of the pure imag- 
ination were losing interest. The work before us is a return to 
the imaginative; and surely this must be a truer art than that 
of the investigating and reporting method, if painting be in 
any sense truer than photography. It is imagination which 
lifts this man here and his passions to the universal and ideal ; 
so that we feel with him, if placed in Troy three thousand 
years ago, at least as acutely as if we read the dissection of 
his motives in the morning paper. From which perusal would 
the reader rise better instructed or more purified ? 

Roxane arrives at the camp en grande tenue. Stowed away 
in the carriage are the materials for a Vitellian feast. The 
starving Gascons are fed ; De Guiche, who is not in the play, 
is coming up ; everything is hidden away, but that seigneur 
brings with him eyes sharpened by hunger and a nose suscep- 
tible to vinous smells. He remarks the high color and im- 
proved appearance of the Gascons. He enviously accuses one 
of them of being drunk, but Cyrano attributes the thick speech 
and unsteady movement of the impeached hero to the 'empti- 
ness of his stomach. But the kindness of Roxane prompted 
her to pity De Guiche, and the remnants of the feast were set 
before him, to which he did justice. We suppose Mr. Burke is 
right when he says that hunger reduces the proudest man to 
the level of the most humble. The Spaniards make an attack 
upon the camp ; Christian falls. 

An interval of fifteen years elapses. The scene is the 
park of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in Paris. Roxane is a 
boarder in the convent ; the Count de Guiche, now Duke de 
Grammont, visits her. 

" The DuJte : And you stay here still ever vainly fair, 

Ever in weeds ? 
" Roxane : Ever. 
" The Duke : Still faithful ? 
" Roxane : Still. 
" The Duke : Am I forgiven ? 
" Roxane : Ay, since I am here. (A pause.) " 

This introduction prepares for the full revelation of the 
sacrifice made by Cyrano. 

The reader learns that day by day he comes to cheer her 
with the news of the world outside. His own great grief is hid- 
den ; for her heart is with the dead, that love for a figment of the 



1899-] CYRANO DE BERGERAC. 189 

brain. It was the soul of Cyrano that had spoken to her ; the 
music of the passion was his. She had been attracted by the 
beauty of Christian, but the sentiment was burned out by the 
fire of a love high and intense poured by Cyrano that night 
beneath the balcony. We may say, in passing, there is noth- 
ing in common between that and the balcony-scene in " Romeo 
and Juliet," though the latter is recalled by it. We are 
tempted to contrast the two scenes ; it is enough to remark that 
whatever of delicacy and grace is to be found in M. Rostand's 
scene is in the accident of objective association, while the grace 
and delicacy of the " Romeo and Juliet " one are in the heart in- 
spiring and in turn purified by the fancy. 

And Cyrano bears his burden. The ills of life are nothing : 
destitution, enmity, all that marks a ruined career are not re- 
garded ; to see her smile at his simple talk, or incisive criticism, 
of men about the court repays him. The duke who has won 
the prizes of fame and fortune envies him, but with respect for 
his worth. He shows this by saying that none dare attack him, 
but many hate him. 

" Yesterday at the Queen's card-play 'twas said, 
' That Cyrano may die by accident.' 
Let him stay in be prudent!" 

The duke's warning was not without cause. A dastardly act 
strikes Cyrano to the ground a lackey's throwing on his head 
a large piece of wood as he passed beneath a window. This 
is kept from Roxane. Cyrano comes a little later than usual ; 
she does not observe how pale and weak he is and that he 
totters to a chair, but says : 

" Late ! For the first time all these fourteen years ! " 

He makes excuses, banters her about the Penelope web she 
has been so long engaged on : " Beshrew me if my eyes will 
ever see it finished ! " 

Roxane : 

" I was sure 
To hear that well-known jest ! " 

He sees the leaves falling, and they naturally suggest sad 
and solemn thoughts to a man who feels the hand of death 
upon him. He makes an effort to break from this train of 
thought and play the role of her court-calendar so she called 
him but almost swoons. She runs forward with a cry ; he 
tells her it is nothing his old wound ; she speaks of the wound 



190 CYRANO DE BERGERAC. [May, 

she carries in her heart over her heart the last letter of Chris- 
tian, now faded. He reminds her of her promise to let him 
read it before his death. She hands him the old faded letter, 
stained by the writer's tears. He reads it, though the evening 
light has changed to darkness, as if he knew it by heart, and 
reads in such a tone that a chord in her memory is struck and 
she recognizes the voice which had so passionately pleaded be- 
neath the balcony. It was he who had written all the letters 
from the camp, he whose soul went out in that scene and sub- 
dued her soul. Christian was a mere statue now in her mind. 

With a resignation almost cynical, he admits it all. " Look 
you," he says, " it was my life to be the prompter every one 
forgets. ... I pay my tribute with the rest to Moliere's 
genius Christian's fair face." 

It seems that M. Rostand thinks Moliere was a crow decked 
in others' feathers, as the enemies of Shakspere said of him. 
But the play closes with a wild burst of madness on the part 
of Cyrano. With drawn sword he challenges his old enemies 
Falsehood, Compromise, Prejudice, Treachery ; the sword drops 
from his hand, he falls back into the arms of the bystanders ; 
Roxane kisses his forehead ; opening his eyes, he recognizes her, 
and dies with that kiss the plume* upon his brow, the guerdon 
of his knight-errantry. 

We have not the space to examine the allusions to the stage 
of Louis XIV.'s time, but they peep out here and there with 
the malice or appreciation of a man then living and sore at, or 
pleased with, his contemporaries. We confess to just a little 
surprise about the estimate of Moliere ; it is a very mixed one, 
and for that reason far from just. If the satire on court pre- 
lates and time-serving churchmen which Moliere allows from 
time to time to appear in his plays, and the whole concentrated 
essence of which is boiled into "Tartuffe," is considered dishonest 
by M. Rostand, why does he himself bring out the suspicion of 
an evil influence on the part of Count de Guiche over his un- 
cle the Cardinal, and the employment of a friar as the messen- 
ger in a plot which calls to mind a little too much of the 
cynical if not suggestive wit of the seventeenth century. Does 
he think his play would lack flavor if this were absent ? 

*The translators make him say " My panache," but the words "mon panache" really 
mean that that kiss was the victor's plume won by the devotion of a life. 




1899-] CATHOLIC CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. 191 



CATHOLIC CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. 

BY W. H. McGINTY. 

'HE artistic feeling which actuates every refined 
and educated person is, at this time, appealing 
to the Catholic Church for the better and more 
intelligent use of her superior talents in church 
building. The noble examples of the past, 
from the basilica through the different periods of Romanesque, 
Byzantine, or Eastern Christian style, through the rise, develop- 
ment, and perfection of that period of Gothic or Western Chris- 
tian style down to the modern or copying period, the Catholic 
Church has put the greatest attainable talents into the building 
of her churches. Architect, builder, sculptor, painter, each in his 
turn has strained every nerve to accomplish the best that was 
in him in honor of the house of God. 

The world's architecture is the world's history. So also church 
architecture is church history, and in no way is the record of 
the progress of the Catholic Church more truly written or more 
easily read than in the sacred edifices from the dawn of his- 
tory in Europe to the erection of the facade of the cathedral 
at Milan. The American architect who would, a few years 
ago, break away from the local examples set so profusely be- 
fore him and start out with some fine specimen of Gothic 
style like St. Patrick's in New York or the classical Philadel- 
phia cathedral as a model, would be looked upon as having 
questionable judgment. 

The time is here, however, when good taste and pure detail, 
combined with an intelligent distribution of floor space, has 
superseded "constructed ornament" consisting of adjuncts as 
useless as unnecessary; the lack of judgment resulting in poor 
acoustic properties; the sacrificing of pew space to sanctuary; 
ignoring ventilation and those numerous other elements which 
go to make up a successful church. 

We are at the beginning of an age which will exemplify 
the beauties of simplicity. Gaudiness and arrogant superfluity 
will have no home in the time into which the wheels of progress 
have carried us. The Catholic Church should now, as in the 
great past, take the lead in this artistic development. It should 



192 



CATHOLIC CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. 



[May, 




1 8 9 9-] 



CATHOLIC CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. 



encourage the 
budding talent 
throughout the 
country, using the 
broadened experi- 
ence and increased 
knowledge in per- 
fecting Catholic 
church-bu i Iding 
work. 

THE ELEMENTS OF 
ARCHITECTURE. 

The three ele- 
ments entering in- 
to archit e c t u r e 
have been called, 
by an eminent his- 
torian, the yEsthe- 
tic, Technic, and 
Phonetic. We 
shall interpret 
these elements to 
mean, in church 
building, Design, 
Construction, and 
Decoration. 

Without doubt 
the strict obser- 
vance of the first 
great rule of de- 
sign (that nothing 
can be ornamental 
which is not use- 
ful) would beget 
splendid architec- 

+- ure CHAPEL ON EAST OF CHOIR, MONREALE CATHEDRAL. 

It does away at once with all those needless, meaningless, 
and useless adjuncts which are nailed on and painted on to the 
exterior as well as the interior of our churches, and which 
please only the untrained eye, while they shock the sensibilities 
of true feeling. Whatever is useful can, however, be made 
ornamental, and by studying how best to ornament our con- 
VOL. LXIX. 13 




194 CATHOLIC CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. [May, 

struction with chaste carvings, with the proper distribution of 
light and shade, and by the projection and outline of our 
mouldings, we can secure that simple beauty, resembling nature, 
which is the acme of artistic development. 

Assuming one hundred parts for the perfection of our con- 
ception as a whole, sixty of these parts would be given to the 
perfection of the plan. This illustrates better than any argu- 
ment the importance and necessity of great study in church- 
planning. Each worshipper must see, must hear, must be well 
warmed, must have good air to breathe, and a comfortable 
place to sit and kneel. The sanctuary must be roomy and 
convenient, the altar and its surroundings well arranged, the 
sacristies ample, and the pulpit considered in relation to both 
the preacher and the people. 

, fr 

POINTED GOTHIC. 

The length, breadth, and height of the best examples of the 
past must be well digested mentally, to enable us to plan in a 
way to conform with our selected period of architecture. To 
plan a Gothic church, for instance, we must be familiar with 
the churches developed in the Prankish province from A. D. 1108 
to 1328, during which time the Pointed Gothic architecture 
was invented, soon to spread its influence through Europe. 
This style, since its perfection, has seemed to a great many as 
the most fitting to carry out the religious forms of the church. 
Its beginning was the Abbey of St. Denis, A. D. 1144, and it 
was developed, beautified, and perfected until it received its 
greatest amount of finish at the completion of the choir of St. 
Ouen at Rouen, in 1339. 

The great need 'of intelligent planning must not be subor- 
dinated to the adoption of any example of old-world archi- 
tecture, however imposing. In the great cathedrals of Europe, 
with their numerous chapels, many services are in progress at 
the same moment. Congregations wander (without hindrance 
from fixed seats) through the edifices, worshipping in small 
numbers at as many altars as happen to be in use. With us 
conditions are different. The capacity of the church is fully 
tested at each of the services. The whole people at Mass are 
obliged to centre attention at the one altar, to listen to the 
instruction of the single clergyman. Climatic peculiarities have 
also to be contended with, and the question of pure air under 
certain conditions of the atmosphere requires wholly different 
treatment from any like problem in the churches abroad. 



1899-1 



CATHOLIC CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. 




CLUSTERED COLUMNS IN THE CLOISTER, MONREALE, SICILY. 

THE MODEL PARISH CHURCH. 

The parish church of medium size, seating a thousand per- 
sons or less, where each attendant can properly and comfortably 
hear divine service; where the surrounding religious influences 



196 CATHOLIC CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. [May, 

are not so distant as to be mere shapeless forms ; where the 
priest, the people, and the choir can unite in the perpetuation 
of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass this is the problem which 
the intelligent architect likes to solve. He feels that in work 
of this scope he will live to see the work completed, and 
with the funds at his disposal he can do justice to himself and 
to the parish which gives him employment. If the pastor, 
however, has in his mind's eye St. Stephen's at Vienna or 
Cologne Cathedral, after either of which he desires to model 
his structure, at an expense of fifty thousand dollars, slated 
clere-stories and galvanized iron towers will be "in it," to say 
nothing of other aberrations not necessary to name. 

In church-planning perhaps the lower church has been the 
subject of more discussion and criticism than any other portion 
of the building. It is without doubt a very useful part of the 
church, and to provide the same amount of floor space in an 
adjoining chapel is an. expensive luxury which few parishes can 
afford. 

A feature capable <of special attractions, which will be de- 
veloped in ways now only suggestive, is the side altars, small 
chapels, and oratories. The church in its entirety is used for 
great gatherings and congregational worship. The chapel is 
the place for individual worship and novenas for favors which 
it is hoped the petitioner will receive, and especially for 
thanksgiving. 

THE USES OF GAS AND ELECTRICITY. 

Nearly all of our churches are well warmed, but few are well 
lighted and hardly any well ventilated. With the new uses to 
which gas is being put, in the operation at small expense, with- 
out fire or flame, of gas-engines, which when attached to a 
dynamo will furnish electric light at any time and in any 
quantity, as well as power for ventilating purposes, the church 
without its lighting and ventilating plant will soon be the ex- 
ception and not the rule. The absence of any danger from an 
apparatus of this kind, coupled with the fact that no additional 
care is required from the engineer, will soon cause it to be 
adopted by the clergy as readily as the large corporations that 
have learned to be independent of the electric light companies. 

Construction, or the technic portion of architecture, can best 
be described as applied mechanics. To determine what the 
foundation will have to support, to provide for its carrying 
capacity and to distribute the weight so that it is brought to 



1 899.] 



CATHOLIC CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. 



197 



the base provided 
for it safely and 
economically, is 
good construction. 
The foundation is 
not only the be- 
ginning but the 
end of any super- 
structure. Every 
day and all around 
us foundations 
are provided for 
churches which 
disgrace our intel- 
ligence. We won- 
der at damp base- 
ments, and yet go 
on building them. 
We wonder at 
settlements in our 
buildings after 
having invited 
them, or rather 
insisted on having 
them, by the 
method we follow 
in building the 
foundation. 

The other great 
problem in church 
construction is to 
provide for the 
roof. The great 
span of the nave 
necessitates a roof 
having consider- 
able outward 
thrust, and care 
must betaken that 
this force will not 
The church roof truss is a very important matter, but is 
an important mathematical matter. It has none of those un- 
known or mysterious quantities about it which are hidden to 




INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF PONT AUDEMER (URE). 

push out the side walls or crush them. 



198 CATHOLIC CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. [May, 

the student of mathematics. Before the employment of the 
numerous public and private testing-machines materials had to 
be used without a knowledge of their special weaknesses, and 
naturally a large element of doubt had to be provided for, more 
especially in the use of wood and iron. The church truss, how- 
ever, is but recreation to the architect of this day with un- 
limited data at his command. 

DECORATION THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE. 

The decoration, or the painting and sculpture, is the third 
element in church building the poetry of the work. Here 
it is that the masters of the world's art have given the 
best effort of their lives. Here Murillo, in the cathedral at 
Seville, left his masterpiece, the great painting of St. Anthony 
of Padua; here Michael Angelo, at St. Peter's, planned and 
decorated the magnificent dome ; here also, in the Gothic 
churches of France, the sculptor's work teaches history and 
religion to all who are familiar with the alphabet of 'art, the 
great cathedrals of Chartres and of Rheims alone having over 
five thousand artistic sculptured figures each. 

Catholic church decoration in this country is apt to be 
overdone, and with vitiated taste we indulge in meaningless 
lines and glaring contrasts which distract the attention of the 
worshipper, instead of by the harmony of our colors endeavor- 
ing to carry him beyond worldly influences. 

The cathedral and parish church cannot be treated alike to 
have satisfactory results, any more than a patient with a^ fever 
and one with a broken leg could be doctored for the same 
complaint. In decorating, however, we can try to overcome 
defects in height and size, as in exterior design a building is 
made to look high by running perpendicular lines, and made 
to look low by horizontal lines. 

THE WORTH OF A GOOD PICTURE. 

Soft and chaste colors, with the church emblems delicately 
interwoven, appeal to the religious feelings much stronger than 
bright hues and glaring contrasts. One good picture is worth 
miles of stencil-work. The picture of the Crucifixion by Bru- 
midi over the altar in the Philadelphia Cathedral would tend to 
soften the heart and elevate the mind of the most hardened 
criminal. 

In decoration we must not by any means forget the great 
formative principle of Gothic architecture, which was painted 



1 899.] 



CATHOLIC CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. 



199 




MARBLE MONK IN THE CAMPO SANTO, ITALY. 

glass. Before its introduction the windows were small and far 
apart, filled with plain white glass. Immediately upon the sub- 
stitution of painted glass, however, windows were enlarged, 
circular plans were abandoned, and polygonal apses and 
chapels of the chevet introduced. " So far as internal archi- 
tecture is concerned," says Fergusson, " the invention of painted 
glass was perhaps the most beautiful ever made. The painted 
slabs of the Assyrian palaces are comparatively poor attempts 



200 TWILIGHT. [May, 

at the same effect. The hieroglyphics of the Egyptians were 
far less splendid and complete ; nor can the panelled temples 
of the Greeks, nor the mosaics and frescoes of the Italian 
churches, be compared with the brilliant effect and parti-colored 
glories of the windows of a perfect Gothic cathedral, where 
the whole history of the Bible was written in hues of the rain- 
bow by the earnest hand of faith." 

The elements which enter into the successful use of 
materials in architecture may be enumerated as mass, sta- 
bility, durability, construction, forms, proportion, carved or- 
nament, decorative color, sculpture, and painting. These ele- 
ments are used by the architect to produce his ideal, so as to 
unitedly form the aesthetic, phonetic, and technic parts of the 
structure. 




TWILIGHT. 

BY REV. WILLIAM P. CANTWELL. 

HE mists were rising o'er the chilly sea, 
One solitary wild fowl streaked the sky, 
The fishers' boat, wet-sailed, cast lazily 
Its anchor in the bay ; the sob and sigh 
Of waves along the bare and sedgy lea 
Mixed weirdly with the children's distant cry, 
While sadly thoughts of other days and thee 
Came like soft music, and my tear-dimmed eye 
Lost trace of sea and sky, and hazy grew 
The air about, and like a gray-robed nun 
The sober twilight crept apace as through 
A mystic temple ; then the darkness fell 
In clouds like perfumed incense and the blue 
Of heaven twinkled with a myriad stars. 




1899-] AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. 201 



AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. 

BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY. 

[T is quite in the nature of things that a youth 
who wins fame, thus overstepping the decent 
laws of progression, should be miscalculated, 
whether for praise or blame, by the majority. 
The art and the personality are out of focus. By 
thq time the party of the first part has lived on into the years 
of man's life ; by the time several hundred thousand sporadical- 
ly reflective people have knowledge of him ; by the time the 
shock and strangeness which genius always is, begin to look 
somewhat pertinent and integral, then, indeed, the general 
judgment bids fair to be truer. But in the case of Aubrey 
Beardsley, who in his adolescence, thanks to the contagion of 
journalistic report, was more famous than was Alcibiades, or Pico 
della Mirandola, or Mozart, the critical equilibrium has not yet 
been established, though he has been just a year in his grave ; 
though new portfolios of his drawings are still published, each 
with its preface ; though we have had, of late, no fewer than 
six exquisitely intelligent essays about him, of which Mr. Arthur 
Symons' is easily first. Taken together, these sum up and state 
a most interesting mod.ern problem ; unlike every modern prob- 
lem, it would seem to be well worth solution. What sort of 
" heathen, Christian or man," asks one dazzled, affronted citizen 
of another, was this creator of demon dwarves, of bare elongated 
sorceresses, of mincing Atalantas with blanketed dogs, of blue 
po.ster ladies inscrutable behind green spotted veils ? (Suffer 
the hubbub: it is inevitable.) So far,- only Mr. Henry Harland 
has answered clearly. His short paper in the Academy, written 
with his usual power of lightness and simpleness, and with no 
design but love's or truth% puts the matter on its right ground, 
and supplies us, at the close, with the unuttered premise. 

" I wonder whether people who know Aubrey Beardsley only 
through his work ever realize how young he was. When the 
world first began to talk of him, when Mr. Pennell first wrote 
of him in the Studio, and Mr. Dent undertook the publication of 
his first book, the Morte D' Arthur, Aubrey was not yet one-and- 
twenty. He was barely five-and-twenty when he died. And at 
the moment of his utmost celebrity, when the world was talking 
loudest of him, during the winter of 1894-95, he was twenty-two. 



2O2 AUBREY BEARDSLEY: A RECONSTRUCTION. [May, 

" For my part, I could only think of him, I can only re- 
member him, as a boy. Oh, a marvellously precocious boy, a 
boy who had read, observed, reflected : a boy (as a great critic 
said of him) who had found a ' short cut ' to the mastery of 
his art : a boy of genius, indeed ; but still a boy, and a singu- 
larly bright, frank, boyish boy, at that. He had all a boy's fresh- 
ness, enthusiasm, exuberance, all a boy's eagerness and relish for 
the fun and the romance and the pleasantness of life. His en- 
joyment of things, his enjoyment of books, pictures, music, of the 
opera, the play ; his enjoyment of London and Paris, of the 
London streets and the Paris streets, their beauty, their action and 
suggestion; his enjoyment of people, of conversation, of human 
sympathy and intercourse ; his enjoyment of his own gifts, his 
own achievements, and of his success, the recognition he had 
won: it was boyish, boyish; it was fresh and young and 
eager. He had a boy's curiosity, a boy's craving for adven- 
ture, experience, and a boy's capacity for seeing the elements 
of adventure in the simplest doings: that is to say, a boy's im- 
agination. A little dinner at a restaurant, an hour spent in 
a cafe, nay, even a ride on the top of an omnibus, or a walk 
in Kensington Gardens, held, for his unspoiled imagination, 
the elements of adventure. Taking his house in Cambridge 
Street, furnishing and decorating it : that was a great adventure. 
Starting the Yellow Book with me, and afterwards the Savoy 
with Arthur Symons : those were tremendous, breathless ad- 
ventures. And he had a boy's fondness for a ' lark,' a boy's 
playfulness, mischief. He loved a romp, a masquerade, a harm- 
less practical joke. One evening I was seated in my study, when 
the servant brought a visiting-card, on which was written, ' Miss 
Tibbett and Master Tibbett.' I went into the drawing-room, 
and there was Miss Beardsley with a tall boy in an Eton jacket. 
The tall boy in. the Eton jacket, Master Tibbett, if you please 
was Aubrey, jubilant, laughing for delight in his own prank. 

" He had a boy's playfulness, mischievousness. And when I 
hear honest folk deploring, horror-struck, the quality in his 
work which it has been the fashion somewhat cheaply to de- 
scribe as ' decadent ' : when I hear them crying out, ' Ah, yes, 
monstrous clever, certainly ; but so immoral, so depraved ! ' I, 
who knew the boy, can only shake my head and smile. For I 
know that what they hold up their hands at, as depraved, im- 
moral, was nothing more than the mischievous humor, or, if you 
like, the devilry, of the boy, who, boylike, loved to give 
Solemnity a shock. I do not say that it would not have been 
better if, in his work, 'he had restrained this mischievous humor ; 



1899-] AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. 203 

but I do say that it was nothing worse than mischievous humor. 
If Aubrey had lived, he would have restrained it; "or, rather, 
he would have outgrown it, he would have left it behind him. 
He would have sown his wild oats, and had done with them. 

" For the man in Aubrey Beardsley, the man as distinguished 
from the boy, the man the boy was developing into, had de- 
veloped into during the last sad year of his life, was a man of 
very deep and serious feelings, of very high and earnest aims. 
Aubrey Beardsley 's temperament was essentially the religious 
temperament. A hundred times, in a hundred ways, one felt- 
that this was so ; one would even tell him to his face that it 
was so ; at which he would perhaps laugh a little, quietly, 
gently, a laugh that was by no means a disavowal. And just 
at the threshold of that last sad year, he acknowledged that it 
was so: he became a Catholic. He became beautifully, serene- 
ly devout : not in any morbid or effeminate sense, but in the 
right sense, the wholesome, manly sense. His heart, his life, 
were filled with the joy and the love it is the merit of the 
Supreme Fa*ith to bestow. In all his wretched bodily suffering, 
at Bournemouth, at Dieppe, and in the end at Mentone, he 
had that to help him." 

"Aubrey Beardsley's temperament was essentially the reli- 
gious temperament." Will some cry out that this is like telling 
us that the pine-needle is spherical, or that Bohemia, after all, 
has a sea-coast? But it is really the irradiation of the whole 
subject from within : the light by which men must search out, 
and discard, some received opinions. Aubrey Beardsley came 
to the ancient Faith gradually and steadily. He was intensely 
reserved in character : he had not a word to reveal while he 
suffered his own complex processes ; he smiled, and lit his can- 
dles, and went about talking paradoxes, and transferred to 
paper wistful diabolic phantoms, (perhaps to be rid of seeing 
them, to avoid having them come true,) and softly enjoyed the 
confusion of the public, which with such adroit metaphysical 
attack he sandbagged and waylaid. All this, observe, that he 
might have a depopulated world in which to do his momentous 
thinking ! The too inductive Comte de Caylus confessed : " fe 
grave pour ne pas me pendre." Our more cunning artist had, 
too, his singular self-protective makeshifts. Hidden by the 
domino, and the horns and hoofs of exaggeration, and the for- 
bidding Rosicrucian flame, was a little walled inner oratory. 
He meant that none should guess at it, if he could hinder. 
But there were two or three clairvoyants about, beside Mr. 
Harland, who is not a Catholic. One of the most subtle minds 



204 AUBREY BEARDSLEY: A RECONSTRUCTION. [May, 

among his pagan friends, one who saw much of him during 
1896, has recorded that it is only " with a great effort " that he 
can connect the Beardsley whom he knew " with his so posi- 
tive intelligence, with his imaginative sight of the very spirit 
of man as a thing of definite outline," with the exile who 
" died in the peace of the sacraments of the Church, holding 
the rosary between his fingers." Nor was this most sincere 
change, as has been foolishly hinted, an access of mere death- 
bed piety. When the young man made ready to enter the 
Church he was at the height of his reputation ; he expected to 
live, and to serve God with an unmistakable service. He had 
no fear of death, nor of anything. His dominant qualities, from 
a child, after his tender compassion for all weak and disadvan- 
taged things, were this same reticence, and this courage. Once 
they were enfranchised to the Faith, 

" To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be," 

these very qualities subordinated themselves to a new third, 
which was in him less a natural gift than a special grace, 
although it was a natural gift as well : an absolutely limpid 
spiritual simplicity. For it is well to remember that Beards- 
ley's nature was one of great richness and depth ; his strong 
yet wary and elaborate line which we all admire, was a symbol 
of the ways he had to travel. He could not be perfectly sim- 
ple until he was perfectly free. Like Keats, he " lived in a 
thousand worlds " ; he apprehended often more than could be 
expressed ; and in much that he chose to express, in his won- 
derful black-and-white, lay more than others were ready to 
receive. This is not saying that he loved mysticism or equivo- 
cation, for his work is ever direct, and stubbornly of a piece ; 
but only that he frequently played in it an unguessed game : 
the game of abounding comment, instinctive to the great reader, 
the great observer, that he was. Memorable portraiture, to cite 
but one instance, has gone undetected in the almost savagely 
pathetic Return of Tannhauser to the Venusberg. The drawing 
is not in the least like the Niebelungenlied or the heroic dream 
of Wagner: it is, on the- contrary, a powerful gloss or foot- 
note to English history of the seventeenth century. With what 
some reverent spirits might call utter bravado, with what one 
might choose to consider, rather, a remote obsession, an irrita- 
ting magic " to tease us out of thought," Beardsley has not 
seldom, in his later compositions, set his glittering interiors 
with bits of the most alien-looking ritual detail. There are 
altar candles in the Scarlet Pastorale ; there is a statuette of 



1899-] AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. 205 

Our Lady in the exquisite Coiffure ; there is something very 
like a monstrance on the ornate stand in the right-hand corner 
of The Baron's Prayer, in The Rape of the Lock. On altar 
candles, statuette, monstrance, one and all, the backs of the 
extra-mundane figures are significantly turned. Who has ever 
noted the ecclesiast paraphernalia ? Apparently they were set 
there for Mr. Aubrey Beardsley's quite secret pleasure. They 
are beautiful, and drawn without accent. The obviously sacred 
subject, like the S. Rose of Lima, in the Savoy, dating from the 
same period, has an arrangement of draperies which is, let us 
say, elegantly farcical. Made wise after the event, a critic may 
dare to look on such art with the gross moral eye : the too- 
little or the too-much, the rash half-visionary handling which 
means neither abuse nor evasion, is truly but the cried unrest 
of S. Augustine, donee requiescamus in Te. While Aubrey 
seemed to be coursing after decorative possibilities, after his 
own " amazingly novel convention," he was all the while on 
the trail of the eternal. The spirit in him which came out 
unique and original from the embrace of a thousand vari- 
colored precedents in art, " delightful manias," as Mr. Robert 
Ross romantically enumerates them, " Greek vases, Italian primi- 
tives, the Hypnerotomachia, Chinese porcelain, Japanese Kake- 
monos, Renaissance friezes, old French and English furniture, 
rare enamels, mediaeval illumination, the dbonnaire masters of 
the eighteenth century, the English pre-Raphaelites," this same 
spirit, roving, aspiring, insatiate, elementally sincere, urged him 
swiftly from virtue to virtue, made him an ascetic enamored of 
perfection. The contemporaries who were once able to get at 
close range this mild and courteous lad with the flat blonde 
hair, of whom no photograph gives a just estimate, were not 
those whose fur continued to rise at the sight of his " pranc- 
ing page." Something in him disarmed opposition : certainly 
it was no specific conciliation of his own. He who on his all- 
wakeful rounds saw most things in this world, and around 
them, and through them, was predestined, before he left it, to 
see also the Holy Grail. 

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was born at Brighton, Sussex, on 
the 2ist of August, 1872. His family were not rich, except in 
love. He was a gentle, shy child, who began to show symp- 
toms of delicate health in his eighth year, and was moved from 
town to country, and from school to school. He played at 
concerts with his sister Mabel, (throughout his life his close 
friend and confidant,) and had a pretty vogue as a prodigy in 
music, for which his lifelong talent was very marked. He re- 



206 AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. [May, 

cited extraordinarily well, too, and gloried in acting Shakspere, 
as drama after drama would issue from the Mermaid Press. 
The boy of ten was always drawing, always reading serious 
masterpieces ; and he attracted from the first his teachers, and 
some others who foresaw no common future for him. Like 
Correggio's, or Schubert's, his art grew without a master, by early 
diligence and self-directed study. The history of its develop- 
ment is well told in Mr. Ross's preface to the Volpone, pub- 
lished by Mr. John Lane. Aubrey left school in 1888, and 
within a twelvemonth had become a clerk in the Guardian Life 
and Fire Insurance office, where he remained until 1892. Then 
his genius blazed up, and at the first real opportunity his name 
was all at once upon everybody's lips. It was but a career of 
five years in all : who does not remember that bright, sting- 
ing, quick-passing pageant, such as Baudelaire may have beheld 
in dreams ? The material measure of Aubrey's success was 
astonishing : he started on five shillings a week, and ended 
with an income of five thousand pounds a year. Throughout, 
he showed himself entirely unworldly, receptive to all wise 
criticism, perfectly modest and unspoiled. A nursling of no 
university, it was not the least marvellous thing about him that 
he made himself into an excellent scholar, a lover of the 
ancients, a sound authority on a great many purely literary 
subjects. He cared only for the best books ; he had a library, 
choice and not too large, rich in everything save fiction, to 
which he gave small heed, unless it were French. He had a 
passion for writing, and he wrote well. It seemed impossible 
for him to fail at anything upon which his heart was set. I 
am afraid he " resolved," as Rasselas did, " to become a poet " ; 
what wonder if the sequel is a little vague! No one ever seems 
to have caught him at work : once interrupted, he would hide his 
materials, and, on a fund of very imperfect vitality, become, 
miscellaneously gay, the life of the company. He had incredi- 
ble zest when his task pleased him, and but fitful energies 
when it did not ; he hated all illustration, even when, in the 
mood of the day before, he had elected to do it. Though he 
had time for friendship, he had no time for posing and tall 
talk. Such as he was, frail and animated, boyish and beloved, 
Mr. Harland has painted him, in the heyday of his genius. 

In March of 1896 he was taken ill at Brussels, and had to 
spend the cold weather of that year at Bournemouth for recu- 
peration. Here he allowed his old frank liking for the Lives 
of the Saints to revive, and he re-read Newman and Bossuet. 
In the mild sunshine, in sound of the sea, he never for a mo- 



1899-] AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. 207 

ment believed himself a confirmed invalid. " My appearance 
always shocks a new doctor," he admitted once, with his pecu- 
liarly sweet smile ; " but J have really always looked more or 
less like this. Those who have not known me from childhood 
cannot realize how very slim I have always been." He was 
seldom strong enough to visit during the winter, but he visited 
the Rev. David Bearne, S.J., with whom he had at first a pure- 
ly literary acquaintance. He borrowed books bearing upon S. 
Ignatius, and upon an historic crisis in the life of the great 
community he was fast learning to revere and love: the Society 
of Jesus. To Father Bearne he began to confide various long- 
held theories about his ideal religion. Careful as he was to 
conceal his deeper feelings from outsiders by means of flippant 
speech, Aubrey had been a loyal Anglican. Now he knew that 
that familiar influence had failed him on every side. He need- 
ed, he said, the staying principle of authority ; he needed, 
above all, the sure grace of the sacraments, and these he felt 
convinced he could not find, apart from the Mother. In the 
Jesuit sacristy he went over the creed of Pius the Fourth, but 
could not be drawn to utter objections. "And did I doubt, I 
should prefer to submit myself," said the most independent 
and unconventional of neophytes, he who was so fond of an ar- 
gument, even when he had no real concern with it ! In fact, by 
that time his mind was already made up ; he had been under in- 
struction, and his minor difficulties had been removed. On the 
last day of March, 1897, he was made a child of the Church, 
in his own room. His beloved and devoted mother, who is still 
a non-Catholic, built a fair little altar there beside him. "I 
shall never forget," wrote Father Bearne, " the joy with which 
he received his First Communion." Some weeks after, he went 
up to London, and then, always under his mother's minister- 
ing care, on through Paris, to the south of France. One of 
his last drawings before leaving England was the austere and 
altogether noble figure, the Ave Atque Vale, reproduced in the 
Savoy. The sweet, equal translation from Catullus was his 
own. The air of France did not help him. There, as in Bourne- 
mouth, he struggled hard to keep faith with his publishers, 
but in vain ; the effort to work often brought him low with 
hemorrhage. He was tormented, too, by the eagerness of his 
desire to consecrate himself to devotional art. That would 
have been, for him, nothing but a return, with ripened facul- 
ties, to his own first choice and early love : to the pencilled 
world of his boyhood, where seraphs were, and the Epiphany 
star, and the transparent profile of our Lady, with a slanted 



2o8 AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. [May, 

jonquil held against her girlish hair. It is characteristic of 
him that, passionately as he cherished that desire, he kept 
doggedly on, as best he could, with the tasks he had pledged 
himself to do : and so, in the dissatisfaction of a losing battle, 
his strength was spent, until he could no longer sit up at all. 
He must have known that in many eyes he was passing un- 
vindicated, but he was brave enough to sacrifice the last chance 
of vindication to his duty. Meanwhile, during those weeks and 
months, he was leading the life of penance, the life of the 
saints. Father Bearne says that before Aubrey went from 
Bournemouth he showed a certain anxiety regarding the sort of 
confessor he might meet with in the course of his travels, and 
asked for letters of introduction to some foreign clergymen. 
Whereupon Father Bearne reminded him, in all affection, that 
in the Catholic Church the main consideration must ever be 
the sacerdos as such, and not the individual : but that he should 
have the letters^ if he wished. Aubrey, however, understood 
the point, a difficult one for converts at once ; and after his 
usual thorough habit, took the hint to heart : so literally, in- 
deed, that wherever he happened to be on great festivals, (as 
Father Bearne was told afterwards,) he would go to the nearest 
priest, or send for him, and make his confession, with the sim- 
plicity of a child. If he went out to walk, he was repeatedly 
found before the tabernacle, rapt in prayer. If he had to lie 
indoors, often in such agony that it seemed incredible he 
should survive it, he was angelically unselfish and serene. His 
physicians, strange to say, agreed that he must eventually re- 
cover ; but he had gradually lost interest in the pursuits and 
glories of this world. He sent to England for a girdle of S. 
Thomas Aquinas, and later, for a copy of S. Alphonsus' Clock 
of the Passion. " He gave himself up," I am quoting from a 
private letter, " to a great devotion to the Passion of our 
Blessed Lord. His own sufferings were sharp, but for a time 
God allowed him unbroken consolation. Then came desolate 
hours, and temptation, and distress. The thought of some of 
his drawings was a torture. 'At any cost,' he telegraphed to 
his publishers, one day, ' such and such a design must be sac- 
rificed.' Nor would he take any rest until he was assured that 
all should be as he directed." His whole conduct was a source 
of profound edification to his fellow-guests at the Hotel Cosmo- 
politain at Mentone. He beguiled his forced inaction, as he 
was able, by turning his pleasant room into a little picture- 
gallery, pinning up rows of unframed prints against the wall. 
One has a view of this room in a large photograph of himself 



1899-] AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. 209 

seated, reading, which he had taken, at Christmastide, for his 
friends. Looking narrowly at the waD, one can make out the 
subject of the greater number of the prints : it is that of the 
Cross and Passion of Christ. 

Mrs. Beardsley had planned to take her only son on to Lu- 
cerne, in February ; he had gained apparent strength, and he 
was full of hope. But it was not to be : he was to die in the 
Riviera, " the land of last letters," and of English graves. 
During the first week of March, 1898, he underwent a painful 
hemorrhage, and fell into a subsequent final exhaustion. He 
received Extreme Unction, and was "happy." The pathetic 
and triumphant word was always on his own lips, and recurs, 
over and over, in the messages of the mother and sister who 
tried to answer the many inquiries of dear friends at home. 
To one of these Mrs. Beardsley wrote : " My darling is oh so 
happy in spite of his sufferings ! He whispered to me his great 
gratitude and love to you : some day I may be able to tell 
you all he said." And again, Miss Beardsley addresses the same 
friend : " Dear Aubrey is slightly better. His state of mind 
is most beautiful : perfect resignation, sweetness, and gentle- 
ness : it is marvellous. He lies very quietly, holding his rosary. 
He cares for nothing but spiritual things, and is so grateful to 
God. There is hope for him ; yet it is selfish to talk of recov- 
ery as hope, when he is so happy now. Last night he, and 
we too, thought he was dying. He tells me all his thoughts; 
they are wonderful. And he delights in the prayers, psalms, 
and hymns which we say for him. When he believed he was 
dying, he was very happy, but he is wonderfully resigned and 
obedient under the delay." . . . " Aubrey spoke lovingly 
of you last night, and is happy to know you are praying for 
him. To-day, I am afraid he is troubled with a sense of deso- 
lation, and with evil visions, but he is consoled, notwithstand- 
ing, and is most patient. We are so happy together, I cannot 
feel sad for him, though it is terrible to watch his sufferings. 
I shall stay with him always now, while he needs me." The 
young man to whom these tidings were given day by day was 
Aubrey Beardsley's dearest friend, his "more than brother." 
His own indefatigable faith, the prayers he offered and got 
others to offer, had much to do with that heartfelt conversion 
of the year before ; and there was the sweetest return for this 
great service, near the end. For Aubrey himself, asked for 
prayers, as he lay dying, obtained then a spiritual favor 
ardently desired, not on his own behalf, by Mr. A - : one of 
VOL. LXIX. 14 



210 AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. [May, 

those gracious miracles which are always being wrought by the 
providence of God, and of which cables and printing-presses 
take no account, albeit they are the only fresh news in all the 
world. Between these two comrades was a sacred and lovely 
intimacy, of which I will say no more. 

Some passages in other letters sum up the nature and mean- 
ing of Aubrey Beardsley's blessed inner life. The first of these 
was written by his sister : " It has been a grief to my mo- 
ther and myself that none of the notices which have appeared 
have, as far as we know, made any reference to the testimony 
which my brother bore to the Faith, in the wonderful patience 
and resignation with which he endured his sufferings, and 
the childlike sweetness and grace of his last days on earth. 
As you already know, in April of 1897 he left England 
for Paris, where his first thought, on arriving, was to find a 
director. My mother, at his request, went to the church near- 
est to their hotel, S. Thomas d'Aquinas, and arranged for the 
Abb6 Vacossin to visit my brother, and prepare him for his 
Easter Communion. M. Vacossin, like all my brother's subse- 
quent directors, was profoundly touched and interested by his 
childlike faith and simple trust, qualities which throughout his 
life endeared him to his friends. Later, he passed under the 
direction of Pere Coub and of Pere Henry of the Jesuit or- 
der. I came to St. Germains, where my brother passed the 
early summer of 1897, and made my Whitsuntide Communion 
there with him in the chapel of the Convent of S. Thomas : 
the last time dear Aubrey ever made his Communion in a 
church. He was so reserved and sensitive that even those 
nearest to him did not always realize the depth of his devotion 
and the fervor of his piety. 

" In the late autumn he went south to Mentone, where he 
spent the four last and happiest months of his life. He had of 
late ceased to take any interest in purely worldly matters ; even 
the work which he loved so much, and which increasing weak- 
ness forbade him to continue, was sacrificed, with touching 
resignation, to the Will of God. Not a word of complaint or 
impatience ever passed his lips, and the affectionate gratitude 
he showed for the tender care of my mother, and the kindness 
of those who surround him, won him the affection of all who 
came in contact with him. Mr. Widmer, the proprietor of the 
Hotel Cosmopolitain, and all the guests there, were devoted to 
my brother. Chief among his friends were M. l'Abb6 Ortmans 
and M. l'Abb Luggani, the former of whom was his director. 



1899-] AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. 211 

" He spent his time chiefly in spiritual exercises, and in read- 
ing the Lives of the Saints, especially S. Teresa. Although 
even up to within a fortnight of his death, the doctors still 
assured him of the possibility of his life being prolonged 
for even years, he never thought of those years except as 
ones to be devoted to the service of 'God; and if he had 
lived, he contemplated entering some religious order. He was 
therefore wholly prepared to give up his life to God, when the 
end came so swiftly and even unexpectedly. On the 6th of 
March he had an agonizing attack of hemorrhage, from which 
it seemed impossible he could recover. Extreme Unction was 
administered, and he rallied for a few days. I arrived in Men- 
tone on the 8th, and was privileged to spend the last eight 
days of his life with him. His patience, sweetness, and piety 
were the marvel of all who beheld him, and having come to 
the ears of a sufferer dying from the same disease, were the 
means, by God's grace, of his conversion to the Catholic Church. 
Among other devotions, Aubrey loved to have read to him the 
short prayers in the Glories of Mary by S. Alphonsus Liguori, 
whose Clock of the Passion was the last book he held in his 
hands. To the last moment of his life, through all the time of 
his illness, he clasped his rosary and a fragment of the True 
Cross, while his large crucifix lay beside him. His last words 
were those of loving farewell to his friends, and of thanks to 
M. Ortmans, who gave him the last absolution, and prayed be- 
side him to the end. At one in the morning of the i6th 
March he passed away, after days of terrible suffering which 
he rejoiced in, offering it in union with the Passion of Christ. 
Even after death, the perfect peace and beauty of his smile 
bore testimony to all who came to pray beside him (and they 
were many), that the longing of his heart was fulfilled, and his 
highest aspirations consummated. Ah, it is difficult for me to 
write calmly and impartially of one so dear to me ; yet I can- 
not think that any save those of his own family can speak with 
absolute certainty and knowledge of the real beauty of his 
character, and of the manifest graces which God vouchsafed 
him. Only those who knew him intimately realized the great- 
ness and sweetness of Aubrey's nature." 

The last letter which I shall quote, the first and unpublished 
memoir of Aubrey Beardsley, came last spring from a friend 
of my own in England, a poet who was also Aubrey's friend. 
It was prepared for the gratification, (a very great gratifica- 
tion it proved), of some Americans whose love for the new- 



212 AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. [May, 

departed soul brought them, though but one or two were 
Catholics, to a Requiem Mass offered in a private chapel. 
The name of the young writer is goodly and fragrant to 
his own generation : even he has seldom given us so beauti- 
fully wise a page. " I must tell you what I can of dear 
Aubrey Beardsley. Unhappily, although I knew him so well, 
and had talked with him of many matters, I had not seen 
him since he became a Catholic. He has constantly been 
abroad ; and he was no letter-writer, especially as his end 
drew near and inevitable. But I can say, emphatically, that 
his conversion was a spiritual woik, and not an half-insincere 
aesthetic act of change, not a sort of emotional experience 
or experiment. He became a Catholic with a true humility 
and exaltation of soul, and prepared to sacrifice much. He 
withdrew himself from certain valued intimacies which he felt 
incompatible with the Faith : that implies something in our 
days, when artists so largely claim exemption, in the name of 
art, from laws and rules of life ! His work, as himself declared, 
would have been very directly religious, in scope and charac- 
ter : he would have dismissed from it all suggestion of any- 
thing dangerously morbid ; he would have made it plain that he 
was sometimes a satirist of vices and follies and extravagances, 
but not, so to say, a sentimental student of them for their 
curiosity's and fascination's sake. There was always in him a 
vein of mental or imaginative unhealthiness and nervousness, 
probably due to his extreme physical fragility : this he was 
setting himself to conquer, to transform into a spiritual and 
artistic source of energy. He died at twenty-five ; his whole 
work was done in some five or six years, that work for which 
he won extraordinary praise and blame ; and only we who 
were his personal friends can truly realize his inexpressibly 
light hold upon life during the few years of his passionate de- 
votion to his art. His long consciousness of imminent death, 
the certainty that whatever he might do in art, in thought, in 
life at all, must be done very soon or never, forced him to 
face the ultimate questions. I do not for an instant mean that 
his conversion was a kind of feverish snatching at comfort and 
peace, a sort of anodyne or opiate for his restless mind : I only 
mean that dwelling under the sentence of death, in the shadow 
of it, he was brought swiftly face to face with the values and 
purposes of life and of human activity, and that he ' co-oper- 
ated with grace,' as theology puts it, by a more immediate 
and vivid vision of faith than is granted to most converts. All 



1899-] AUBREY BEARDSLEY : A RECONSTRUCTION. 213 

that was best in his art, its often intense idealism, its longing 
to express the ultimate truths of beauty in line and form, its 
profound imaginativeness, helped to lead him straight to that 
Faith which embraces and explains all human apprehensions of, 
and cravings for, the highest excellences. The eye of his 
body was quick to see : the eye of his soul was quickened to 
see. He was sorry, he said at the last, to die so young, and 
leave his work unfinished: but he was 'ready to obey God's 
will.' He had thoughts of entefing an order or congregation 
in which he could have followed his art, and dedicated it wholly 
to the service of the Faith : at least that was the temper or 
tendency of his thoughts towards what proved to be the end. 
He was strangely gentle and winning, though passionate and 
vehement in his intellectual and aesthetic life: such passion and 
vehemence, moderated by his spiritual docility, might have 
achieved great and perfect things. As I have suggested, there 
was a side to his nature which might have led him far in 
the direction of technical excellence in the extreme, coupled 
with spiritual perversity in the extreme : but he lived long 
enough to show that his course would have been otherwise. I 
ascribe all in his work which even great friends and admirers find 
unwelcome, partly to his febrile, consumptive, suffering state of 
body, with its consequent restlessness and excitability of mind ; 
partly to sheer boyish insolence of genius, love of audacious- 
ness, consciousness of power. He was often ridiculed, insulted, 
misconstrued : and he sometimes replied by extravagance. Yet 
despite all wantonness of youthful genius, and the morbidity 
of disease, his truest self was ever on the spiritual side, and 
his conversion was true to that self. He was not the man to 
play with 'high' things, still less with the highest of all. He 
would never have been a fantastical, dilettante trifler with 
Catholicism, making of it a foil to other and base emotions. 
All the greatness and goodness in him, brought face to face 
with the last reality of death, leaped up to the sudden vision 
of faith, as their satisfaction and true end. After a lingering 
period of strong daily pain, he died in quiet peace and happi- 
ness. Requiescat : with all my heart." 

This, then, is the Aubrey Beardsley whom men stared at, 
and last, and never knew : ntwhardly *more perfectly " hidden 
with Christ in God " than in very deed he would have been, 
had he outlived, here among them, his mortal youth. 




214 ZACH'S "INTERESTS" [May, 



ZACH'S "INTERESTS. 

BY EASTON SMITH. 



;T was a lovely morning in the spring of '83, lovely 
even in New Mexico, where all days are " rare 
as a day in June" and sunshine and blue skies, 
God's chiefest gifts to a somewhat neglected ter- 
ritory, are so much in the order of things that 
we are apt to grow unappreciative of them. 

In connection with a lawsuit which was then occupying all 
of my waking and most of my sleeping thoughts, I had busi- 
ness that called me some distance into the country. Though 
at that time stories of Indian atrocities were curdling the blood 
and sending terror to the heart of nearly every one in that 
part of the territory, when it was even thought dangerous to 
go beyond the town limits so bold had been their savage 
cruelties, I gladly welcomed the opportunity of leaving, if only 
for a day, the straggling, sunbaked village where for the past 
three years I had lived, breathed, and, through the stern 
necessity of fate, had my being. I felt a keen delight at the 
prospect of a twenty-mile drive over rock-scarred, cactus-covered 
hills, through long stretches of flower-stained prairie, however 
fraught with danger the trip might be. 

Excepting a trusty Winchester, my only companion was an 
odd-looking specimen of the genus homo commonly known as 
Zach. His real name was Zacharias Wilson, but as brevity is 
the soul of Western wit in all things, few of us ever received 
the benefit of more than one syllable of our baptismal appella- 
tions. It was customary, moreover, in the social intercourse of 
those days to seize upon some personal peculiarity or deformity 
of our neighbor and nickname him thereby. It was in accord- 
ance with this refined and charitable practice that my friend 
was first known to me as "broken-nosed Zach" or "ugly" 
Wilson, and indeed it seemed the only form of address with 
which he was familiar. , Poor Zach ! he was not handsome. 
Venus was certainly very much below the horizon when he 
first saw the light; the fatal gift of beauty Nature had 
kindly withheld at his birth, and accident, as well as a some- 
what pugnaciously bibulous disposition, had combined to do the 
rest. 



1899-] ZACH'S "INTERESTS" 215 

When I first met Zach I thought he was the most repulsive- 
looking being I had ever beheld; tall and gaunt with a stoop 
that almost amounted to a deformity, small, deep-set eyes, 
and hair the color of burnt taffy ; an unkempt beard, which he 
allowed to grow merely because he was too lazy to shave and 
not with a view of enhancing his charms, made a tout en- 
semble which the most indulgent lover of God's handiwork 
could not have considered attractive. Added to all this an 
explosion in a mine had horribly injured one side of his face, 
and the symmetry of his not too classic nose had been marred 
in a drunken brawl. 

But I liked the man notwithstanding his unprepossessing 
appearance. There was a suggestion of something better lurk- 
ing beneath a rough exterior good traits of character and dis- 
position that might possibly redeem his account in the next 
world, although it seemed too late for them to develop in this. 
Then too he did not murder the queen's English with the cool 
indifference of others of his class ; he maltreated it severely, I 
must confess, but one cannot expect a pure Addisonian style 
from men who spend most of their lives, pick in hand, beneath 
the ground, and Zach's conversation, while not bespeaking 
culture of the highest order, was musical when compared to 
some other " highly esteemed fellow-townsmen " whom the week- 
ly press delighted to honor, and certainly a point in his favor. 

I knew he had a family somewhere in the country, and he, 
hearing that I wished a companion for in those days no one 
would have been so foolhardy as to start out alone volunteered 
to accompany me, saying he had " interests " in the Mangas 
valley, whither I was bound, and by going as my driver he 
could kill two birds with one stone. 

The morning, as I have already mentioned, was perfect ; we 
left town early and drove for miles in silence T happy in the 
contemplation of the limitless panorama spread out before us, 
Zach cheerfully ruminative and deeply engaged in the masti- 
cation of a,, quid of tobacco. 

The glorious, sun-browned mesas were studded with flowers 
of every hue, and every now and again we would come upon 
clumps of yucca in full bloom ; its tall, staff-like stem, crowned 
with white, bell-shaped blossoms and swaying in the breeze, re- 
minded one in the distance of a flag of truce an emblem all 
unknown in the annals of Apache warfare. 

What is it, I wonder, in the atmosphere of spring that the 
mere breathing of it acts as a Lethean draught, enabling us to 



216 ZACIJ'S " INTERESTS" [May, 

forget for the time all our cares and sorrows ; that sends fresh 
blood pulsing through our veins while we rejoice like innocent 
children at the return of the birds and the flowers ? 

" No matter how barren the past may have been, 
, : Tis enough for us now that the fields are green," 

I quoted aloud, and Zach, who was chasing the tobacco 
around in his mouth with an air of bovine content, started at 
the sound of my voice, but having no remarks to nlake on the 
subject, he resumed his effort to hit a particular spoke of the 
rapidly revolving wheel every time he expectorated. He had 
been devoting himself to this pleasing occupation with a per- 
tinacity worthy of a better cause, and had only missed the 
spoke three times out of twelve when I interrupted him. 

"Are you fond of poetry, Zach?" 

" Poetry ? No sir, dunno as I ever read any. Never was 
much of a scholar nohow, and when a man's got interests to 
look after he don't waste much time on poetry and sich. Of 
course it is all right for young fellows like you what ain't got 
no interests," he added apologetically. 

I was just going to inquire in what Zach's interests consisted^ 
for I had never heard of his investing money anywhere but at 
the saloons, when a turn of the road revealed a cloud of dust 
which speedily resolved itself into the figures of two cowboys 
galloping furiously towards us. The unusual spectacle of a cow- 
boy exerting himself sufficiently when " off duty " to make his 
steed gallop aroused our instant attention and put a stop to 
further conversation. 

Upon seeing us they reined in their panting and foam- 
flecked horses, and told us that a party of thirty or more 
Apaches had broken off the reservation and had been seen 
heading for Gulch caflon. They had been sent to alarm the 
various ranchmen of that vicinity, and they advised us to return' 
to town as quickly as possible ; there was an air of excitement 
about the men so foreign to the stoical calm of the cow- 
puncher's accustomed manner that I was alarmed in spite of a 
sneaking sensation that they might be only chaffing us. 

Before I had time to discover whether or not the informa- 
tion was reliable, Zach, with an oath and a muttered exclama- 
tion about his " interests," put whip to the horses and we went 
tearing down the valley at a rate that would have put any 
modern racer to the blush. The sudden lurch of the vehicle 
had pitched me forward, and upon gathering myself up I found, 



1899-] ZACH'S "INTERESTS" 217 

to my amazement, that Zach was driving in the direction of 
the caflon with all possible speed and an evident desire to offer 
himself as a victim to the noble red man. 

" Now look here, Zach," I exclaimed as calmly as my grow- 
ing wrath would permit, " if you are willing to be scalped by 
Indians for the sake of a few miserable cows, well and good ; 
but I want you to understand that I do not share your feel- 
ings and I demand that we either turn back, or at least stop 
at that house and make inquiries." The house alluded to was 
a good-sized adobe some three quarters of a mile ahead of us. 

" Cows ! Man, do you suppose I would run the risk of be- 
ing scalped for all the blamed cattle in New Mexico ? It is 
Mercy I am thinking about Mercy down there in the caflon, 
and not a man on the place to protect her ! Gosh ! if those 
redskins have touched a hair of her head, I'll The re- 
mainder of the sentence melted into indistinct profanity, of 
which I only caught the vaguely uttered word " interests " ; 
but like a flash the knowledge came to me that Zach's inter- 
ests were not centred in cattle, or in real estate or mines, 
but in the woman he called wife, and I felt a strange respect 
for this man, who with all his apparently brutal instincts would 
so unhesitatingly face a cruel death to save the one he loved. 

" Beg pardon, old fellow ; I did not understand," said I, in- 
tent upon making the amende honorable, although I do not 
think Zach expected it, " but since you are the best shot, sup- 
pose you take the rifle and give me the ribbons. That's it ; 
now we will see each other through, Indians or no Indians." 

We soon reached the top of a hill which commanded a 
view of the entire caflon, but not a sign of past or approach- 
ing danger was to be seen. 

"I reckon it is all a scare," exclaimed Zach, and only 
a deep-drawn sigh attested -how * intense was his relief. 
"There's where Mercy lives," he continued, pointing to a 
house nearly a mile below us, " and everything looks as 
peaceful as a summer's day. I might have had better sense 
than to believe that Dick Sloan, dern his mischievous skin ! I'll 
bet he was nigh on to rolling off his saddle when he saw how 
his Smart Alec joke was taken in such good faith by us." 

" Perhaps we had better stop here and inquire, at any'rate;" I 
suggested, thinking discretion the better part of valor. Zach 
agreed and we drove into the dusty yard, littered with unused or 
broken-down wagons and surrounded by a carelessly kept fence, 
which was evidently appreciated only as a saddle and harness rack. 



218 ZACH' s "INTERESTS" [May, 

There was no effort at landscape or any other kind of 
gardening, no slightest attempt to " make the wilderness blossom 
as a rose." Directly in front of the house was a long trough, into 
which the water flowed slowly but ceaselessly through an iron 
pipe ; around it the ground was muddy and trampled by the 
hoofs of the thirsty cattle who came thither many weary miles 
during the long dry season to quench their thirst. Many come 
at first, but as the drought continues the number steadily de- 
creases, and very soon there will be seen more carcasses on the 
withered plains, more buzzards blotting the sky's blue bosom, and 
later on more bones bleaching in the glare of the relentless sun. 

My companion went into the house while I held the horses 
and underwent the inspection of at least a dozen little tow- 
headed children, who had swarmed at the sight of our buggy 
like bees at the beating of pans, and who apparently found 
my rather modest attire a subject for much amusement. 

" A biled shirt, Maria, b' gosh, and shined boots ! " ejacu- 
lated the eldest hopeful, doubling himself up in a paroxysm of 
unseemly mirth. I am not a bashful man, but in the presence 
of the ordinary infant, prodigy or otherwise, I quail. In my 
opinion, it requires far less nerve, if I may use the word, 
to argue a case before an assemblage of brilliant men, or to 
enter a room the cynosure of countless lovely eyes, than to 
face the outspoken criticism of the average young American. 

In a little while Zach returned, his ugly face wreathed in 
smiles. According to the last and most authentic accounts, the 
Indians had gone in an exactly opposite direction from the one 
indicated to us, and, for the present, no danger was appre- 
hended in this vicinity. Our cowboy friends had either been 
themselves mistaken, or, through a spirit of mischief, had wil- 
fully misinformed us. 

" Guess I will let the critters walk the rest of the way, as 
they seem a bit winded," said Zach, suiting the action to the 
word. " We can get dinner at my place, and after that 
there will be plenty of time to go to Jackson's and see your 
man ; he only live.s a few miles below me. While we are 
gone, Mercy can be getting ready to go back to town with us, 
where she '11 be safe. I don't want no more such scares as I 
have had to-day." The proposition meeting my cordial ap- 
proval, we let the tired horses take their own time in descend- 
ing the rocky trail, while we regaled ourselves with tobacco 
that universal panacea for masculine worry. 

" How long have you been married, Zach ? " I asked, won- 



1899-] ZACH'S "INTERESTS" 219 

dering at the time what style of woman this Mercy could be 
to have consented to take for better or worse such an unat- 
tractive life partner as the man beside me. I had already con- 
cluded that the love was on his side only, for while the 
average woman prefers good qualities to good looks my hero 
had neither the one nor the other to recommend him. 

" Nigh onto eight years," responded Zach. " Our marriage, 
Mercy's and mine, was kind of romantic-like, and if you care to 
listen I will tell you the whole business." 

Upon my giving an eager assent, Zach laid aside his pipe 
and, putting a piece of tobacco the size of a child's fist into 
his mouth by way of refection, he began his story. 

" When I first met Mercy, ten years ago this very spring, I 
did not amount to much more than I do now ; I have always 
been in the habit of taking a drink whenever I felt like it, and 
then as now I occasionally took too much. However, I could 
always manage to make a good living and take care of my in- 
terests, which is more than lots of them can say what set 
themselves up for my betters. It was when I was hurt by that 
infernal explosion that I began to love Mercy ; she was so 
good and pitiful and had such cool, slim hands, and well, the 
first thing I knowed I was plum gone. As soon as I got 
strong enough to go 'round again I took to dropping in to see 
her. The old man, Mercy's father, hated me from the start, 
and in proportion as she grew to like me better he took to 
hating me worse. Finally he forbade me the house ; then we 
used to meet kinder accidental like at a neighbor's, but the old 
gent soon caught on to that dodge and became furious swore 
he would shoot me on sight if he ever saw me with his daugh- 
ter again. I wasn't afraid of the festive old cuss, but I did 
not want to kill him because he was Mercy's father, and I 
couldn't see that it would help matters any to let him kill me, 
so for a long time I steered clear of the whole outfit and tried 
to forget Mercy by going on a regular jamboree. But it did 
not work, and one day I met her looking so pale and forlorn 
that, by George, I felt like bustin' out a-crying ! I thought 
maybe she had been suffering like myself, and sez I, ' Zach, 
you're an ornery, good-for-nothing coward to let that little girl 
go break her heart and you take no steps to prevent it.' ' 

Here a violent fit of coughing, brought on by my efforts to 
hide the smiles which I could not restrain, came near strangling 
me, and for some seconds interrupted my friend's narrative* 
Presently he resumed : 



220 ZACH'S "INTERESTS." [May, 

"Well, sir, my mind was made up, so I went to a chum of 
mine and laid the case before him. Between ifs we fixed up a 
plan to go to Mercy's home that night, and, if she was willing, 
to take her away or get shot in the attempt. I took my re- 
volver and Jim took his, and we drove out to where she lived 
about a mile from town. There was no moon that night, but 
I don't recollect ever before having seen so many stars shining 
in the heavens at one time. I remarked the fact to Jim, and 
Jim sez, sez he, ' This ain't nothin', my boy, to what you will 
see after the old man gets through with you.' Jim always was 
fond of a joke ; he was killed, poor fellow, by the Injuns a few 
months later. Well, I got out and rapped at the door while 
Jim hitched the horses. Pretty soon I heard the old man come 
out and after a lot of fumbling he slid the bolt. When he saw 
me standing on the porch as large as life, and pretty large I 
was beside o' him, he was so taken aback he forgot to swear. 

"'Good evening,' sez I, quite polite and pleasant like. 

" ' What the - - do you mean by coming here at this hour 
of the night?' he roared. It wasn't more than eight o'clock. 

"'I came to see your daughter, Mercy, and I propose to 
see her before I leave the premises,' I replies, cool as a cucum- 
ber on ice. Before he had time to answer me, Mercy, who had 
woman-like left her door a little open so as to hear what was 
going on, came forward. 

"'What is the matter, father?' Then, catching sight of me, 
she kinder gave a gasp; 'O Zach, is it you?' she sez. 

"'Yes, Mercy, it is me, and I have come for you to choose 
between your father and your lover. If you care enough for 
me, come. There is a carriage at the door, we will drive to the 
preacher's and be married this very night ; but if you love your 
father best, jest "say 1 the" word, and I will go away and never 
come pestering you again.' 

" ' Yes, Mercy,' spoke up the old man, ' do as he sez and 
choose between us your old daddy who has loved and taken 
care of you ever since you were a leetle, teeny, toddling girl, 
or this worthless scoundrel whom you have only known a twelve- 
month. Make your choice now, for, by , if you leave my 

house to-night to marry that man you will never enter it again 
while I live.' 

" ' I have chosen,' said Mercy, and her voice never trem- 
bled, although the big tears were running down her cheeks. 
' You have been good to me, father, all my life except now 
when I most need your forbearance.' Mercy is educated, 



1899-] ZACH' S "INTERESTS." 221 

you know, talks like a regular school-teacher," interpolated the 
narrator with an air of pardonable pride. 

" ' It breaks my heart to grieve you, but I love Zach, and I 
cannot give him up,' and with that she placed her little, slim 
hand in mine. 'Why will you make it so hard for me, father? 
You have two other daughters, but poor Zach has no one to 
love him nobody but me.' 

"Talk about your angels! I had sort of lost belief in them 
since my mother died and left me a poor little codger of ten, 
but I believed in them then, for if Mercy did not look for all 
the world like them pictures we see of angels in the illustrated 
Bibles, you may shoot me for a jack-rabbit ! I kinder felt 
sorry for the old man that night ; when we've struck it rich 
ourselves we are mighty apt to be easy on any poor devil who 
is down on his luck, and I knew Mercy was the favorite child. 
Every speck of anger had died out of his voice, and it only 
sounded solemn when he answered her. 

" ' Go,' sez he, ' and remember that as you have made your 
bed you must lie in it ; from this hour you are no daughter of 
mine.' With that he shut the door in our faces. 

" Well, sir, if I wasn't a proud man that night you never 
saw one ; I fairly hugged myself all the way to the minister's. 
You see I couldn't hug Mercy, as there was a third party in 
the carriage and she kind of bashful anyway. ' Zach,' sez I to 
myself, ' you 're a daisy ! a regular Jim-dandy, old boy, and 
that's what ! ' Soon after we were married I bought this little 
place for Mercy 'cause she never could bear the town, and here 
we have lived ever since the boy was born. I don't believe 
she regrets having taken old Zach, ugly as he is, and I know 
she has made earth pretty nigh a heaven for me. She has 
a powerfully affectionate nature, and it used to worry her con- 
siderably for her father to take no notice of her ; but the old gent 
died a few years ago, and before passing in his checks he sent 
for Mercy and forgave her it's my opinion the forgiveness 
ought to have come from the other side. He sent for me, too; 
reckon he had found that I wasn't as black as I had been 
painted. I never did have much use for the old cuss, but 
I went through the prodigal son business just to please Mercy." 

By this time we were within sight of the house, a neat- 
looking, two-story dwelling, with Virginia creeper and Madeira 
vines climbing over the rude porch, and beds of gaudy flowers 
scattered here and there throughout the yard, all bespeaking 
careful attention. 



222 ZACH'S "INTERESTS." [May, 

We alighted, and I was shown into the dimly-lighted, unpre- 
tentious parlor, while Zach went to find his wife. Again I found 
myself indulging in interested speculations with regard to the 
heroine of this little frontier romance. Not being able to recon- 
cile my ideas of the eternal fitness of things with Zach's story, 
I turned to the centre-table, on which was placed with syste- 
matic precision the usual type of literature that accompanies 
hair-cloth furniture and green crocheted antimacassars. A 
well-thumbed Bible Mercy was evidently of a religious tem- 
perament the regulation album with its hideously smirking 
family photographs ; the Trial of Mrs. Siiratt, Biography of 
Abraham Lincoln, etc. Bent upon self-improvement, I had taken 
up the Records of the Late War, and was endeavoring to recon- 
cile the remarkable statistics therein presented with the true 
facts, when Zach entered the room leading by the hand a boy 
of six or seven years, and followed by a pale, timid-looking 
little woman whom he introduced as his wife. From his air of 
proud possession one would have imagined they were a bridal 
couple instead of eight years married. Here, indeed, marriage 
was not a failure. Mercy, I perceived, was as neat in her at- 
tire as in her surroundings, and, although laying no claim to 
beauty, she had more sweetness and refinement in her face 
than is usually seen in women of the laboring class very dif- 
ferent from the coarse-voiced, red-elbowed female whom one 
would naturally picture as Zach's helpmate. 

Truly Love is the greatest of all magicians; not only does 
he turn the dross of life to gold, but he blinds our eyes so 
that we see nothing imperfect in the object of our affections. 
Every day we find some new Titania endeavoring to hide the 
ears of some new Bottom and veil the ass with rose-entwined 
garlands of pure affection. Perhaps it is as well ; a great deal 
of hypocrisy is necessary in this world in order to make it at 
all endurable. I saw how Zach's rude features took on a softer 
expression, and his voice a gentle tone, whenever he addressed 
his wife ; she, in turn, appeared to anticipate his every wish, 
and read his thoughts almost before they were uttered. 

Her sister afterwards told me that when Zach was away 
Mercy went about like one in a dream ; she would stand at the 
door for hours looking down the road, seemingly oblivious to 
everything around her ; very different from the busy house- 
keeper she was at other times. Shortly after our trip to the 
Mangas valley Zach came to my office and requested me to 
draw up his will. 



1899-] ZACH'S "INTERESTS" 223 



" Not that I feel like passing in my checks and crossing the 
Great Divide just yet," he remarked by way of explanation, 
"but when a man has interests he can't be too careful." 

I agreed with him, and in the will he left everything to 
Mercy unconditionally his child was not even mentioned. 

"What about your son?" I asked. " Don't you propose 
making any provision for him ? " 

"Lord bless you, sir, Mercy '11 look after the boy; no need 
of my worrying about him so long as she is above ground." 

That was the last time I ever saw Zach. A good opening 
in my profession having been offered me in my old home, I 
gladly shook the dust of S - from off my feet, and soon, in 
the busy interests of my new life, both Zach and Mercy, and 
the little idyl in which they played a part, were forgotten. 

Three years later I was on my way to California, and as it 
was a business trip combined with pleasure I concluded to stop 
over at S - and revisit old haunts. Thirty-six months had 
wrought great changes ; I scarcely recognized the rambling 
mining village I had left in the flourishing town that greeted 
my alien eyes, yet I missed many of the old faces. 

The morning after my arrival as I was hurriedly turning a 
corner I almost ran into a frail-looking woman, dressed in deep 
mourning, whom I recognized as Mercy Wilson. I at once 
proceeded to make inquiries concerning Zach. He had been 
killed, they told me, shortly after I left for the East ; the 
" Golden Nugget " caved in and several men lost their lives by 
the disaster. Zach was among the number. 

"The shock went nigh on to killin' his wife," said an old 
miner who had worked with Zach and who was giving me the 
details of the sad affair. " For weeks the doctors thought she 
would die whether or no, but she pulled through. These sickly 
sort of women hang on the longest after all. She sold her 
place as soon as she got well and moved into town so that the 
boy could go to school, and now she takes in sewing and makes 
a pretty good livin', they say. Zach left her fixed mighty com- 
fortable, but she won't touch a cent of that money is a saving 
it all fer the kid. Fine woman that ! It allus was a puzzle to 
me how she could have cared for sech a pore, ugly scoundrel 
as Zach Wilson." 

I turned away moralizing. So many things are mysteries in 
life ! I almost envied Zach the prize he had won, though now 
lost to him for ever the wealth of a good woman's love. 




224 LETTERS OF GANGANELLI (CLEMENT XIV.) [May, 
LETTERS OF GANGANELLI (CLEMENT XIV.) 

BY REV. ETHELRED L. TAUNTON. 

HE best and most calumniated of the popes," as 
the Encyclop&dia Britannica calls him, is mostly 
known to the general reader as the pope who 
in 1773 suppressed the Society of the Jesuits. 
In doing so, nothing can be too bad or too 
good to be said of him, according to the view taken of that 
act. Without going, however, into the question of the circum- 
stances which led up to the suppression of the great society, 
we think that perhaps some points in the character of Clement 
XIV. which we can gather from his correspondence when a 
humble Franciscan, will go far to enable us to arrive at a fair 
estimate of what the man really was ; and so give us grounds 
for weighing impartially what friends and enemies have said. 
Fortunately there fell lately into our hands a somewhat rare 
work : Letters of Pope Clement XIV., in two volumes, a transla- 
tion made in 1777 from the French. The correspondence dates 
from 1747 to April 2, 1773, though in this article we shall only 
use such letters as were written before the cardinalate. These 
letters used to be greatly admired, and indeed with reason ; 
for they show that Ganganelli was a man of wonderful mind. 
Highly educated, he had a largeness of view which comes to 
one almost as a surprise ; a simplicity of purpose which recog- 
nized only conscience as its guide ; a plain, common sense 
view of religion ; and an openness to recognize facts which are 
too often blinked at as " not edifying." He had no sympathy 
with that idea of edification which is not based upon truth ; 
and has some remarkably sharp and well-deserved censures 
upon those who substitute walls of pietism for religion. 

Just a word as to his life. Born, in 1705, at St. Arcangelo, 
near Rimini (his father was a physician), he entered the Fran- 
ciscan Order at Urbino, being then in his eighteenth year. 
He was called to Rome to teach theology in the College of 
St. Bonaventura. Benedict XIV. appointed him a consultor of 
the Holy Office, saying "that he joined an amazing memory to 
extensive learning ; and what is more agreeable, he is a thou- 
sand times more modest than the most ignorant, and so cheerful 



1899-] LETTERS OF GANGANELLI (CLEMENT XIV.} 225 

that it could not be supposed that he had ever lived in retire- 
ment." Clement XIII. raised him to the sacred purple ; and 
the messenger who went to acquaint him began by demanding, 
in somewhat an intimidating tone, if he were conscious to himself 
of having discharged his duty properly and if he had nothing to 
reproach himself with; adding "that a number of things had 
been said of him to the Holy Father; that from the dread of his 
being too much affected with it, he hesitated to inform him of 
the orders of His Holiness; but he could not help letting him 
know that it was the pope's pleasure that he should absolutely 
yes, absolutely be made cardinal." This was on September 
2 4> : 759- Though raised to the highest rank, he preserved all 
his simple humility, living still in his convent so much so, that 
an English peer who frequently visited him used to say: 
" I cannot find the Cardinal Ganganelli ; I find only a friar 
filled with humility." His society was much sought after by the 
learned, and his geniality made him a universal favorite. He 
succeeded to the Papacy May 19, 1769, and retained all his 
old ways. When told that the papal dignity required him to 
keep a costly table, he replied : " Neither St. Peter nor St. 
Francis taught him to dine sumptuously," and in reply to the 
remonstrances of the head cook, he said : " You shall not lose 
your appointment, but I will not lose my health to keep your 
hand in." He was his own intimate councillor, saying that a 
sovereign who had a number of confidants was infallibly gov- 
erned and often betrayed ; adding, " I sleep sound when my 
secret is my own." Cautious, slow, and prudent, he let his 
mind take time over any serious business. " Our imagination 
is often our greatest enemy," he writes to Cardinal Stoppani ; 
"I am striving to weary mine before I act." He died in his 
seventieth year, September 22, 1774. 

Now to give some few extracts from his letters, written in the 
unrestrained intercourse of friendship. We only choose here 
such parts as illustrate points in his character. And we must ex- 
ercise self-control, lest, where there is so much golden thought, 
we might be tempted to exceed the bounds of a magazine article. 

To a Gentleman preparing to become a Trappist Monk (Oct. 29, 1747). 

" We ought to deliberate well before we take up a new load 
of obligation. The Gospel is the best guide for a Christian ; 
and to admit of one being buried in solitude, the vocation 
ought to be well tried. There is something extraordinary in 
whatever takes us out of the common road of life, and in 

VOL. LXIX. 15 



226 LETTERS OF GANGANELLI (CLEMENT XIV.) [May, 

embracing the life of a monk we ought to dread some illusion. 
. . Besides the difficulty of finding a great number of re- 
ligious truly fervent, they ought to be apprehensive of injuring 
the state by rendering themselves useless members of society. 
We are not born monks ; we are born citizens. . . . When 
at La Trappe, it is true, you will pray to God day and night ; 
but cannot you direct your thoughts continually to him though 
in the midst of the world? It is not in words that the merit 
of prayer consists. . . . Many respectable writers have not 
hesitated to impute the remissness in monasteries to a tiresome 
repetition of forms of devotion. They thought, with reason, 
that the attention could not be preserved during too long 
prayers, and that bodily labor is of more advantage than con- 
tinual singing of psalms. The world would not have exclaimed 
so much against the monks if they had been seen usefully em- 
ployed. . . . St. Benedict was sensible that we ought to be 
useful to our country, and in consequence instituted a school 
for gentlemen at Monte Cassino. He knew what sort of laws 
the love of our neighbor inspires." 

To a Papal Chamberlain. 

" Gaiety is the true medicine for the studious ; the mind and 
heart should be dilated when it has been contracted by obstinate 
toil. Blossoming is as necessary to the human mind as to 
trees, to make i it recover its verdure and flourish; to us there 
are some folk like rose-trees without flowers, who present noth- 
ing to view but bark and prickles. When I meet such I do 
not say a word, but pass by as quickly as possible for fear of 
being stung ! Gaiety retards old age ; there is always a reviving 
freshness which accompanies gaiety, instead of the pale 
wrinkles that are the produce of cares. Benedict XIV. would 
not enjoy such good health if he were not always gay ; he lays 
down the pen to give vent to some bonsmots, and resumes it 
without ever being fatigued." 

To a Lady (January 2, 1749). 

" True devotion, madam, neither consists in a careless air nor 
in a brown habit. Most pious people imagine, though why I 
don't know, that clothes of a dark color please Heaven more 
than those of a lighter and livelier hue ; yet we find angels are 
always painted either in white or blue. I do not love piety 
which proclaims itself. . . . Observe, moreover, that the lady 
who talks scandal in company, or appears peevish or in an ill 
humor against mankind, is generally dressed in brown ! Singu- 



1899-] LETTERS OF GANGANELLI (CLEMENT XIV.} 227 

larity is so little allied to true devotion that we are ordered in 
the Gospel to wash our faces when we fast, that we may not 
appear remarkable. . . . The world would not have ridiculed 
religion so much had not its devotees given room for it. 
Almost always inflamed with bitter zeal, they are never satisfied 
except with themselves, and would have every one submit to 
their whims because their piety is often the effect only of 
caprice. . . . False devotees do little less injury to the cause 
of religion than the openly profane ; . . . they have a restless, 
impetuous, persecuting zeal, and are commonly either fanatical 
or superstitious, hypocrites or ignorant. When you find no 
rancor in your heart, nor pride in your mind, no singularity in 
your actions, and that you observe without affectation or trifling 
the laws of God and the Church, then you may believe you are 
in the way of salvation." 

To a Canon of Osimo (February 6, 1749). 

" Religion will never be perfectly established till it has no 
other principle but charity ; for neither knowledge nor exterior 
magnificence constitutes its merit, but the love of God alone. 
It is the basis of our worship, and if we are not persuaded of 
this truth we are only images of virtue." 

To Mgr. Cerati (July 8, 1749). 

<( The pope only discharges his duty in vindicating the 
memory of Cardinal Noris. It would be cruel to declare a man 
a heretic because he follows the opinions of the Augustinians 
or the Thomists ; that is to say, doctrines solemnly approved of 
by the church. But when we are impelled by fanaticism we 
see nothing and become deaf to reason." 

To the Abbate Nicolini (February 28, 1750). 

" Notwithstanding the dreadful consequences of this new 
philosophy, I am of opinion that we ought not to exasperate those 
who profess it. There are some people unconvinced who de- 
serve to be pitied, because, after all, faith is a gift of God. 
Jesus Christ, who thundered at the Pharisees, said nothing to 
the Sadducees. Unbelievers will be much more easily led back 
by gentleness than by severity. They affect a haughtiness to 
those who wound them keenly ; and the more so, because they 
are answered frequently with much more reasoning than is 
found even in their own discourses and writings. The most 
petty ecclesiastic sets about attacking them without thinking 
that, though his zeal is laudable, his understanding by no means 



228 LETTERS OF GANGANELLI (CLEMENT XIV.} [May, 

keeping pace with it, he may do more harm than good. Con- 
verts are not made by declaration or invective. Examples, 
reason, and moderation are wanted, and we should begin by 
allowing that religion has indeed mysteries which are incom- 
prehensible and which cannot all be explained. . . . Every 
impetuous zeal which would bring down fire from heaven ex- 
cites only hatred. The church has the reputation of being of a 
persecuting spirit, in the eyes of unbelievers, from many of its 
ministers showing too ardent a zeal. ... If God bears with 
unbelievers, we ought to bear with them, since they make a 
part of his plan ; and by them religion appears stronger and the 
faith of the righteous is exercised." 

To Cardinal Cr esc end (March i, 1750). 

" It is known that sorcerers nowadays are not super- 
natural agents, and that a belief in Black Magic (though ac- 
cording to Scripture the devil is a real being) is almost always 
the effect of superstition or the work of a troubled brain." 

To a Gentleman of Ravenna (March 3, 1750). 
" I could never have suspected that you would have applied 
to an obscure religious like me to decide a family dispute. 
. . . Besides my incapacity in this affair, I do not love to 
give advice in secular matters. I remember St. Paul forbids 
every minister of the Lord from interfering in temporals. A 
man who is dead to the world should not intermeddle in the 
affairs of it. Every religious society that neglects this maxim 
will sink into oblivion sooner or later ; as every religious who 
intrudes into families to know their secrets, to regulate marriages 
and wills, is equally contemptible and dangerous." 

To a Dominican (June II, 1750). 

" We reproach Fleury with being too zealous for the liber- 
ties of the Gallican Church See how difficult it is to 

write to please every government ; but sensible men give up to 
the French and Romans their different pretensions, so that the 
faith be not affected. Every country has its opinions, as every 
individual his whim." 

To an Abbess (November 10, 1750). 

" I think like our Father St. Francis (pardon my sincerity), 
who said ' that God has debarred us from having wives that 
we may be inspired with a desire of being religious ; but I am 
afraid the devil has given us sisters to torment us.' He knew 
how difficult it is to direct nuns. Talk but little with 



1899-] LETTERS OF GANGANELLI (CLEMENT XIV.} 229 

your directors and a great deal with God, and peace will flourish 
again in your abbey." 

To Count- - (a recent convert from sin), (November 20, 1750). 
" If you look upon religion in the great, as it ought to be 
viewed, you will not find in it the puerilities of trifling devo- 
tions. Never open those mystical or apocryphal books which, 
under the pretence of nourishing piety, amuse the soul with 
insignificant ceremonies, leaving the mind without light and the 
heart without compunction." 

To a Friar appointed Provincial (January 31, 1751). 
" Employ no spies except to discover the merit of those 
who are too modest to let it appear. . . .1 will not men- 
tion duplicity, unfortunately too much practised by the heads 
of religious houses. . . . You will never prefer a complaint 
against any one without having several times warned him of 
your intention or without previously acquainting him. . . . 
Be communicative, for we lose much of the good will of those 
we govern by disgusting coldness. . . . Have few confidants, 
but when you make any let it not be by halves, for they will divine 
the rest and will consider that they are not obliged to be secret." 

To the Bishop of Spolctto (March 17, 1751). 
" What your lordship wrote to me on the subject of the 
relics of saints does honor to your discernment and to your reli- 
gion. There are two rocks to be shunned by all true Catho- 
lics : that of believing too much, and that of not believing 
enough. If we were to give credit to all the stories told of the 
relics which are shown in every country, we must frequently 
suppose that a saint has ten heads or ten arms. This abuse, 
which has procured us. the name of superstitious, has happily 
only taken root among the ignorant. Thank heaven ! it is well 
known in Italy (and the clergy repeat it often) that there is 
nothing absolutely necessary but the mediation of Jesus Christ ; 
and that of the saints, as the Council of Trent has formally 
declared, is only ' good and useful.' ... If there are more 
superstitions in Italy than elsewhere, it is because the people 
have a more lively imagination, and consequently are more 
ready to catch without reflection at everything that is pre- 
sented to their minds." 

To Cardinal Quirini (July 3, 1751). 

"It must be allowed that we live in a strange age. Never 
was there less religion, and yet never was it more talked about ; 



230 LETTERS OF GANGANELLI (CLEMENT XIV.} [May, 

never was there more wit, and never was it more abused. Men 
would know everything, yet study nothing ; they decide upon 
everything, and yet sift nothing thoroughly. ... If many 
of our pastors would fairly examine themselves, they would ad- 
mit that by their haughtiness and dissipation they have given 
room for murmurings and complaints. Wherefore dissemble 
what all the world knows?" 

To Father Louis of Cremona (March I, 1753). 

" The mouth of the preacher is truly the mouth of God. 
Alas ! then, what should be thought of him who can utter buf- 
fooneries and trifles from the pulpit?" 

To Count - - (December 31, 1751). 

" The first book I would place at the head of your library 
is the Gospel, as the most necessary and most sacred. It is 
right that the book which contains the principles and basis of 
religion should be the foundation of your studies. It is there 
you will learn to know what you owe to God, and to the wis- 
dom and goodness of the Mediator in whom we hope and who 
hath reconciled heaven and earth by the shedding of His 
Blood. . . . It is quite simple, all is within reach of every 
capacity, and all is divine." 

To Count - - (April 19, 1752). 

" If scruples lay hold of you, you are ruined ; you will 
either relapse into dissipation or serve God like a slave. . . . 
The vessel of clay to which our souls are attached dx>es not 
allow of angelical perfection. Religion is degraded when we 
apply our attention to trifles. . . . Only false devotees are 
scandalized at everything and see the devil everywhere. Fulfil 
the law without laboring in spirit and without straining the 
imagination, and you will be pleasing to God." 

To Mgr. Cerati (November 13, 1753). 

" Cardinal Bentivoglio said we should see an Englishman 
when we wanted to think, and a Frenchman when we wanted 
to talk." 

To Cardinal Spine Hi (July 3, 1752). 

" If Pharisaical zeal were allowed to govern, we should very 
soon have nothing in the church but trifling ceremony ; and 
religion, which is so beautiful and sublime, would become a 
round of superstitions. People generally love things which do 
not reform the heart ; and are pleased to grow old without 



1899-] LETTERS OF GANGANELLI (CLEMENT XIV.} 231 

rooting out bad habits, believing a few prayers, repeated in 
haste, sufficient to carry them to heaven. . . . Pharisees 
have lived in all ages and will continue to the end of the 
world ; . . . they lay the faithful asleep by amusing them 
with ceremonials which neither influence the heart nor the un- 
derstanding. . . . Muratori said that trifling devotions for 
the most part resembled the compositions for taking out stains, 
which lessen the spot only in appearance but in fact make it 
larger." 

To Cardinal Quirini (May 31, 1753). 

" The Scholastics often perplexed everything from their solici- 
tude to clear up everything, and often replied to nothing from 
their desire to answer all. . . . Nothing is so dangerous as to 
give as a matter of faith what is only a matter of opinion, and 
to confound a pious belief with a thing that is revealed. . . . 
A truth is never better established than by the universal ap- 
probation of all the churches, which is a circumstance the greater 
part of modern theologians do not sufficiently attend to. ... 
Do not permit your theologians to support free will by denying 
the almighty power of grace ; nor, by enhancing the value of 
the inestimable and entirely free gift, to destroy liberty ; nor 
from too great respect for the saints to forget what is due to 
Jesus Christ. . . . The great fault of some theologians is a 
desire to explain everything, not knowing where to stop." 

To a newly-appointed Bishop (May 30, 1755). 
" Do not suffer the piety of the faithful to be fed with false 
legends, nor to be occupied in petty observances, but teach 
them (your priests) to instruct their flock to have recourse con- 
stantly to Jesus Christ as our only mediator, and to honor the 
saints only in reference to him. . . . It is ah odious thing 
in a bishop to know none but those of rank and fortune in his 
diocese. The lower people murmur, and with reason, for they 
are often more precious in the sight of God." 

To a Gentleman of Tuscany (August 16, 1753). 
" It is not by attending to trifling ceremonies that you will 
make your children true Christians. Christianity is the great- 
est enemy to Pharisaical zeal and superstition. The church 
prescribes duties enough without our endeavoring to multiply 
them. We too frequently neglect what is of precept to follow 
what is only of advice, because we love rather to hearken to 
caprice than to reason ; and because pride and singularity per- 
fectly agree." 




CHARITY SWEETENED BY RELIGION BEST ALLEVIATES THE MISERIES OF HUMANITY.'* 




MONTMARTRE AND ITS POOR. 

BY REV. FRANK X. McGOWAN, O.S.A. 

NY Sunday morning in summer when " the risen 
day " paints its colors on everj' side, and in 
winter when " the gray-eyed " dawn " smiles on 
the frowning night " an army of mendicants may 
be seen toiling slowly up the steps of the Rue 
atier and the Rue Devret, which lead to the national votive 
Church of the Sacred Heart on Montmartre in Paris. Ragged 
and vagabond, they pass through a small door in the board en- 
closure of the Rue Saint Eleuthere, and direct their steps 
towards the crypt, going under the scaffolding which supports 
the platform above to the main entrance of the church. 

Who are these conspirators in tatters ? Do they come to 
a plenary assembly to elect a new king? No, these poor victims 
who have been vanquished in the battle of life come hither 
responsive to the invitation of Him who hath said : " Come to 
me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh 
you." 



1899-] MONTMARTRE AND ITS POOR. 233 

. 

In this gay city of Paris, where evil seemingly rules, the 
good is not altogether disarmed, and this truth is manifest in 
the numerous acts of faith and charity daily and monthly per- 
formed without particular display or boastful clamoring. The 
state enrolls in its service an army of functionaries to direct 
the stream of official charity. The church has only to appeal 
to the devotion of her children, and benevolent works are forth- 
with multiplied under every form. Of these works one of the 
holiest is that of the Sunday Mass for the poverty-stricken in 
the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. 

On entering the crypt the mendicants receive a hymn-book, 
and while sitting on the benches set apart for them, they unite 
their feeble voices in the plain chant of the office. Devout 
laymen direct the singing and lead in prayer for the congrega- 
tion of beggars. These pious laics are, generally speaking, men 
of the upper classes of society, many of them favorites of 
fortune, and it is a touching sight to witness how interested 
they are in the physical and moral misfortunes of their beggar- 
wards. 

At eight o'clock Mass begins, and a salutary instruction is 
given ; at nine o'clock these two or three thousand men (the 
number is fully that in winter) depart from the crypt, return 
their hymn-books, and receive a pound of bread with a bowl 
of soup. All this is done in religious silence and with perfect 
order. The Work, as it is called, distributes in this way 100,000 
pounds of bread annually. 

Thrice in the week these poor people are at liberty to go 
to the dispensary in the Rue du Mont-Cenis, where they may 
receive medical advice and remedies, and also a bowl of meat- 
soup. 

Here catechists instruct these forlorn and often neglectful 
men in the principles of religion, long ago forgotten but now 
vividly recalled. A room for correspondence with letter-paper 
and envelopes is placed at their disposal, and the dispensary 
officials guarantee to post or forward the letters. As we readily 
see, these poor, disinherited beings obtain the bread of the soul 
as well as the bread of the body. 

WHENCE THESE POOR ? 

Of what elements is this army of tatterdemalions composed ? 
What catastrophes, griefs, vices have brought them to their 
wretched condition ? These rags cover poor workingmen with- 
out work or courage, unclassified paupers, the infirm, the aged 



234 MONTMARTRE AND ITS POOR. [May, 

and professional beggars. There are some of all classes, but 
the unemployed workingmen form the largest part of the con- 
tingent. While many of these indigent laborers are Parisian by 
birth, " to the manner born," the majority are haggard and 
disheveled workingmen who have come from all parts of France 
in the expectation of finding work easily. Their very dress 
and shoes bear the imprint of many unavailing journeys. 
Lacking work, Paris is only too often fatal to them. Dis- 
appointed in their quest for employment, they spend in 
drink whatever little money they have brought to the gay 
capital, for the city appeals powerfully to them in their 
depressed state, and strong liquors, such as brandy and 
absinthe, are the temptations to which they inevitably suc- 
cumb. These despondent workingmen would be infinitely 
better off if they had stayed in their provincial homes. Yet 
these poor plodders roam over every portion of the French 
capital, their robust arms asking only for work, only to be dis- 
appointed, and their misery is indeed extreme, for this great 
pulsating city weighs heavily on the wretched, the feeble, the 
little, the poor defenceless creatures of the world. What heart- 
rending stories they who have been conquered in the struggle 
for life could tell to their more fortunate brethren ! 

The old, hoary with age, with tottering step, eyes dim and 
dull, are numerous also, and it is a pitiable spectacle to see 
these aged men seeking the benefits of religion, men without 
home, fire, bread, or children. 

The unclassified as well as professional beggars are present 
in respectable numbers. 

The unclassified, men who have seen the bright and the 
dingy sides of life, are easily recognizable by their language, 
their soft hands, and their poor attempt at a toilette. Many 
of these unfortunates have descended successively all the rungs 
of the social ladder and have stepped at last into the region 
of want. There may be among them men of the professions, no- 
taries, lawyers, physicians, and reduced capitalists, but they are 
rarely met with. Paris and provincial France seem to be able 
to supply some occupation, however meagre, to those who once 
moved in the upper walks of life. Again, pride is a powerful 
factor in the career of French professional men ; they are 
sensitive to a fault at ill success, and, as we know from the 
daily journals, too many of them seek in the throes of self-in- 
flicted death freedom from what they deem dishonor in the 
eyes of the world, chill and hopeless poverty. 



1899-] MONTMARTRE AND ITS POOR. 235 

CHARACTER OF FRENCH PAUPERISM. 

There is a marked difference between the conditions of 
mendicants in France and America. Here all professions and 
avocations are represented in the degradation and misery 
of our large cities ; in the purlieus of want and crime are 
many men who have seen better days, and intelligent and 
well-bred tramps are often found in the vagrant multitudes 
who infest our highways, especially in the summer season. In 
France there is little of tramp-existence as it is portrayed in 
our American life, or as it has been since the close of the 
Civil War. Many reasons are suggested to account for the 
non-existence of trampism in France. According to some writers, 
a reason is that the relations of capital and labor are very 
harmonious ; there is, comparatively speaking, in France a plen- 
tiful supply of labor, and the workingman earns a substantial 
and satisfying wage. It is a fact that a fairly extended strike 
occurred some months ago in Paris, and it was such an anomaly 
in labor and governmental circles that it created an excite- 
ment bordering on a revolution. Since the days of the Com- 
mune Paris never had such a public convulsion. 

Besides, the stringent French laws, bearing on public begging 
and soliciting, tend in their enforcement to decrease the preva- 
lence of this social eyesore, and the ready charity afforded by 
governmental, and particularly religious organizations, such as 
patronages, works, conferences, and charitable societies con- 
nected with the different churches, does away with many of the 
harrowing spectacles of penury and want observable in other 
large European and American cities. The votaries of the 
superior employments of life are not then to be found among 
that mendicant host who gather each Sunday on Montmartre 
to worship God and receive in his holy name the necessaries 
of life. But, as the French proverb runs, " in the absence of 
thrushes, one will eat blackbirds," so we are satisfied to listen 
to the experience related by a former schoolmaster a disciple 
of Diogenes that is to say, a pupil of the Cynical school. 

THE STORY OF ONE OF THEM. 

As this not unhappy man sipped his small glass of trois-six, 
which he had invited his companion to take and also to pay 
for, he told his story in few and simple words : 

" I was schoolmaster at B , and had shone with great 

brilliance in the renowned family universitaire, until one day 



236 MONTMARTRE AND ITS POOR. [May, 

an inspector of schools took it into his head to criticise my 
stock of learning and my methods of teaching before a 
full class of scholars. I answered him by throwing an ink- 
stand at his head. The authorities had the bad taste to turn 
me out of school for this peccadillo. I came to Paris, and I 
have since worked at all trades but the right one. I have 
written articles for newspapers, which the editors found incom- 
prehensible ; I offered my services to a stock broker, a fright- 
ful thief, who took the whim to suspect my delicacy of execu- 
tion in his work; I have been a public scrivener, a dancer in 
a theatre of the suburbs, a dealer in notes and countermarks, 
and am now at last a beggar. The trade is not so bad. I 
manage to lead a free and independent life, and, with a certain 
amount of natural ability, I am able to lay by some few sav- 
ings for my old years." 

This sharp-witted man had made an art of mendicancy, and 
had acquired from experience a thorough knowledge of all the 
places where charity was dispensed, and had his own selection 
from them. . Fortifying himself with more of the exhilarating 
liquor, he proceeded : " I know all of the religious communi- 
ties in Paris," and he mentioned one religious establishment in 
particular. " The house," he said, " is a good one ; the ladies 
who visit the chapel are liberal, but the topographical situation 
is very bad indeed for the poor beggars. What is needed 
there is a large porte-cochere to give us shelter in the in- 
clemency of weather and also from the attention of the police." 
Think of an American beggar or tramp discoursing* on his 
needs in this off-handed, almost philosophical manner ! Imagine 
the impatience or the fury of an American citizen listening to 
such semi-impudent talk, and being compelled to pay almost 
perforce for liquor drunk by the beggar and not ordered by 
the payer ! Thus spoke the sometime schoolmaster, who united 
in himself two classes of mendicants, the professional and the 
unclassified. He absorbed one after the other three glasses, 
and then he said in a most amiable tone : " Let us go you 
pay ; I must quit, because I have an important engagement. 
I shall buy the paper and read your article." This man was 
a type of a class to be met with often enough in the metro- 
politan city of Paris. 

He had been cast out from his legitimate calling, and 
eventually became, through the exigencies of disappointment 
and hunger, a vagrant moving around a vicious circle in a city 
that ought to have given him employment. He seemed to 



1899-] MONTMARTRE AND ITS POOR. 

have lost all heart to work ; he was even insensible to the 
social and political events happening around him. It was not 
that he lacked intelligence or was without some sympathy for 
human life. No, he was one of that generation of public 
teachers who were educated in a wrong groove. He was taught 
and forced to teach pure naturalism to the rising youth of 
France. His motto was " Sans Dieu," his catechism " les 
Droits de 1'hornme," his religion atheism pure and simple, and 
when severe correction was administered to him, his acceptance 
of it was a disgraceful act of violence, unheard of in a Catho- 
lic school. Crouching under a tyranny worse than any African 
slavery, he felt impelled to break his bonds and assert his 
manhood. As a consequence, he was expelled from his position 
of schoolmaster and blacklisted in every educational bureau of 
France. At last driven into beggary, he has no hope in life, 
save what is given him by the kindly offices of that *religion 
which he despised in the days of his prosperity and which he 
taught his young pupils to revile. Besides affording him relief 
in his misery, the persecuted church will bless his dying hours 
with all the sacramental helps in her possession. Is there any- 
thing to equal the charity of God's holy church ? 

THE NEEDY AND HELPLESS POOR. 

The generality of those who frequent the Mass for the 
poverty-stricken in the Basilica of Montmartre is composed of 
those who have fallen into unmerited misery : poor laborers 
without work, the aged and infirm, who form nine-tenths of 
the wretched throng. In the Oblate Fathers, who have charge 
of this magnificent votive church, in which the daily prayer to 
the Sacred Heart is Sauvez la France, these poor creatures find 

" A heart for pity and a hand 
Open as day to melting charity." 

And it is only in a religious establishment such tenderness 
for God's poor is manifest. If the kind and benevolent feeling, 
that is the direct outcome of devotion to the bleeding Heart of 
the Saviour, were not warm and active in the breasts of these 
religious men, to constrain them to acts of compassion when 
poor strangers enter their church, would they not doubtless 
close the door against them, as is daily done by officials who 
are paid to dole out public benefactions to wandering mendi- 
cants, craving from legitimate sources of relief " something for 
God's sake " ? 



238 MONTMARTRE AND ITS POOR. [May, 

POLICE INSPECTORS IN RAGS. 

A word or two relative to other kinds of mendicants, who 
do not number a corporal's guard in this large army of the 
indigent. There is the police-beggar, who cannot be distin- 
guished, in lack of decent dress and in outward dejection of 
manner, from the poorest claimant to Christian charity. The 
chief of police never fails to have his representative at these 
pious ceremonies. The espionage maintained by the police 
authorities of Paris is proverbial. There is no gathering, no 
meeting into which the police inspector does not penetrate. 
Paris is the hot-bed of revolutionism, anarchy, and thievery 
and swindling. Parisian thieves and swindlers are especially 
versatile. They are, to use a newspaper expression, "lightning 
artists in thievery and swindling." They adopt costume and 
manner" to suit the demands of their ill-omened avocation. At 
Havre, not long since, Parisian detectives took into custody a 
famous swindler who was about to sail for New York. He 
dressed sometimes in a garb that was a cross between the dress 
of a Spanish serenader and that of one of Buffalo Bill's cow- 
boys. He put on clerical soutane, and thus, as a priest or friar, 
obtained subscriptions for imaginary charities. Again, this 
expert in swindling was an officer of marines, wearing the cross 
of the Legion of Honor, with face bronzed by African suns, 
and he succeeded in borrowing large sums of money from 
military men among the Dreyfusards by representing himself 
as an officer who had to leave the army owing to his conviction 
that the sometime prisoner of Devil's Island was a victim of the 
Jesuits. The Parisian thief and swindler is like the traditional 
flea, now you have it and now you have it not, and the police 
authorities must be ever on the watch for this ubiquitous per- 
sonage. Hence not even these peaceable and religious gather- 
ings on Sundays at Montmartre or at the dispensary on week- 
days are unattended by police inspectors clad in rags. But 
few conspirators are to be found among these wretched crea- 
tures, whose only thought is to worship, in their misery or old 
age, the God whom they have probably neglected all their 
lives long and to obtain the frugal help of religious benevo- 
lence. 

There is also the beggar who is such for the love of Christ, 
and who follows in the footsteps of the great beggar-saint of 
this century, Benedict Joseph Labre, a Frenchman himself. 
Of this holy man the Roman Breviary says : " Ita disponente 



1 899.] 



MONTMARTRE AND ITS POOR. 



239 



Deo, ut beatus juvenis arctioris sequelae crucis Christi in medio 
populi spectaculum fieret mundo, et Angelis, et hominibus " ; 
and the biographer of our present Pope, Leo XIII., Mgr. de 
T'Serclaes, declares that the elevation of this marvellous men- 
dicant, Joseph Labre, to the honors of our altars seemed to 
be an audacious defiance hurled against an age that was en- 
tirely sated with material progress and sensual refinement. 
What kind of a beggar is this imitator of the canonized vagrant 
who was the butt of ridicule, persecution, and ill-treatment in 
almost every European capital for Christ's sake ? We do not 
answer, for we do not wish to penetrate too critically into 
God's designs. 

The Mass for the poverty-stricken and its Work battle against 
the moral and material misery which is the parent of malice, 
despair, and crime. At first hunger conducts the mendicant to 
the Basilica of Montmartre ; then his soul is moved deeply 
by the singing of the hymns, the exhortations of the priests, 
and contact with that charity which welcomes and relieves 
him, and he unconsciously is brought back in tears to the God 
of his First Communion. 

The work of the Sacred Heart in behalf of the poor is a 
boon to French society, and a source of salvation for these 
outcasts of civilization. 





240 THE PRESS AND THE NEXT CONCLA VE. [May, 

THE PRESS AND THE NEXT CONCLAVE. 

BY REV. GEO. McDERMOT, C.S.P. 

[OME TIME, a distant one it is hoped, the Sacred 
College will be called upon to elect a successor 
to St. Peter ; and one may venture to predict 
that that august body will disregard the pre- 
tensions of the states which claim a veto, as 
it is called, at the election. This pretension has never been 
acknowledged as a right. The election of Pius IX. of pious 
memory took place in disregard of it. The ambassador of 
Austria demanded that the conclave should not be held until 
his countrymen should arrive. The emperor held the keys of 
the Papal States, he could have occupied them to enforce his 
will as, in fact, he entered into a part of them during the 
election, to put down revolutionary disturbances but notwith- 
standing this danger to freedom of election the business of the 
conclave proceeded. This claim of the Catholic states to have 
an influence on the choice of the Sacred College, though a 
menace to the spiritual authority, is not without some appear- 
ance of propriety when we look on the surface at the relations 
between the church and the Christian commonwealth. But in 
these relations the secular power has been always trying to over- 
step the line which divides the things which belong to Caesar from 
those which belong to God. It is in some such spirit of aggres- 
siveness the pretension named has its origin. There is no au- 
thority for it in principle or practice similar to the acclamation 
or assent of a people at the coronation of a temporal king, 
like him of France before the Revolution. Christendom is not 
Italy. The king of the States of the Church is the pope. He 
owes nothing to the subject except though the exception is 
everything in the best sense, except what an enlightened con- 
science dictates to a father, a ruler, and a priest. 

If Catholics object to interference on the part of Catholi'c 
states, what should be said of the forecasts, the criticisms, the 
language of the rationalistic and Protestant press of the world 
concerning the next conclave ? The maxim, Ne queer as quis hoc 
dixerit sed quid dicatur attende, does not apply to the intrusive 
opinions, advices, and predictions of our enemies on this mat- 



1899-] THE PRESS AND THE NEXT COXCLAVE. 241 

ter. We Catholics do not interfere, even when we have the 
constitutional right, in questions of church government and 
doctrine in England. No Catholic of either house of Parlia- 
ment has joined in the discussions agitating sections of the 
Establishment in that country. I hope no Catholic will vote 
on any measure that may result from that agitation. 

I regret indeed that modern toleration and historic criticism 
have no power, or so very little power, upon the Protestant or 
the rationalist when he comes to treat of a Catholic doctrine 
or moral principle, a Catholic saint or statesman ; but at least 
he is within his rights in judging of them in his own way and 
according to his bias. If he prefers refuted charges and old 
misconceptions to exact explanation and historic truth, I am 
sorry for him, but I cannot say he is not free to use his intel- 
lect in that direction. He will exercise this freedom whether I 
like it or not ; he will say I am blinded by unreasoning vene- 
ration if I should express the opinion that the church in the 
twelve centuries of her supremacy proved that hers was the best 
system of ecclesiastical polity, because she preserved authority 
and law where no other influence could have succeeded, and 
he will point out to me as a refutation the errors and the 
crimes of men. If I talk of the material progress of Europe 
from the fall of the Western Empire, when the church replaced 
all that had been destroyed, replaced over and over again the 
works which foreign or domestic war had overthrown, he will 
sneer at what he calls my enthusiasm of faith in not seeing 
that the church made this labor for herself when she paralyzed 
the controlling hand of Rome.* Even on questions of doctrine 
neither of them will permit me to rely upon the revelation of 
the Lord ; one will tell me I derive the Resurrection and the 
Last Judgment from a pagan source, and both that I derive 
Purgatory from a custom acquired by the Jews from their Per- 
sian masters. Well, I allow them to so defame me, but I deny 
their right to kill the reigning pope and appoint his successor. 
We Catholics never think of appointing the state-prelate who 
is to sit on the throne of St. Augustine of Canterbury. 

Indeed, it is a considerable time since Mr. Stead placed 
Cardinal Gibbons on the papal throne. In one of those vivid 
moments we understand so well he saw his Eminence revealed 
in the symbolical motto which stood for a future pope in a 
prophecy of St. Malachi, but which others have since applied 
to Cardinal Svampa. To do him justice, Mr. Stead had a 

* Gibbon, etc., plainly ; Guizot, etc., more guardedly. 
VOL. LXIX. 16 



242 THE PRESS AND THE NEXT CONCLA VE. [May, 

theory which explained his overtures to mysticism, and at the 
same time his determining the succession to the supreme pon- 
tificate while Leo XIII. was still in the plenitude of physical 
and intellectual vigor. It was not in his case the wantonness 
of mere magazine or newspaper contempt for Catholic senti- 
ment. There was none of the bald insolence with which the 
ordinary Protestant or the rationalist outrages Catholic feeling. 
Mr. Stead simply had his theory, which could not work until 
he whose symbol was "Ignis ardens " should be called from 
the Potomac to the Tiber ; and therefore it was necessary to 
consign Leo XIII. to the tomb. 

Nor. are we too sensitive in complaining of the opinions and 
the forecasts of journalists and publicists. We would not for 
millions deprive the king-makers and cabinet-makers who rule 
the world from their attics of this privilege, any more than of 
their inspiration. As long as for a penny we can read the 
mind of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Jewish Daily 
Telegraph we enjoy a cheap pleasure. It is good to know before- 
hand, from the London Times, the whims and flashes of the 
potentate who as Emperor of Germany forgets that Electors of 
Brandenburg only two centuries ago were the lackeys of Polish 
kings. We even can accept from Reynold's Paper once the 
anarchical organ of Mr. Chamberlain the opinion that the 
English monarchy will close with the Queen's reign ; there is 
no undue punctiliousness in our way of looking at things but 
we distinctly deny the right of an Italian infidel, a French Jew, 
an English rationalist or Protestant to insult us by presuming 
such an interest in the trials of the church as will leave her no 
liberty at all. 

It may be said that Catholic papers and periodicals have for 
the last ten or twelve years been referring, at more or less 
length, to the health of the Holy Father and the events await- 
ing his death. I disapprove of anything of the kind, but at 
least the writers were his own children. Probably they felt 
bound to advert to matters so delicate and grave in order to 
remove errors or contradict inventions. Catholics must now 
and then break silence for the sake of those who might be 
misled. 

We should prefer to be let alone. No work that has ap- 
peared since the Reformation has done us justice. No matter 
what the character claimed for himself by any writer outside 
the pale, he will be found tainted by prejudices which color his 
judgments if they do not warp his presentation of matters of 



1899-] THE PRESS AND THE NEXT CONCLAVE. 243 

fact. M. Guizot is looked upon as a fair-minded man. He 
himself in plain terms states that he regards historical questions 
from a philosophic level. I find his History of France a 
Huguenot pamphlet inspired by Encyclopaedism ; as though the 
Encyclopaedists could be taken as Catholic witnesses. We hear 
Mr. Hallam pronounced judicial. The Constitutional History of 
England, though in certain respects valuable, is an insidious 
argument in favor of the policy that oppressed the Catholics 
of England. If this be a correct estimate of writers supposed 
to carry the highest authority in the two nations standing in 
the forefront of liberal opinion, what is to be expected from the 
crowd who supply their impulses under the name of thoughts 
to the evanescent pages of reviews, magazines, and newspapers? 
Mr. Gladstone in one of the pamphlets which added nothing 
to his reputation said the position of the pope was still a great 
one, though shorn of much of its power. No doubt the revo- 
lution in Italy, which owed much of its success to him, has 
deprived the pope of his place among European sovereigns ; but 
for all that the ruler of Christendom must be the greatest in- 
fluence in the world. Decius declared he would prefer to hear 
of a rival to the purple than to hear of the election of a 
Bishop of Rome. This judgment as to the influence of the 
office is still applicable. But the Bishop of Rome is the Lord's 
Vicar; we therefore submit, no one has a right to speak of the 
devolution of the office except Catholics, and they because it is 
their duty to pray that he who fills it may be the most worthy. 
For my part, I bore with great gentleness the news that the 
German Emperor had made himself chief bishop of the 
Lutherans. We only know of one question which can in ap- 
pearance be matter for the opinion of the world, and that is 
the security for the exercise of the functions of the pope. In 
a recent article in a French periodical it was suggested that no 
one now would seek it unless a man free from worldly ambi- 
tion. This is beside the question. The motives of a particular 
candidate assuming there is such a thing as candidature are 
in the recesses of his conscience. There can be something 
which wears the appearance of personal ambition in a man who 
honestly believes himself suited for a particular work in the 
church, or the most suited. I admit it is a dangerous motive ; 
perhaps there is alloy in all motives, even those that seem the 
most purely spiritual. The missionary who goes to Corea with 
his life in his hand may have something of the human energy 
which inspires the volunteer of a forlorn hope ; but these impulses 



244 THE PRESS AND THE NEXT CONCLAVE. [May, 

cannot be analyzed too nicely. I doubt if a contemplative with 
long years of experience will venture to distinguish with con- 
fidence between human impulses and the inspirations of the 
Holy Ghost. 

I have another objection to this view: it assumes that the 
temporal sovereignty was an object of ambition, and now, be- 
cause it has gone, only spiritually minded men will covet the 
tiara. This is one of the plausibilities of Liberalism which 
capture Well-meaning but inconsiderate people, and which are 
very convincing indeed to the insolent and corrupt whose bla- 
tant utterances are the war-cries of religio-economic faction. 
Such men as these care nothing for the character of a pope, 
but they see in the overthrow of the temporal power the first 
great step to the destruction of religion. " The abolition of 
the temporal power," says Mazzini, " manifestly carries with it 
the emancipation of the human mind from the spiritual power." 
"Our final purpose," say the leading Carbonarists, "is that of 
Voltaire and the French Revolution the total annihilation of 
Catholicism and of the Christian idea itself." Guizot and Dr. Lea 
are with Montanelli in objecting to a theocratic tyranny over 
the legislation which deals with marriage and education. Our 
enemies are infinitely various with one bond of unity their 
detestation of the Lord's Church. Their supreme see is hell 
and their invisible head the prince of this world. This may 
seem uncivil language, but what can I say when I find a pub- 
lic lecturer and a high functionary in a Catholic country* 
promulgating principles identical with those of the author of 
L'Impcro il Papato,\ and so with regard to all writers to whom 
religion is subordinate to politics. 

With very great respect, it is a matter of no consequence, 
except to himself, whether or not a member of the Sacred Col- 
lege is actuated by ambition. I am not sufficiently Protestant, 
rationalistic, or infidel to claim authority over another man's 
conscience. If a particular cardinal should seek the place of 
pope through unworthy motives, God pity him ! If he should 
desire it through what he may think good motives he is not 
to be envied I still say God help him ! for he seeks an awful 
burden, a responsibility whose consequences of good or evil 
eternity cannot annul. But in the practical business of election 
the individual electors can only be guided by their judgment 
and conscience, though the judgment in its result is the act 

* Guizot, professor of history in the faculty of literature at Paris and minister of public 
nstruction. Montanelli. 



1899-] THE PRESS AND THE NEXT .CONCLAVE. 245 

of God the Holy Ghost ; but putting aside the result, and only 
considering the component parts of the Sacred College, I may be 
permitted to hold that the electors are not more dishonest than 
the members of an English chapter acting under the conge d'e lire 
of majesty informed by say, a Presbyterian prime minister. 

If the system in England be the most admirable instance of 
judicious compromise that wisdom and moderation acting on 
religious enthusiasm could produce so its advocates say and 
if no one thinks of anticipating the death of an English pre- 
late and appointing as his successor one opposed to the opinions 
of his flock, there ought to be a similar reserve with regard to 
that place in Christendom to which two hundred millions of 
people must look not merely may look for guidance as to 
what they are to hold and to reject in matters of faith and 
morals. I deny the right of our enemies to say what ought or 
ought not to be done in a matter so intimately concerning us. 
This, I think, ought to be admitted where there is no question 
of the temporal power. It would be an unheard-of presump- 
tion for a stranger to dictate to a business man how he should 
conduct his concern. Then does the temporal power confer a 
right to criticise, to direct, to intervene? Four European states 
sent a missive to one of the popes of this century censuring 
him for misgovernment Satan rebuking sin is not an uncommon 
form of consistency. The subjects of a successor of that pope, 
in pursuance of principles which the rulers of the states in 
question would deal very summarily with in their own do- 
minions, flung off his authority. In these facts we discover 
nothing against the temporal sovereignty very far from it ; 
we only find brutal insolence on the part of rulers who pre- 
sumed to lecture the king of a weak state instead of attending 
to their own affairs; and we see in the rebellion of the pope's 
subjects the Nemesis which is pursuing through the monarchies 
of Europe kings and ministers unfaithful to the true principle 
on which government rests the authority conferred by the 
King of kings upon his vicegerents.* But the restoration of the 
temporal sovereignty, though not a principle within the do- 
main of dogma, is a political necessity annexed to the exercise 
of the supreme religious authority, so that I cannot concede the 
consideration of its absence is a circumstance to be taken into 
account in judging of those members of the Sacred College who 
are called papabili. 

* The infidel president of a French republic may be the vicegerent of God de facto and 
de jure, but I am at liberty as an individual to prefer that the vicegerent should be a descen- 
dant of St. Louis. 



246 v THE PRESS AND THE NEXT CONCLAVE. [May, 

In the confidences which passed between Frederick the Great 
and Voltaire the king wrote as follows : " All the potentates 
of Europe being unwilling to recognize the Vicar of Christ in 
a man subject to another sovereign, will create patriarchs each 
one in his own dominions." He was acute enough to see that 
this would break in pieces the unity of the church and lead to 
realizing the Reformers' formula: the subject must profess the 
king's creed.* There can be no clearer way of putting the 
necessity of the pope's temporal power than the statement of 
Frederick. Loftier principles might be advanced to support it, 
more profound considerations within the domain of philosophic 
history could be presented to show that providence intended 
it, but the hard and unprincipled sagacity of Frederick sup- 
plies the argument which strikes the statesman to whom reli- 
gion is a department of police for which nothing has yet been 
substituted or is likely to be substituted. 

It is to be regretted that an idea has gone out that the 
Catholic press should henceforth take the place of France, 
Austria, and Spain f in influencing elections to the Papacy. Of 
course this could not take the shape of the veto, but it would 
act in what people understand as the formation and guidance 
of public opinion. The Catholic press is a section of the en- 
tire press, and if it enjoyed a license to dictate to the Sacred 
College one fails to see how it could possess a monopoly in the 
business of pope-making. It lays no claim to infallibility, and 
pressmen outside the church dispute its superior ability and 
knowledge. We should then, instead of the impudent and 
valueless opinions which have been appointing successors to 
Leo XIII. ever since his accession, have the semi-authorized 
foolishness of newspapers all over the world telling the cardi- 
nals what must be done if schism is to be prevented; we would 
have our faithful people wounded, mortified, and confused by 
the accusations, the retorts, and the libels which dishonor poli- 
tical conflicts. Holding as I do that no one should be elected 
unless a man determined to insist, so far as he can, on the 
right of the Holy See to the restoration of the usurped pro- 
vinces,:}; I could not approve of the names of those great dig- 
nitaries being flung about in the gutter-press of Italy, shrieked 

*Cujus regio ejus religio. t Some authorities add Portugal. 

\ It is said that Cardinal Micara, in 1846, was in favor of giving the States of the Church to 
Italy. What was Italy but Mazzini ? What is it now ? However, it is possible that the 
" aspirations" of honest men, enlightened by the crimes of the revolutionary government, 
could be satisfied by a federation of Italian states exclusive of the States of the Church, the 
capital at Turin. But then to find the honest men ! 



1899-] THE PRESS AND THE NEXT CONCLAVE. 247 

at in the reptile press of Germany, scorched by fanaticism in 
England, held up to ridicule by the factitious and credulous in- 
fidelity of France, by virtue of any such concession. 

Whatever pretence of propriety there was in tolerating the 
claim called the veto, there could be no justification whatever 
for that put forward by M. di Cesare on behalf of the press.* 
He is a man apparently acquainted with some of the inner 
workings of Italian policy, and may consider that giving the 
Italian press a mission like that of the political papers every- 
where 1 would tend to a reconciliation between the Vatican and 
the Quirinal. Why, the very words I use would remind a feu- 
dal lawyer of the peace which left a disseizor m et armis in 
possession of the disseizee's inheritance of castle and manor. 
But it means a great deal more than that ; the pope is only the 
trustee of the temporalities. He may yield to superior force ; 
he may again go to the catacombs and rule the church like 
his far-off predecessors, the crown of martyrdom just hovering 
above his brow, but he cannot give away her patrimony. 
There is one thing, said John Ghrysostom, I dare not do : Tell 
the empress I dare not commit sin. There are unalterable 
principles, there are duties which bind for ever, and though 
statesmen may intrigue, and armies march, and a ribald press 
defame, God's hour comes to repay his servant's fidelity. I 
put the question in a word : the pope must rule from a prison 
or a throne. Which do men choose for him ? Have two hun- 
dred millions of Catholics no right to what belongs to them 
and their descendants against the few Italians who became 
wealthy in the ruin of their country and to the shame of civil- 
ization ? 

* M. di Cesare states that " an Italian minister for foreign affairs " was anxious that a pro- 
gramme of preparation for the next conclave should be submitted to him. This is probable 
and might have been done in good faith. -He is the author of The Conclave of Leo XIII. 




248 ANCIENT AND HONORABLE. [May, 



ANCIENT AND HONORABLE. 

BY JEANIE DRAKE, 
Author of"In Old St. Stephen's," " The Metropolitans,' 1 '' etc. 

4 

'X-CONFEDERATE Major Norman leaned against 
one of the lofty, crumbling brick pillars which 
formed a widely open portal to the plantation 
of Rainford in the parish of Prince George, 
Winyaw. A pair of brilliant red-birds, after ex- 
changing long, clear, eloquent whistles across the live-oak 
avenue, arranged a meeting on the frosty ground at his feet, 
and would have feasted on the crumbs which he absently threw 
them but for a sudden fluttering descent upon them of sere 
yellow leaves and small brown sparrows in whirling confusion. 
" Be off, you beasts ! " cried the major, with more bitterness 
than the incident called for, and flung at the feathered marau- 
ders a bit of mortar taken from the pillar. With small effect 
it would have been but for the oncoming of a tall., very bony 
and very black old negro, who with grave ceremony handed to 
his master a soft felt hat. 

" You'se a mighty nyoung-lookin' man for yo' years for yd" 
years, Mass' William. But you oughter noo dose is too many for 
you to be out heah in de cold widout yo' hat." 

The major, with visible softening of care-worn features, ac- 
cepted the offering. " But where 's your own, Abram ? " he re- 
marked, " for, entre nous, you 're older than I am." 

" Das true, sah, berry true. But de Lord done gib me ha'ar 
as bushy as Absalung's, ef 'tain't as long." He was, indeed, 
crowned with a thick natural mop of snowy, upstanding wool. 
" 'Scusin'," he added hastily, " what mout look like a reproach- 
in' ob baldness. But you has dat, sah, wid de prophet 'Lijah 
an' udder great men." 

The major listened no longer, for his look dwelt in frowning 
gravity upon some fresh wheel-ruts along the avenue. " Time 
was, Abram," said he, " when we could shut our doors upon 
undesired guests. But Sherman tore down and destroyed more 
than my beautiful hand-wrought iron gates. It seems like yes- 
terday," he went on, "that I found my way, foot-sore and fam- 
ishing, back from Appomattox ; and hardly knew my own home, 
such a wreck as it was ! Furniture, pictures, silver, slaves, all 






1899-] ANCIENT AND HONORABLE. 249 

all gone. All except you, Abram ; and you stood by my dear 
mother, rest her soul ! " 

"Yes, sah," said Abram, reflectively, "a imperdent Yankee 
says to me, he says: 'Uncle, you kin cut an' run des like de 
udders.' An' I says to him (wid de grand air ob we-all Nor- 
mans), ' Nyoung man, fust ting, I ain't yo' uncle ; an' nex' ting, 
whar I gwine run to ? Ef you ebber gits as good a place as I 
has at Rainford, you des keep it; but dat ain't likely." 

This anecdote was probably not new to the major, his gaze 
remaining abstracted, and wandering across roadway and forest 
to where, beyond the creek, high factory-like chimneys showed 
themselves above the tree-tops. " I declare to Heaven," he 
said, half to himself, " that I could have endured to the end 
without a murmur, if the smoke from that stranger's works did 
not blow in t my face with every wind to remind me that I was 
forced to sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. It was 
surely hard luck, Abram, when we two had toiled all those 
anxious years to make a living out of the old place, and with- 
out proper tools or men or means to obtain them, that at the 
last to get rid of the mortgage I should let Randall have the 
half he wanted. And then to have phosphate found on his 
part only and over there he piles up his thousands while we 
are as hard up as ever ! " 

" 'Scusin' de libbutty, we ain't," said Abram, politely but 
with decision. " 'Stid o' bein' a fiel' han', I is now yo' pus- 
sonal 'tendant, same like I was in Paris when yo' pa sent you 
on de grand tower arter you done git troo college. An' ef 
Esau was starbin' o' hunger when he 'bleege to sell he birt- 
right, he done show some sense. Wha' good birtright gwine 
do a man when he daid? I dunno much 'bout dese yere Ran- 
dalls. Dey ain't" loftily " ob our ancient regiment, an' I 
'spec' dey's nuttin' but canal; so you needn't to bodder to 
study 'bout dem" 

" It forces a little study, however," said the major drily, 
"when canaille wishes to ally itself with the ancien regime." 
Custom enabled him thus to interpret the French of Africa- 
atte-Winyaw which bore witness to Abram's tour abroad. "You 
showed young Mr. Randall into my library this morning and 
those are the marks of his carriage-wheels on my avenue. My 
motherless girl has been your pet for so long, Abram, that I 
may tell you I let him know and not for the first time 
that I have other views for my daughter. Presumptuous in- 
terloper ! " 



250 ANCIENT AND HONORABLE. [May, 

He spoke with fire, but as he moved towards the house his 
old playmate and servant following noted that, the flush of ex- 
citement dying away, a weary look replaced it as of one whom 
life-long anxieties and disappointments had, in spite of great 
courage, overborne. Abram's old white, woolly head was slowly 
.shaken ; and when, his master going indoors^ he went off across 
fields, himself hobbling a little, his sympathy was presently in- 
tensified by vexed surprise. For on reaching the orchard, 
where every afternoon it was his custom to exasperate the 
plantation youth by counting for their discomfiture the few be- 
lated apples still clinging to wintry boughs, he heard, behind 
the farther hedge, a murmur of voices. To step behind a tree- 
trunk was easy enough ; and then, craning his long neck be- 
tween the branches, to find a spying-hole. 

But here were no thievish pickaninnies to pounce upon. 
The voices were low and restrained* and surely that was the 
top of his own Miss Alicia's graceful head ; and it was young 
Randall who held her hand and was most earnestly urging some 
matter upon her ! Abram gave three soft knocks upon his 
own pate with his bony knuckles, which was his way of accus- 
ing stupidity for not having before guessed the girl's inclina- 
tions in this affair. Was it not clearly his duty, in his master's 
interest, to hear what they were saying ? He stole cautiously 
to a nearer sheltering trunk ; then reflected : " 'Tain't fittin' fur 
a Norman listenin' unbeknownst. 'Tis a low-down, poor white 
trash trick. Nubbless obleege," and shuffled with infinite pre- 
caution back to his first tree. Temptation's siren voice lu-red him 
forward again in the increasing fervor of the speakers' tones 
and gestures; and again he advanced, but stopped short once 
more. " Ain't you know, Abram Norman, dat 'tis as mean to 
listen at haidge-holes as to steal de coppers offen a daid man's 
eyes! " suggested the voice of " nubbless " within and drove him 
back. But a new glimpse of Miss Alicia's head, now upon 
young Randall's shoulder, added such fuel to devouring curiosity 
that, as he told himself later : " Satan mout a-played ball wid 
de poor ole man ontwell de day ob jedgment," had not the 
lovers' meeting now come to an end. Miss Alice went with 
downcast, pensive mien towards the house, and Uncle Abram, 
leaving the apples to count themselves, fell into a fit of mus- 
ing, from which he roused himself to declare portentously to 
the landscape at large: "Yes sah, hist'ry gwine repeat heself. 
Hist'ry gwine repeat heself, onless Unc' Abram tek a han'. " 

He met his young mistress again next morning, as he led 



1 899'] ANCIENT AND HONORABLE. 251 

forth from the front gate a little donkey to be loaded, at he.r 
request, with such leafy decoration for the dining-room as the 
January woods still afforded. " I gwine git it myself dis time," 
he declared. " Las' young fool nigger I sent for ' greens,' he 
done bring me collards outen de cabbage patch ! " He tugged 
at the bridle now, reprovingly saying : " Wha's de mattah wid 
you, Dandy! Shyin' at yo' own Miss Alice! Missus" with a 
bow more courtly even than the major's, his model " dis here 
donkey done tu'n aside like Balaam's from a angel in he path." 
The smile which greeted his compliment was wan, and the 
girl's eyes looked as though the night past had been given to 
tears rather than to sleep. He shook his head once more, 
turning to watch her up the avenue. This prevented his ob- 
serving the approach of a negro who, with the rude irreverence 
of untrained youth, ran into and would have upset him if 
Dandy's legs had not been stouter than his own. He glared 
at the offender : " Who 'low you, Amos Brown, for projeck 
you'self dataway into a gemman ? Is you blind, or is you des 
crazy? Dese here nyoung niggers please God, dey ain't got 
no manners ! An' dey ain't git nuttin' else from dese here fine 
new schools but loafin' an' sassiness an' craps ! Look at dat 
now," in a grumbling undertone, " ef dat imperdent nigger ain't 
done gib a note to Miss Alice, under my ve'ey eyes ! " 

The rest of that day his usual autocratic supervision of un- 
derlings was relaxed to an extreme and significant degree. If 
Alicia Norman had not been wholly and remorsefully preoccu- 
pied herself, she must have remarked the old negro's wistful 
observance of her every movement ; which observance increased 
as afternoon brought again the hour of yesterday's interview 
at the hedge, and did not relax even when that time passed 
without another such. He was in the room when she returned 
to bid her father a lingering second " good night," and again 
a third ; at which Abram pursed up his thick lips and knotted 
his bushy white brows. 

When, all having retired for the night, he closed the house, 
as was his custom, instead of going to bed he inducted him- 
self into a quite remarkably rusty great-coat and hat, and 
trotted out on the avenue and along the road leading to the 
Randalls'. Arrived near their entrance, he kept watch there 
for an hour or two more a hard vigil for so old a man in the 
January starlight, with rheumatic twinges playing about his 
joints, while the cold forced him to keep moving about and 
flapping his arms painfully together. But at the end of this 



252 ANCIENT AND HONORABLE. [May, 

time his watchfulness was rewarded by hearing the new and 
costly gates of this regretted part of old Rainford softly swung 
on their hinges and held open while a carriage was carefully 
driven through. 

"Who's that?" guardedly called the voice of young Randall 
from the vehicle. 

" Tis me. Tis Abram from Major's Norman's," said the 
old man, a shadowy form, hat in hand, at the carriage step. 

The occupant leaned out. " What is it ? What do you 
want?" he asked low but in evident suspense. "Amos, hold 
the horses." 

" Come dis way, sah. Now, dat Amos ain't a-listening'. You 
needn't to go ober to Rainford, sah. She ain't a-comin'," he 
whispered. 

"What what! Is she ill, or or " 

" No, sah," with the emollient but final air of a plenipoten- 
tiary. "At de las' minute she des fine she kaint leab her pa. 
Not dis way. She de only one he got." 

Eyes accustomed to the starlight might have perceived the 
young man biting his lip in deep chagrin. "Very well, uncle," 
he said after a pause, " I will write her. This is for yourself." 

"No, sah," waving the offering away; "I done dis for lub." 

" Ah, so did I," young Randall murmured involuntarily. 

" No, sah," respectfully but firmly, " 'scusin' de libbutty, 
dat ain't de right kine ob lub dat teks a nyoung lady secret- 
like from her folks to gib low-down trash a chance for talk 
about her." 

Even from a poor old dependent's lips this stung. " Per- 
haps you don't know, old man, that I have been asking her 
father for her for two years." 

"Jacob sarbe fourteen for Rachel," responded Abram, mildly. 
" But ef dat do seem a mite long for dese yere disgen'rate days, 
why, des keep on wid her pa, a-tryin' an' a-tryin'. An* ef I 
fine ef I fine, mind you," magisterially, " dat de chile reelly 
done sot her heart on you well, den dis time you has ole 
Abram's good word." 

With a rueful smile at this, young Randall re-entered his 
carriage and bade the driver return. Then, before the aston- 
ished Amos could realize it, Abram had pressed a dime into 
his unwilling hand, saying with infinite condescension, " For 
holdin' de hosses while I done talk to your massa," and passed 
on with a sense of gratified revenge for the afternoon's affront. 
But the slow smile left his features in a few moments, as he 



1899-] ANCIENT AND HONORABLE. 253 

jogged homeward, knowing that the hardest part of his task 
lay before him. Near his own entrance he strained his eyes, 
peering here and there into the darkness ; but it was just in- 
side that a girlish, cloaked figure stood, and put her hand to 
her heart at the approaching footsteps. 

" 'Tis only yo' ole Unc' Abram." 

" 'Tis only yo' ole Unc' Abram," he told her soothingly, 
" dat brings you notice dat no one won't be a-drivin' here to- 
night. Come in outen de cold, chile, so I kin tell you all about it." 

He led her quietly back into the house, and seeing her 
shiver, placed her near the library fire while he relighted the 
lamp. It was. strange that this illiterate old fellow should 
divine that the immediate solace the waiting girl needed was 
assurance that her lover was no laggard. His first words 
proved this. 

"Honey, I done met yo' nyoung Mass' Randall a-tearin' 
an' a-hurryin' here wid he horses a-smokin' an' a-snortin,' an' I 
des tu'n him back." 

"Uncle Abram, how dared you?" 

"I dare do more 'n dat for Mass' William, an' for he chile. 
Dat ain't a fittin' way for my nyoung miss to go to her weddin'." 

The girl's wrath held her speechless for a minute. Then 
she said vehemently : " And you have the insolence to stand 
there and tell me that, when I know that you helped your 
Mass' William to carry off my mother to be married, and were 
a witness at their wedding ! " 

" Dar now ! Das des what I want you to relude to, dat I kin 
tell you dat de times is change. 'Lopement was de right t'ing den 
for de ancient regiment, or Abram Norman wouldn't a-been dar ! 
But de lub affairs ob bong tong ain't manage dataway now. 
Ef dar ain't nuttin' against de man, why den 'tis commy fo to 
hab some patience and tek time, an' argufy an' 'splain, an' git 
yo' way in de end. An' ef you has a good, wise, kind pusson 
ob 'sperience to help you, den you 's mighty lucky ! " 

But Alice walked the floor in impatient anger. "You are 
an audacious old meddler ! " she broke out. 

Abram leaned his knotted hands on the library'table, bend- 
ing his gaunt body forward until the lamplight shone on the 
kindly, wrinkled old face with its crown of white. " Miss' Alice, 
chile," he said very slowly and quietly, " you ain't nebber spoke 
dat way to Unc' Abram before. Maybe you done forgit dat 
yo' pa an' me was boys togedder. Dat I nuss him when he 
wounded at Shiloh. Dat I wid him all dese years for richer 



254 ANCIENT AND HONORABLE. [May, 

for poorer, for better for wusser. Dat I stan' by yo' ma when 
she dyin' an' promise for tek care ob Mass' William. Would dat 
be tekkin' care to hab somebody come een de night an' steal he 
one ewe lamb ? Ain't you se,e how bad yo' pa look ; how tired- 
like an' wore out ? Ain't you see how he hug you to him to- 
night like you was his only comfort in tribulations an' disap- 
p'intments ? An' dis de ve'ey season when he los' yo' ma, an'- 
you gwine run off an' leab him in he old age an' loneliness ! " 

The girl's eyes drooped as though to hide a dimness ; so 
she started when the speaker, with sudden cheerful change, 
called out: " Mornin', Mass' William! We gwine hab a fine 
day." 

The major, in his dressing-gown, was silent until he 
laid his pistol on the mantel-piece. " I thought,' said he, 
" that it was burglars, and here I find two owls conspiring. 
Alice, isn't it a bit late to give any orders, or to keep this old 
fellow up ?" 

And he never suspected why Abram answered for her 
boldly : " Dat he was glad to hand her over to her pa," and she 
could only cling to him long and lovingly in another good- 
night without spoken word. 

After the late breakfast next morning, which Abram turned 
into a function, he laid before his young mistress a great bunch 
of roses, crimson, dewy, and fragrant. " Dese," said he, clearing 
his throat importantly, " am sent, wid he bes' compiimuns, from 
Mass' Lewis Randall. Me and dat nyoung gemman had de 
honah ob a few minutes' talk on de av'noo while . you-all 
was soun' asleep. An' I mus' say " quite regardless of his 
master's face of wrathful wonder " dat he got mighty fine man- 
ners mos' as good as our own class. Ef he ain't, as yet, quite 
de savvy fare ob de ancient regiment, dat ain't no reason he 
ain't gwine git it after some collusion wid we-alls. 'Tis a 
Christian juty for to gib him de chance." 

"Was it cigars or just chewing-tobacco?" the major in- 
quired with ominous dryness. But when Abram had taken his 
hurt dignity away and Alice her blushes and her roses, the 
major fell into a fit of musing in which some vision of the 
future must have intruded itself, for at the last he confided, 
resentfully, to his pipe : " So they have enlisted the ' ancient 
regiment ' in their cause ! Who knows to what I will be driven ? 
for I know that old fellow's wearing persistency when he takes 
anything into his head ; and, confound him, he 's sometimes 
right ! " 




1 899.] CHRIST is THE NEED OF THE NATIONS. 255 



CHRIST IS THE NEED OF THE NATIONS. 

BY REV. MICHAEL P. SMITH. 

'HE connection between history and religion is 
very close. It resembles the union of the soul 
and the body. For as history represents the 
whole social framework, so does religion manifest 
a special, divine presence which has always per- 
meated society. 

There are and always have been universal needs on the part 
of mankind with regard to things of the highest moment ; 
there is a darkness in the human mind, an unfilled void in the 
human heart, a weakness of moral purpose. 

Man strives to know the Author of this world and of his be- 
ing. He fain would understand the origin and issue of life, the 
reasons for the ills that afflict him ; what, if anything, gives life 
value and dignity, what presents a worthy object of happiness ; 
what will stay and comfort him when called on, as he inevita- 
bly will be, to renounce this life ; what secrets the future has 
in store. 

As an everlasting love was God's motive in creating man, 
so is that love made constant and practical by his providence 
in teaching man, in forming, raising, maturing him for his des- 
tiny by all the happenings of life. The instrument, means, and 
guidance of all this preparation we call religion : religion in 
its true and fullest sense a manifestation on God's part of his 
will and his relations, and, on man's side, knowledge, feeling, 
trust, a bond, a covenant fully warranted, freely accepted, gen- 
erously welcomed, by which man is brought face to face with 
his object, in the exceeding great cry of unquenchable passion, 
of irrepressible aspiration and possession by which his soul says, 
" Thou art my God." 

GOD DEALS WITH NATIONS AS HE DOES WITH INDIVIDUALS. 

The same methods which God uses towards individuals he 
uses towards nations, for " He made all things that they might 
be and he made the nations of the earth for health "; he is' 
their sanction and support. Like individuals, nations have their 
varied gifts and endowments, their temperaments, habits, ideas, 
their virtues and vices, a determined moral character ; like them, 



256 CHRIST is THE NEED OF THE NATIONS. 

they have their youth and their decay, they move forward, they 
abide for a time, they flourish and pass only, as we count the 
life of the individual by years, we mark the span of nations by 
centuries. 

Read in its broadest outlines, history shows us that however 
manifold, complex, minute, or hidden the government of God 
may seem to be, yet nations form the most part of it. They 
are the helpers, willing or unwilling, of his designs ; the minis- 
ters of his will, the participants of his favor, the instruments, 
or the victims, by transgression, of his vengeance. 

Standing on the vantage-ground of the present, with the ac- 
cumulated knowledge of the ages, if we summon up the nations 
of antiquity, as they pass in review we see that four great em- 
pires, the Babylonian, the Assyrian, the Graece-Macedonian, and 
the Roman, are the central figures which deserve most particular 
notice. 

The unsurpassed genius, the mighty resolves and heroic ex- 
ecution that welded them, the pomp and cruelty, the ambition 
and purposes, influenced by some conception of truth, the oscil- 
lations forwards and backwards, the thousand tendencies and 
counter-currents, the onward course to ever-deepening abysses 
of confusion, error, and revolt, to newer and more degrading 
beliefs and practices, we see them through it all struggling, 
rising, profiting by a divine education, by an overruling Provi- 
dence, which had a two-fold object, to impress upon man the 
keenest sense of his own misery and helplessness, and also to 
fit him for divine truth and life : this is the vision, .this the 
interpretation, this the commentary on the past. Surely the 
very slowness of our Lord's coming, that delayed manifestation 
not given " until the fulness of time," is the proof of his re- 
ligion. It came to a dying world given over to despair, to 
peoples enveloped in darkness and bound in inextricable error, 
to man passive from the failure of his efforts, submissive with 
the exhaustion of his struggles, yet to man enlightened by the 
acknowledgment of his weakness and purified by. the intensity 
of his desires for help from on high. 

Dealing with these needs as shown in their utmost urgency, 
in their typical and recognizable form, I need only allude to 
the general preparation of the Gentile nations, in which by the 
voice of conscience, by the rights of nature, by oral and writ- 
ten traditions, by the uncovenanted ways of his mercy and 
power God left not himself without witness. Nor need I speak 
of the special preparation of the Hebrew people, since they 



1899-] CHRIST is THE NEED OF THE NATIONS. 257 

stand apart, having an origin and character, a role, evident 
from the pages of profane as well as sacred history, a mission 
the purpose and failure of which is summed up by St. John, 
viz., " That He came to His own, and His own received Him 
not." 

Cyrus, Darius, Alexander the Great led up to Rome ; the 
Csesars in their turn labored to build up Roman domination 
for ever, only, as we know, to make final and fitting prepara- 
tion for that great spiritual, world-embracing empire of which 
Jesus Christ is the monarch. 

THE FINGER OF GOD IN ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The existing obstacles which have opposed the diffusion of 
Christ's kingdom have been the multiplicity of warring states, 
the diversity of language, and natural barriers, mountains and 
impassable forests. 

Alexander the Great, in the manifestation of his warlike 
genius, had carried civilization eastward to the confines of the 
known world and had also placed the standard of intellectual 
endeavor and excellence ; while his countrymen or subjects, 
making every fair isle and safe harbor in the ^Egean and 
Mediterranean seas their own, had transported their industry 
and genius, Hellenic culture and ideals, westward to the pillars 
of Hercules. Greece, fair but unfortunate, though resigning her 
civil independence to Rome, still preserved the palm of mental 
superiority and her conqueror became her disciple. Meantime, 
a new and the greatest centre of human achievement was set 
up in imperial Rome, the mistress of the world, the home of 
majesty, valor, order, of all-embracing law. Thus Greek re- 
mained the language of arts and letters ; Latin, the instrument 
of domination, and so the barrier of language was removed. 

Again echoed the world in due subjection : to expedite her 
incessant military movements Rome had constructed highways 
radiating out from herself, crossing and recrossing in strategic 
network ; her legionaries were but the pioneers of the apostles, 
and the roads which had known only the blare of trumpets, 
the onward path of the conquering eagles, shortly and swiftly 
carried the glad tidings of redemption, the message of peace and 
pardon to the whole earth " Exivit sonus eorum in omnem ter- 
rani et verba eorum in fines orbis terrae." 

As Rome epitomized the world, if we would know the uni- 
versal need of Christ, must we consider its condition. Its 
greatness lay in its power of assimilation and government. 

VOL. LX1X. 17 



258 CHRIST is THE NEED OF THE NATIONS. [May, 

She took the nations as she found them : not destroying local 
existence and institutions, not suppressing, save when compelled, 
native rulers rather she moulded them by contact with her 
own civilization, protected them with her promise and power, 
inspired them with desire to merit the title than which none 
was greater, " Civis Romanus sum " ; for her unique idea was the 
common weal the city with its municipal privileges under im- 
perial genius. And God, who uses the visible in preparation for 
the invisible, allowed her to do her work, to share her majesty, 
and then he turned the current of men's thoughts to a kingdom 
of which Rome should be the centre, of which she had the out- 
ward form, but not the substance nor the spirit. 

Thus was the world made ready historically, geographically, 
and politically for His coming. 

THE MORAL LIFE OF THE WORLD NEEDED A SAVIOUR. 

And now what was the state of life ? How far did the out- 
ward correspond to the inward condition ? Amid so much great- 
ness, splendor and power, did content, justice, morality flourish ? 
The very reverse is the truth. The hour of Rome's greatest 
strength was that of her most abject need : that energy, rest- 
less or resistless activity were but the workings, the result of a 
fever that was consuming her ; exalted above any previous 
estate of human glory, Rome in truth was the ante-chamber of 
hell, a land of darkness, where no order save that of force and 
selfishness reigned. The end, the greatness of a nation is at- 
tained if, where material plenty, order, authority flourish, there 
too are found the helps, the guarantees for man's moral life, 
the absence of obstacles, the presence of freedom and aid to 
seek his true destiny. But in Rome all these were wanting. 
The fundamental truths upon which life rests, by which its dig- 
nity and happiness are promoted, these were gone, overlaid with 
falsehood, submerged in a bottomless mass of corruption, ignor- 
ance, cruelty. 

Knowledge of God, his creative act, his providence, had died 
out, and men in consequence suffered irreparable loss, were 
debased to the level of brutes; the belief in the immortality of 
the soul, its freedom, man's rights and duties, were unknown or 
ignored. Authority, whose principle is God, rested upon the 
irresponsible will of an individual, or lent itself wholly to the 
forceful demands of the state, to the exclusion of all other 
rights, divine or human. Whether we judge from the testimony 
of its own historians and satirists, or from the arraignment of 



1899-] CHRIST is THE NEED OF THE NATIONS. 259 

St. Paul, life had no redeeming features ; men were without 
God in this world, without hope and given over to all unseem- 
ly desires in the blindness of their minds. Life in Rome was 
darkened and crushed by the despotism of its mad and mon- 
strous rulers, hardened by the cruelty of the amphitheatre, de- 
filed by the excess of the stage, pauperized by imperial largess 
to idle multitudes, and terrorized by insolent soldiers and a 
tumu-ltuous, exacting, thoughtless populace. The rich lived in 
terror which they alleviated with unbridled depravity ; the poor, 
amid surroundings in which every abomination showed forth in 
its native vileness, unattractive, hideous, unrelieved by conceal- 
ment, or shame, or taste. The slave population far outnum- 
bered the rest, and their condition was without consideration, 
honor or humanity ; chattels not men, brutalized and minister- 
ing to brutality, subject as regards life and limb to each 
passing cruel whim of their masters. 

THE MESSIAS COMETH. 

Human life could touch no lower depths. Sickened, sur- 
feited with lust, hate, and fear, in their darkest hour Jesus 
Christ, the Day-Star from on high, at last shone upon them, and 
in his light they at last began to see light and to live. His 
kingdom came not by observation here a few of the better 
sort, a once stern soldier, a patrician lady, a handful of slaves 
but speedily, and the attractions of his sweetness, the help of 
his grace, the blessedness of his teaching consoled, uplifted, 
strengthened souls, until in a little more than a hundred years 
a Tertullian could say : " We are but of yesterday, and we fill 
your streets, your forums, your courts and palaces." And what 
a change ! Light instead of darkness, worship of the Father in 
spirit and truth instead of idolatry, purity for foulness, hope in 
place of despair. As a polity Rome could not be saved ; it had 
done its worst, its hour had come, it was unwieldy and over- 
burdened. Though later Constantine gave the church freedom 
and protection, the empire broke under the burdens of its past 
crimes. 

True, all that was best survived ; literature, laws, the tradi- 
tions, the ability for government, all these were preserved by 
the church. In Rome sufficient prominence was left with him 
who was its chief personage and later its ruler, the successor of 
St. Peter ; sufficient power to overawe and correct the new 
world which rose on the ruins of the old ; he was able to pro- 
tect and save them not by the arm of the flesh, but by the 



260 CHRIST is THE NEED OF THE NATIONS. [May, 

compelling power of truth and goodness which attached to his 
office as spiritual and visible head of Christ's Church. In the 
times immediately following, men admitted and revered the 
beauty and holiness of the church, they experienced her bene- 
ficent help and gave her her lawful place ; for she was Alma 
Mater, a sweet nursing mother. Christian principles were the 
characteristics of all, individuals and nations; and Christendom, 
the domain of Christ, was formed, and a many-tinted garden 
sent up to heaven the fragrance of its piety. For then the pope 
ruled with power the whole flock, and even in things temporal, 
by common consent and public law, was the arbiter ; then kings 
defended the church, knights fought for her, saints and scholars 
made her glorious. 

THE REVOLT AGAINST AUTHORITY. 

But lo ! a change came. After centuries of unity and con- 
cord a frightful upheaval and revolt began, the direful effects 
of which last until our own day. The church's doctrines were 
attacked, her authority defied, her mysteries mocked, her pos- 
sessions sequestered. Men no longer would have the unity, the 
harmony which Christ willed ; they no longer admitted the dis- 
tinction, the supremacy, the independence of the spiritual over 
the temporal to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is 
God's and so Caesar came back to lord it in both domains, in 
church and state, over their subjects. Kings usurped spiritual 
headship ; ancient and glorious churches, illustrious portions of 
the Church Catholic, became national, mere departments of 
state ; Catholic sovereigns also intruded themselves into the 
holy precincts and confined the church in a gilded slavery. 
And here we have, whether kings be sovereign or the people, 
the cardinal point of most of the present ills of nations, viz., 
the constant, persistent rupture between church and state, the 
two whom God joined together for the betterment of mankind. 

THE SPECTACLE OF THE MODERN WORLD. 

As to-day we look upon the world a spectacle meets us 
which has scarce had a parallel since the days of ancient 
Rome. Nations are expanding, boundaries shifting, and whole 
peoples are being buried with unlooked-for and unsought politi- 
cal influences and combinations. Asia and Africa, continents 
which in some sort had dropped away from the map of the 
world, had kept aloof from friendship and interests, have been 
opened up, rediscovered as it were, and appropriated. Civil- 
ization has reversed its course, and now the West is bringing 



1899-] CHRIST is THE NEED OF THE NATIONS. 261 

light to the East ; the isolation of ages is a thing of the past, 
barriers are broken down, the rapid facilities of travel, interest, 
not to say commercial advantages, make all men fellows ; the 
lately born passion for acquisition, the requirements of modern 
industry, seem to demand the whole earth for its possession, 
its market, its field of exercise. As for these heathen and un- 
civilized peoples, since the Gospel has hardly reached them and 
multitudes are sitting in the valley of the shadow of death, 
their need of Christ is imperative. What solemn responsibili- 
ties, then, what sacred duties to provide for this enlightenment, 
devolves upon the Christian nations who have made these in- 
roads and conquests ! I shall not put this duty too high, 
nor expect an ideal performance ; I shall willingly admit in 
the scope of their acts merely human considerations, commer- 
cial advantages, extension of trade, new markets ; but do they 
reflect, that by conquest and dominion all Christians become 
their brother's keepers, if he through ignorance, through no 
fault, is lost to God ? Do they suppose that these pagan, bru- 
talized lives are to be ennobled only by commerce? to be made 
better, holier by adopting the drudgery and care of gain which 
is the characteristic of Western existence ? Can we take away 
their ethical moral standards and substitute nothing? Must the 
Western nations find out at this day that man does not live 
for and by bread alone ? Can it be truthfully, hopefully as- 
serted that this solemn conviction of their spiritual needs and 
our duty enters into the policy we, together with other nations, 
are committing ourselves to? As to European nations, it will 
be hard to see aught else but greed, jealousy, rivalry for terri- 
tory. They make no pretence even of humanitarian motives ; 
they uphold even the unspeakable Turk, though his victims be 
numbered by untold thousands of Christian lives and why ? 
Because they are not agreed upon the division of his spoils. 

CATHOLIC AND NON-CATHOLIC NATIONS. 

When we turn to consider more attentively the nations of Eu- 
rope, they divide themselves into those which have nominally or 
really preserved allegiance to the Catholic Church and those 
which in the sixteenth century rebelled against her authority 
and teaching, and further, those which in earlier times were 
lost to church unity by schisms. In the condition of Catholic 
nations there is much to give their well-wishers and co-religion- 
ists apprehension and grief. If it be true that decadence has 
set in, to what shall we attribute it ? Is it simply a period of 



262 CHRIST is THE NEED OF THE NATIONS. 

'lassitude, the ebb of the tide? Is it that these institutions do 
not suit the temperament of the people ; that parliamentary, 
republican, constitutional, free rule has failed ; that real parties 
do not exist, only factions, and hence that among them gov- 
ernment is inefficient, corrupt, legislation partisan, taxation un- 
bearable ? These may in part be causes, but the common 
Father of Christendom finds and proclaims with paternal re- 
proof and increasing warnings that the main cause is disloyalty 
to Christ and to His Church. The Pope insists that neglect of 
God and of their solemn obligations, laxity of morals, trans- 
gression of law, accommodation to false and un-Christian liberal- 
ism are the causes of decay, disorder, the sundering of all the 
safeguards of the body politic. They need Christ, his truth, 
his love and grace ; for with a people gathered round his 
altars and devoted to the spirit of religion thrones are 
secure, laws just, national prosperity secured, national honor 
safeguarded. " Why have the nations raged and the peoples 
devised vain things : the kings of the earth stood up, and the 
princes met together against the Lord and his Christ?" The 
reason is that they have broken the bonds which bound them 
in unity with the Apostolic See ; they have resolved to cast 
away the yoke of allegiance to Christ and his church ; they 
have sought a false independence, and to obtain it they have 
robbed the Christian world of its patrimony, have put restraint 
upon the Vicar of Christ, have allowed him to be made a 
prisoner, insulted and outraged him ; and what have they 
profited ? Reverence is denied them, they live in fear and 
trembling, their lives menaced, their states a prey to socialism 
and anarchism, and to them the command is given : " And 
now, O ye kings, understand and receive instruction, ye that 
judge the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto 
him with trembling. Embrace discipline, lest you perish from 
the right way." 

WHERE WEALTH INCREASES AND MEN DECAY. 

Nor, if we attentively look at the condition of non-Catholic 
states, shall we find much to envy or approve. For consider 
not the favored few, not the classes but the masses : the dire- 
ful poverty, the unremitting, ill-paid toil, the growing narrow 
lives unsweetened by religious motives, the cold abandonment, 
the indifference, the rejection of religion. Have we not read 
in the Scriptures of those who have sold themselves to Mam- 
mon and received the price ? 



1899-] CHRIST is THE NEED OF THE NATIONS. 263 

Considering those things, namely, that such prosperity may 
have too great a price, where wealth increases and man decays, 
where the young and strong are idly consuming the products 
of the earth, where human ingenuity and the results of science 
are taxed to devise death-dealing machines, where countries are 
made camps, and the supernatural has died out of life and of 
government, and we shall say their need, too, is Christ. For 
unless history has lied, unless God has abdicated and changed 
his dealings, unless Christ has come short of his promised in- 
heritance, the only remedy is return to him, and a full return 
to him and to his church. The main cause of these ills is dis- 
loyalty to Christ and his church that unholy ambition, greed 
of worldly success, laxity of morals, insubordination of soul, 
transgression of the laws of God. They need Christ, his love, 
and his truth. 

Sometimes the assertion is made that states which are 
Catholic are stationary and retrogressive or decadent, whereas 
the non-Catholic countries are found to be strong, expanding, 
imperial. This assertion, based as it is on defective, unscien- 
tific comparison, need not trouble us for answer it is not true 
in the terms of those who urge it ; but nowhere did Christ 
promise worldly prosperity as the reward of obedience to his 
Gospel; rather his spirit and his words point to other rewards. 
We are bidden "to seek first the kingdom of God and his 
justice." There is, however, nothing in the institutions, laws, 
and teachings of the Catholic Church to hinder the truest and 
highest civilization ; rather these favor it. 

As for these United States, if in theory and in reality our 
relationship to the order which God has decreed be not ideal 
or most perfect, at least in God's providence it seems to be 
the best possible under the circumstances. We are not, as a 
nation, in revolt against God, nor in concealed hostility to his 
church. Our form of government does not provide for such 
alliance, but it leaves us free to follow conscience, to serve 
God, to obey the church, and nowhere has the church shown 
such vitality, nowhere has the Apostolic See more freedom, nor 
more devoted children. The gates of Empire, by an unex- 
pected combination of circumstances, swing open to us ; a war 
undertaken to uplift humanity has brought unexpected respon- 
sibilities. Let us first make sure they have been imposed, and 
that our duty as well as our ability combine to rightly dis- 
charge them. 




THE first of the many excellent illustrations by 
which this work * is adorned is a photograph from 
Maccari's famous fresco representing Cicero at the 
moment Catiline had, "with unbridled audacity," 
taken his seat in the Senate. This, the frontispiece, 
gives an idea of what preferences in subject and treatment un- 
derlie Mr. Willard's views ; at the same time there is a fine 
spirit of candor throughout which, to the ordinary reader, would 
mark him down as impassive or coldly judicial. He is fair but 
not judicial, and in this answers Guizot's requirement of what 
the historian ought to be ; a requirement which even in his 
philosophy Guizot himself practised to the very letter so far as 
not being judicial. f 

Upon the whole we are inclined to think he has proved, 
against his will, that there is a decadence in the art of Italy. 
Rome is no longer the capital of the art world. Venice, Flor- 
ence, Milan, and Genoa are no longer great centres of art. 
They used to be we may say this with a qualification with re- 
spect to Genoa, which was looked upon as a sort of Boeotia 
although their promising students invariably went for a time 
to Rome to obtain that finish which its technique and unpar- 
alleled collections afforded. 

We see that Mr. Willard has an admiration for " classicism," 
though he endeavors to t show it has a tendency to sterility; he 
praises the performances of Preraphaelitism and Romanticism, 
but he does this because they are a revolt against Classicism ; 
the bias of his mind is in favor of realism, or, as we think he 
prefers to call it, Naturalism. Yet his realism is idealism when 
we come to examine it ; and it, in truth, makes out the case 
for the Romanticists as well as if he held a brief for them. 
We suggest that the history of art should be looked at as 

* History of Modern Italian Art. By Ashton Rollins Willard. London and New York : 
Longmans, Green & Co. 

t Guizot condemns Dr. Lingard for what he calls indifference. This, in our opinion, 
would be better stated by saying Dr. Lingard had a true perception of the equity of history. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 265 

a whole. The changes of the conceptions and treatment are 
manifestations of latent impulses and not unconnected, cataclys- 
mic phenomena. The abnormal is a form of evolution as dis- 
tinctly as the graduated, the decadent as the progressive. Shak- 
spere did not step from heaven, nor were the titanic creations 
of Michelangelo flung upon the world as the miracles of an un- 
known power. 

Among the illustrations we have a photograph of Clement 
XIV. from the marble of Canova. This great work is viewed 
as the finest expression of the classic style, and yet we think 
this can only be held on some such principle as that which re- 
gards sculpture as the form in which that taste revealed itself. 
If anything could be idealized realism, it is the figure of the 
pontiff in the robes of his office, his hand blessing and protect- 
ing the world. Pure classicism loves the toga, the laurel crown, 
the drapery which shows the grace or strength of the limb. 
It is this sculpturesque preference which constitutes what is un- 
derstood as classicism in painting. We must say, however, that 
the chapter on Canova and his contemporaries is very instruc- 
tive and suggests thoughts on the effect of external influences 
in determining taste. Canova was peculiarly susceptible to im- 
pressions of the delicate, graceful, and sensitive, and he found 
them in classic art. 

We have in the relation between Tenerani's works and 
Bartolini's an instance of evolution which did not proceed 
along the normal lines of development. Both of them belonged 
to the period of transition from Classicism to Naturalism. Tene- 
rani had been a pupil in a school where the other had been a 
teacher, but the pupil stood against the teacher's ideas. He 
introduced into his conceptions a Danish element from the in- 
fluence of Thorvaldsen, but despite all this, his work suggests 
that of Bartolini. This is one method by which a new variety 
comes upon the stage. Personal dislike caused resistance to 
the master's ideas, this produced the effect of taste in sending 
the pupil to a different source of inspiration, and the result, to 
a large extent, was the soul of Thorvaldsen in the chisel of 
Bartolini. 

In Vincenzo Vela Naturalism attained its highest develop- 
ment. At the moment Romanticism was losing its hold on Euro- 
pean literature it entered into art. It would be interesting to 
treat the reciprocal influences of literature and art. We pass 
with the remark that at least up to the French Revolution Rome 
was not only the art capital of the world, she was the arbiter 



266 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 

on all questions of literary conception and method. We have 
among the illustrations in the book the replica, now in Wash- 
ington, of Vela's " Last Days of Napoleon." There can be only 
one opinion about this work, but its pre-eminent success is due, 
in our opinion, to a departure from what is understood as the 
principles of Realism. These require the man to be face and 
form as in the model, the animated clay if you like, and apart 
from any lesson to mankind in other words, a human brute 
ugly or shapely, but a thing without an interest in the strug- 
gles of the past or of the future, an atom of the countless 
millions that were born and that died amid the immensities. 
In the marble, the emperor is in his last hours, seated in a 
chair with relaxed limbs but an intellect ablaze with the pas- 
sions of hate and pride directed by profound policy and inex- 
orable will. The map spread upon his lap, with the hand 
clinched on Russia and Prussia, is hardly needed to enlighten 
us as to what is passing within that brow of Jove or seen by 
the eyes which awe as might a fate's. It is very curious that, 
while recognizing that the effect of " commonplaceness " is 
produced, despite their admirable execution, by almost all the 
other works of this sculptor, Mr. Willard does not perceive 
that this is due to the principle which treats man as a soulless 
being. His Dante is only saved from vulgarity by his mediaeval 
costume, but surely we ought to have that turbulent, unresting, 
feverish, unhappy but glorious spirit living in the marble. 
Popes and emperors, Neri and Bianchi, falsehood, fidelity, 
statecraft, and the low-lying rays of the Renaissance dawn should 
come to us at the sight. Instead we have a gentleman of the 
fourteenth century, like that kind of banality in exhibitions so 
often catalogued by the legend " Portrait of a Gentleman." 
We ask our readers whether at the sight of such pictures they 
have not had murderous and destructive impulses ? 

When he comes to the painters, Mr. Willard begins with 
Vincenzo Camuccini, the leader of the classic movement, of 
whose " Death of Caesar " he gives an illustration from an en- 
graving. Against this school Preraphaelitism was a revolt and 
so was Romanticism which may be found, in principle, a form 
of the latter. Where these forms appeal to identical principles 
of taste is in their abstraction from the individual. Classicism 
was called an appeal from the mediaeval individualism of the 
Renaissance ; it should be looked upon as mistaken criticism 
which confounded individualism with the individual, but which 
possessed an advantage in suggesting to the mind new forms of 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 267 

thought and supplying to a public tired of one kind of produc- 
tion conceptions which affected it like an introduction to a 
new world. All the phases of intellectual activity from age to 
age, which are generally described as changes of taste, are to 
our mind the seasonable discovery made by acute intellects that 
a particular vein has been exhausted. The period of transition 
from one standard of taste to another is the time of difficulty, 
and there is a temptation to men who mistake recklessness for 
boldness to jump an abyss. It is in the highest degree proba- 
ble that words are taken for ideas ; that is to say, that criticism 
couched in words is frequently supposed to be judgment formed 
from a survey of the whole field of contemporary and past art. 
The old Romanticism gave prominence to one figure, a domi- 
nant intelligence swaying all by the superiority of his gifts, 
but that is not individualism. The underlying thought of that 
form of conception was not the man himself, but the incarna- 
tion of a principle. It might be called realistic too, for whether 
the central figure in which the principle had earthly life was a 
good man or a bad one, it was what we would believe he looked 
like. This will in brief show the reader that criticism is often 
a jargon, and that we are led along by words which express 
the confusion rather than the distinctness of the critic's ideas. 

Like the social and political movement in England known 
as Young England, the Romantic movement in art seems to 
have been, as Mr. Willard says, first of all an emotional one. 
Its characteristics were the selection of subjects of passionate 
human interest instead of the cold themes of the classic 
school. In a valuable note the author points out that this 
movement was literary in its origin. The impulse began 
in a reaction against Classicism, but obtained its force from 
the conceptions of the school inaugurated in Germany by 
Goethe's Gotz von Berlichingen, published in 17/3, and further 
advanced by Schiller's Die Rauber, published towards the close 
of the decade. Scott's translation of the first work started a 
tendency in Britain which was maintained by himself, Byron, 
and their contemporaries. The poems of Byron became very 
popular in Italy and supplied themes to the painters. In Ger- 
many the illustrations prepared for Goethe's Faust were con- 
ceived in the same spirit. The cold severity of the classic 
school so marble-like and dignified could have no place in a 
world into which entered the intense vitality, whether in good 
or evil, of this startling literature. 

A little remains to be said of the Realistic school. It is our 



268 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May, 

opinion, from the instances presented by Mr. Willard, that any 
success which attends this phase of art is due to idealization. 
We have already hinted as much ; a better illustration than 
that of the sitting statue representing the last days of Napo- 
leon is Podesti's picture, called the Martyrdom of St. Thomas.* 
A difficult subject was saved from the suggestion of the ridicu- 
lous by idealized treatment of the gridiron. This, we think, is 
a fair instance of the true province of art rising superior to 
the dicta of schools. 

What a chilling influence is the sceptical spirit of the age 
in which we live ! We are not sure that deference to it im- 
proved the first conception of Morelli's Christ after the Resur- 
rection. In its first state this picture showed the figure of 
Satan sinking into the earth, and from the accessories by which 
the thought was to be interpreted, one would fancy this a 
valuable detail. He, however, rejected it on reflection, because 
nineteenth century minds would only sneer at an embodiment 
of the principle of evil. So we see there is a sterility pro- 
duced by unbelief, as well as by the use of traditional ideas 
and methods. We cannot help observing, as we have often 
done before, that the tyranny exercised by scepticism is a 
more cruel restraint on the exertions of genius than the con- 
trol of legitimate authority. A classic myth, a theme from 
nature, may be treated without reserve ; scenes and ideas from 
Holy Writ are to be estimated by the hypotheses of the Higher 
Criticism. 

Upon the whole, we are pleased with this work. The anec- 
dotes come in seasonably to brighten minuteness of detail. 
With regard to these we are inclined to think the author is 
too much given to the testing of their authenticity. We 
thought so, for example, when he rejects the story of the 
model for Vela's marble, La Desolazione. Every story of the 
kind assumes an artist is made indifferent to another's mental 
suffering when he has in view his object ; just as a vivisection- 
ist is in the interest of science. Indeed, psychical vivisection 
has been a study dear to Italians as well as to Easterns quite 
as much as physical torture was the amusement of the hardy 
North and the savages of America and Africa. 

We close by the remark that, in careful review, Mr. Willard 
has hardly named six painters of very considerable ability, 
two or three, at most, of exceptional ability in the present 
generation. Of the last, Niccolo Barabino, born and trained in 

* Strictly he was a painter of the transition period. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 269 

Genoa, is one, and we claim him as a representative of our 
views of art, an idealist, if anything, and such an one as alone 
of his time would command the respect of Raphael and Cor- 
reggio, if for an hour they could look upon the works of their 
successors. We have no space to speak of the chapters on 
Architecture ; but we can say they will be found interesting by 
students, and possibly by general readers, as a testimony to 
the boldness and power which still seem to survive in one 
branch of art among Italians. 

When the author of the present volume * produced his Boy- 
hood, it met with a few criticisms which, as he himself re- 
marks, are likely to be repeated in this instance. Against the 
first, that he pronounces boarding-schools an unalterable neces- 
sity, he has quite successfully defended himself. As to the 
second, his treatment of questions of purity, we think he has 
a claim on the considerate judgment of all broad-minded, sen- 
sible, experienced persons. 

The whole book is replete with thoughtful, practicable sug- 
gestions toward a more profitable education of our young men. 
The wide common sense and large experience of the writer 
come plainly into view in every page ; now and again a side 
remark may evidence an opinion on religion or ethics with 
which we cannot agree, but taken as a whole we heartily com- 
mend the spirit and pronouncements of the author. 

By far the most significant is the chapter on Purity. It will 
take generations to train society generally to that open and 
wholesome treatment of a disagreeable question, but we cannot 
but commend every move towards this consummation. There 
is not an unworthy word or idea in the author's mind, and what 
else should we criticise harshly? Hardly a boy that lives but 
would be the better for reading that chapter or being drilled 
on the lines it suggests. What the writer, unfortunately, can- 
not dilate upon is the all-powerful weapon that the Catholic 
school can, through the confessional, bring to bear on this in- 
sidious enemy of social welfare and lovely morality ; only his 
necessary lack of knowledge on this particular point could 
justify his silence, for in the world at large among the medical 
profession, for example unstinted praise is bestowed upon the 
church's successful efforts. 

For those who cannot rid themselves of the notion that 

* Through Boyhood to Manhood: a Plea for Ideals. By Ennis Richmond. New York: 
Longmans, Green & Co. 



270 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May, 

openness is nastiness, and that to be ignorant is to be modest, 
we commend the reading of Coventry Patmore's essays on 
Ancient and Modern Ideas of Purity, which, if somewhat strik- 
ing and novel, will throw some light on the question of the 
characteristically Catholic notions about this subject. A good, 
manly, instructive volume is the present, and we bid it prosper. 

A great deal of practical, common-sense talk such as Miss 
Conway's experience renders weighty and strong insistence on 
preservation of lofty ideals, such as her title in the literary 
world makes us expect these are the predominating charac- 
teristics of her last publication.* Many an ambitious young 
woman can learn some useful and important lessons, without 
the cost of bitter experience, if she will take to heart such 
chapters as " Making the Best of It " ; many a down-hearted 
plodder will see bright gleams of encouragement in such as 
" Statutes of Limitation." 

Quite in the spirit of the other books in the series, this 
volume deserves the warm praise already accorded them. Its 
bright, readable style, and clear, unostentatious tone will catch 
many a young reader's eye, and gently win her to conviction 
that she may profitably follow the writer's advice. 

In contrast with unmeaning, narrowly-conceived books 
on devotion to the Blessed Virgin come works like the pres- 
ent, an English rendition of the sermons of the great French 
scholar and preacher.f The learning, the logic, and the piety 
of the preacher are splendidly preserved, all the better, perhaps* 
because the translator has attempted no literal translation. 
Out of Bossuet's score of sermons selection and condensation 
have produced a set of perhaps half that number, and the 
reader will be hardly the loser by it, except in so far as implied 
in translation, though to be sure a hearer would tolerate nothing 
but the preacher's own language. In strictly theological 
passages literal translation has been made carefully and well. 

The book is not unneeded, for Catholics, as well as non- 
Catholics, may learn therefrom that devotion to Mary is some- 
thing more than sentimental trifling, and that, if deeply studied 
and adequately considered, Mary's relations to Christ and his 
Eternal Father are integral portions of theology. It might not 

* Bettering Ourselves. By Katherine E. Conway. Boston : Pilot Publishing Co. 

^Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. By Jacques Benigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux- 
Translated by F. M. Capes ; with an introduction by the Rev. William T. Gordon. New 
York : Longmans, Green & Co. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 271 

be unwise to remark that Bossuet's explanation of the doctrine 
of the Immaculate Conception, so long anticipating the Vatican 
Council, will strongly impress some of our dissenting brethren. 

This new edition of Mr. Potter's Bible Stories * encourages 
the belief that daily the love of Scripture-reading goes on in- 
creasing and spreading, and gathering together new classes and 
types. We cannot have too much literature, on the Bible, as 
long as standards are kept high, and there is a reverential 
handling of the sacred text ; for there is a constant develop- 
ment of interest in one or other direction, which calls for a 
steady stream of publications. It is good to see those publica- 
tions placing themselves in evidence on the student's shelves 
and in the preacher's bookcase, and even in the children's tiny 
libraries. And the last is not least significant, for interest in 
Scripture that has come with nursery tales is the likeliest to 
root deep, and live long, and thrive well. 

The book before us is admirably adapted to make the young 
familiar, not only with the stories but with the very language 
of Sacred Writ, for the text is preserved almost verbatim, with 
the mere elimination of such sentences of the original irrele- 
vant to the story presented. Good judgment is displayed in 
the selections made, the illustrations are attractive and appro- 
priate, and the book is, as a whole, a very presentable and 
instructive volume. Perhaps some of our own may follow this 
plan, substituting the Catholic version. We think such a book 
would not be slighted by our Sunday-schools.. 

In an article entitled "Washington's Farewell Address and a 
Century of American History," published in the Outlook of 
February 25, the distinguished John Bach McMaster, pro- 
fessor of American history in the University of Pennsylvania, 
writes as follows : 

" How, after a hundred years, has that full and fair ex- 
periment resulted ? To the wise men of other lands endurance 
seemed impossible. In their eyes we did not possess one element 
of permanence. We had no established church ; therefore we 
were an immoral and irreligious people. We had no king, no 
royal family ; therefore we knew not what loyalty meant. We 
had no nobility ; therefore we could not have a stable, well- 
balanced government. We had no entailed estates ; therefore 
property would not be safe. Our President was but a leader set 

* Bible Stories in Bible Language. By Edward Tuckerman Potter; with an intro- 
duction by Right Rev. Henry C. Potter, D.D. New York : D. Appleton & Company. 



272 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May, 

up by the mob to do their will ; therefore, not principle, not 
a high and honorable purpose, would guide us in our conduct 
towards foreign powers, but the love of the almighty dollar 
and the passing whims of the hour. But what a commentary 
has time made on this prophecy of failure ! Where else on the 
face of the globe has man set up a government better or more 
stable than is provided by the Constitution of the United 
States? Where else during the nineteenth century has property 
been safer ? Where else has absolute religious toleration been 
combined with the deepest religious feeling and the highest 
morality ? What other form of government, at any time, in any 
land, has ever been more firmly sealed in the affections of the 
governed, has ever inspired greater loyalty, has ever prompted 
to greater personal sacrifice in moments of supreme trial ? " 

The wonderful development of a true national and a true 
religious life in the American people, of which Washington 
spoke in his Farewell Address, emphasizes the wisdom of the 
founders of the American nation, and places a high value up- 
on their constructive work of which they themselves were not 
aware. 

But if the American experiment is to-day a confessed suc- 
cess in the matter of nationalism and religion, it is no less a 
success in the important field of education. 

A review of Provost Harrison's report of the University of 
Pennsylvania for the year 1898, which has come before our 
view, impresses us as few such documents have done with the 
marvellous growth and development of this educational institu- 
tion from the day when it was an academy in Philadelphia, 
shielded and nurtured 'by Benjamin Franklin and a coterie of 
like-minded public-spirited citizens, to the present time when it 
holds its rank among the four great universities of the land,, 
and has given to the country a long line of illustrious scholars 
and citizens, among whom the name of the distinguished pro- 
fessor of American history, Mr. McMaster, from whose recent 
article we have already quoted, is not the least. 

It is this article by the professor of American history, and 
a review of the report of the Provost, which has called our 
attention to the truly national work which is being accomplished 
in the education of the three thousand students in the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, which a hundred and fifty years ago was 
Benjamin Franklin's academy in Philadelphia. 

The Miracles of Antichrist* by Selma Lagerlof, is described 
on the title-page as a novel by a Swedish writer, and the edi- 

* The Miracles of Antichrist. By Selma Lagerlof. Boston : Little, Brown & Co. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 273 

don before us is an English version by Pauline Bancroft Flach. 
It is like an allegory, but it is not one ; and though it has a 
purpose, it is as unlike the priggish productions which are called 
novels with a purpose as anything can well be. We fear it 
will not be appreciated, and we regret this, as much for the 
sake of the reading public as for that of the writer. The 
whole meaning of the book is suggested by a quotation from a 
Sicilia'n legend which is a form of the Lord's terrible predic- 
tion of the rise of false Christs in the latter days, combined 
with what St. John saw in the Apocalypse. " When Antichrist 
comes," says the passage quoted, " he shall seem as Christ. 
There shall be great want, and Antichrist shall go from land 
to land and give bread to the poor. And he shall have many 
followers." 

The writer has gifts, but we do not think his power lies in 
the insistence of principles, and their consequences, under the 
incidents of a work of fiction. There are many things which, 
as Catholics, we object to, but there is a healthy tone through 
the work which makes it an incomparably safer source of re- 
laxation in the idle hour than most of the books our hard- 
working young people get into their hands. It would be, 
however, most decidedly the kind of reading we should recom- 
mend to the wealthy and idle classes of this country, and the 
same classes everywhere else. We shall be much surprised if 
the wonders wrought by Antichrist, the miracles performed by 
the spirit of the world in every age, do not afford some gentle 
excitement to those excellent people who fancy they are wor- 
shipping God, when in reality they are followers of Antichrist. 
Again, the "hardy sons" of toil, " the horny-handed," and so 
on, through the entire litany of misleading epithets the hired 
agitator or the loud-voiced emissary of discontent has on his 
tongue-tip when he addresses the people on their wrongs 
again, we say, the people will get just a hint of the value of 
the prophecies of better days, the miracles of social ameliora- 
tion which Antichrist, the king " of this world," will bring 
to them. 

There is nothing in the shape of a story, but the fortunes 
of certain characters, like the one or two great ones in Gil Bias, 
supply the human interest, upon which the suggestions of the 
author's principles, religious and political, are based. We can- 
not refuse recognition of the power which invests the images 
of the " Christ-Child," the false one and the real one, with 
that spell of influence on the intellect and heart to express 
VOL. LXIX. 1 8 



274 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May, 

which we know no better word than glamour. The purpose 
that runs from end to end is the fanciful working out of the 
idea that a " redeemer " or " reformer " was needed for the 
human race, and will be for ever needed. Now, the great Re- 
former came only once ; all the others are Antichrists, or, as we 
should prefer to put it, pseudo-Christs. But these pseudo-Christs 
are miracle-workers, thaumaturgists of social amelioration, pro- 
phets of reconciliation between kings and peoples, masters and 
servants, rich and poor. 

Augustus sees in a vision the birth of the Lord, just as his 
flatterers are about to consecrate on the Capitol an altar to 
him among the gods of Rome. As he gazes on the miserable 
stable, the kneeling shepherds in the open door, the young 
mother on her knees before a little Child, the sibyl's big, bony 
fingers pointed towards that poor Child: "Hail, Caesar!" said 
the sibyl with' a scornful laugh. "There is the God who shall 
be worshipped on the heights of the Capitol." 

We are informed that a mighty spirit fell upon the pro- 
phetess, and after some effects upon her appearance produced 
by its operation, such as causing her "dim eyes" to burn, and 
giving her a voice which " could have been heard over the 
whole world " " she spoke words which she seemed to have 
read in the stars " : 

" On the heights of the Capitol the Redeemer of the world 

shall be worshipped, 
Christ or Antichrist, but no frail mortal." 

The next day Augustus forbade the raising of a temple to- 
himself " on the Capitol," but built instead of it a sanctuary to 
the new-born God-Child and called it " Heaven's Altar," 
Aracoeli. From this legendary origin of the sanctuary we have 
the monastery on the Capitol occupied by " Franciscan monks," 
standing near the basilica " Santa Maria in Aracceli " the 
basilica built because the sibyl had caused Augustus to see 
Christ, and the monastery because they feared the fulfilment of 
the sibyl's prophecy : that Antichrist should come to be wor- 
shipped on the Capitol. The monks watched and prayed 
against the coming of Antichrist, their only comfort was the 
miracle-working image of Christ kept in the basilica. This image 
was the representation of a little babe, but it had a gold crown up- 
on its head, gold shoes on the feet, the whole dress a blaze of 
jewels, all the offerings of persons in distress who had called 



1899.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 275 

on the image for help. A rich Englishwoman obtained posses- 
sion of the image by getting an imitation made, which she sub- 
stituted during a moment or two in which she had been 
left alone with it in the shrine. In order to be sure which 
was the real image or " Christ-Child," she scratched with a 
needle on the crown of the false one the legend : " My kingdom 
is only of this world." The history of this false image, its 
going about from place to place, its various fortunes, and its 
rather singular connection with rich Englishwomen are the 
allegorical suggestions interwoven with the fortunes of Gaetano 
and Donna Michaela, Don Ferranti and Donna Elisa, and all the 
rest who pass before us in actual life or in the clouds of a 
vivid imagination, and are seen through these actual characters 
a method in which the author presents them as you see ghosts 
in a play or the far-off accessories in the background of a 
picture. The allusions of others, the conversations, the fears, 
the resentments of others, and so on all these expedients of the 
fancy the author uses with consummate skill. 

Don Ferranti is one of the actual persons, but he is intro- 
duced in a sentence or two which tells the impression produced 
by him and his circumstances on Donna Michaela. We take it 
as a specimen of the writer's power of making us see people 
through the minds of his living men and women, or, as we 
described it, in the clouds at the background. We are told he 
was found to be no ordinary shop-keeper in a side street. He was 
a man of ambition, who was collecting money in order to buy 
back the family estate on Etna, and the palace in Catania, and 
the castle on the mainland. If he went in short jacket and 
pointed cap, like a peasant, it was in order the sooner to be 
able to appear as a grandee of Spain and a prince of Italy. 

The great bandit, Falco Falcone, is reproduced in this manner, 
brought as it were in the clouds, and with him the social aspect 
and the landscape of Sicily in the later seventies. It is an 
Antichrist time, from which we might infer Selma Lagerlof is 
not a Garibaldian ; and looking back to our earlier page, we think 
that writer finds in revolutionary France pseudo-Christie influences 
all-abounding. The false image is taken from a rich English- 
woman, and her carriage is dragged to a barricade in Paris to 
form part of that kind of defence in street-rioting for which 
the beautiful city so long bore an unenviable reputation. A 
curious thing the power of this poor image of elmwood dressed 
out in brass rings and glass beads! for wherever it came the 
authority of Christ diminished. One of those defending the 



276 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May 

barricade was not a workingman but a man of education who 
had passed his life in study. This is one of the instances which 
try men the case of a pure-minded enthusiast, whose learning, 
together with the spirit of a gentleman and knighfc, many noble 
gifts and acquirements, are sacrificed to the powers of darkness 
because he starts upon wrong principles. To make the applica- 
tion the false image is on the barricade, and whenever the 
smoke of battle cleared away this scholar saw it high up, " un- 
moved " amid the tumult. Oh ! that little image was his leader, 
and the words " My kingdom is only of this world " the war- 
cry of himself and the wild crowds who alternated rebellion 
with robbery during the intervals when they had possession of 
the streets. One cannot help a pity for the enthusiast, who knew 
all the want that tortured mankind, whose heart was full of 
sympathy, and who continually had been seeking means to 
better his lot. The last words of the book are spoken by the 
" old pope " : " No one can save mankind from their sorrows, 
but much is forgiven him who brings new courage to bear 
them." This, we fear, is like that hysteria which is called Neo- 
Catholicism ; but we suspect everything, and are not sure of 
Selma Lagerlof's pope any more than the one of the French 
emotionalists. 

Mr. MacManus,* who is the author of some books containing 
sketches, narratives, and verses illustrating characteristics of 
the Irish peasantry, is a Celt to the core. One impulse, more 
or less, we know not which, would have made him a Greek of 
the days when kings were the pastors of the people. His fancy 
is a Land of Youth Fir nan oge, we think they call it. We 
mean his fancy is a realm where gray hairs and bent frames 
are signs of the passing onward, and not the tokens of defeat ; 
so that they disappear, as it were, and the strength of man- 
hood comes back in the heart. And youth is a time of glad- 
ness beneath soft skies, and surrounded by the influences of 
nature imparting sweet a'nd generous impulses. The language 
of the peasantry in his hands is a melody ; we have not read 
anything at all so racy, except in the Heart of Midlothian. 
The reader will remember how the passion of the peasant girl's 
pleading for her unhappy sister affected Queen Caroline. But 
when the emotion is not intense, even Scott cannot make the 
Lowland dialect altogether pleasant to the Southron ear. 

* Through the Turf Smoke. By Seumas MacManus. New York : Doubleday & 
McClure Company. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 277 

Carleton is often harsh, Lover unlike, Gerald Griffin has a 
touch of this music, but not altogether free. Now, in most in- 
stances of domestic narrative, Mr. MacManus makes the brogue 
of his Donegal people like a lyric. The humor he possesses is 
genuinely Irish. Americans have in a countryman of their 
own a case of successful acquisition of its half-sly, half-spark- 
ling, and wholly kindly quality in Washington Irving ; and he, 
we think, drew the spirit of his humor largely from his favorite 
Goldsmith. The justness of the comparison will be recognized 
in the passages where the author does the telling himself; for 
the novelty of the brogue to American readers may check the 
cadence at first. The sketch, The Prince of Wales' Own Donegal 
Militia, is a case in point ; it is Knickerbocker's History of New 
York transported to the proper stage, and the fun in Irving's 
heart was that of the humorists whom he unconsciously re- 
flected,* and not that of the good, heavy Dutchmen he 
quizzed. ' .' 

Where all over the world could such queer, racy things be 
said as in Ireland ? An omnibus belonging to a keeper of 
post-cars was employed in any business for which it might be 
hired. It was a private carriage when "the major" drove in it 
to church. When it carried a corpse to the grave the school- 
master spoke of it as an "impromptu hearse." On Tuesday it 
carried the sheriff to the. court-house, and on Wednesday bore 
poteen to Donegal, and so on, winning from the same learned 
man the descriptive title of " a versatile arrangement." A 
ballad in the piece, entitled " Dinny Monaghan's Last Keg," 
tells of a cow drinking all the poteen in a still. The ballad 
was sung by one of the party at a spree which was held in 
celebration of a successful distillation of the unparliamentary 
liquid named. The expression of opinion at the point of the 
ballad which told who had drunk most of the poteen was, we 
think, correct : " The sorra take her, but she was fond of the 
sperruts," and did not deserve the rebuke it received ; except 
so far as it might be regarded as an interruption of the song. 
The whole of this paper must be read to be properly enjoyed. 
The comments on the conduct of the cow after this performance 
are very amusing; for instance: "The poor baste, she acts so 
nathural like, just for all the worl' like a daicent Christian, 

*We are only dealing with one characteristic of this most charming writer, but Mr. 
.MacManus, we trust, has that great ally, time, to help him in making a name to be as widely 
known as Irving's. 



278 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May, 

axin Paddy to thramp on the tail of her coat, an' all that, an' 
then repentin' next mornin'." 

The advice given to one of the distillers by another is good : 
" Dinny aharsge, take yer warnin* from that song, an* raise up 
your cows in the way daicent cows should be raised," etc. ; 
and the retort to the threat that the Black Sergeant had sworn 
that he'd make one of them pay the piper yet. " Well, maybe 
it wouldn't be the first false oath he swore, if we'd believe all 
the people say." 

Jack who was the Ashypit is introduced in the old story-telling 
way : " Wanst on a time when kings and queens was as plenty 
in Ireland as good people, and good people as plenty as kings 
and queens." Of course the meaning on the surface is that 
these royalties were as plenty as fairies, but the inner meaning 
is to suggest some difference between them and good people. 
The Ashypit starts off to make his fortune, and, being tired, 
is about sitting down, but observes " a flock of big black flies, 
an* he ups with his stick and kilt three and thirty of them 
for He counted them, an' wan o' them was a dale bigger nor 
the others. ' Now that's what I call a good blow,' says Jack ; 
and gettin' an old rusty nail, he wrote upon his stick, ' With 
wan blow o' this stick I kilt a clargyman an' two and thirty of 
a congregation.' ' With this bit of satire on the well-fed ap- 
pearance of the clergy we shall leave Jack to his adventures of 
the old folk-lore kind and conclude by recommending this little 
volume as the best picture of Irish peasant life we have come 
across for many a day. 

Under the title of My Lady's Slipper and Other Verses* has 
been published a selection of poems of which neither writer 
nor verses themselves are unknown to our readers. But the 
selections are cleverly made, and the gifted authoress is seen 
to best advantage in them. Sweetness and grace may be de- 
clared the general characteristics of the volume, but in the 
finale, " The Within Thee Blind," a deeper note of tragedy and 
doubt is struck, and a masterly one too. Music and rhythm are 
very nearly in their perfection in these little gems, characteristi- 
cally religious or national, sparkling with bright fancies and 
delicate imagery. " My Lady's Slipper " is well, we can but 
say " exquisite," and quaint withal. 

*.My Lady's Slipper and Other Verses. By Dora Sigerson. New York : Dodd, Mead 
&Co. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 279 

BUSINESS GUIDE FOR PRIESTS.* 

A good deal has been said, in one place or another, about 
the crying need of a business education for priests, and espe- 
cially for priests engaged actively in this country. Now, as 
a matter of fact, it is of immense utility for a priest, especially 
an American priest, to be a perfect master of nearly every de- 
partment of knowledge ; for there is scarcely one in which he 
may not have occasion to use his science. But it is going 
rather too far to expect the achievement of any such useful 
plan. Rather, it is expedient that we economize, as far as pos- 
sible, the very brief period of time at present given over to 
the acquisition of a summary knowledge of sacred science. 

The proper way to set about mastering the matters foreign 
to his actual professional course of study, is that the priest 
should be supplied with such details as are necessary through 
the agency of some little manual or guide prepared by a learned, 
skilful, and experienced clergyman. This is what Dr. Stang 
has done in his present publication ; any one who understands 
the modicum of the book-keeping art here outlined will, in all 
probability, know sufficient to insure successful management 
if he lives up to it. 

It is a splendidly succinct compendium, but after all, as the 
writer says, it is the religious zeal and tireless patience of the 
pastor, and his unselfish attention to details, rather than any 
technical business training or experience, that will make him the 
successful manager of a parish. 

* Business Guide for Priests. By Rev. William Stang, D.D. New York: Benziger 
Brothers. 




THE First Educational Conference has just 
finished its sessions in Chicago. To this confer- 
ence were accredited the representatives of the 
Catholic colleges of the United States. They had important 
questions to handle, and from the published " Program " of sub- 
jects the topics were approached in a broad-minded way. This 
fact augurs well for the success of the work. That this con- 
vention is able to command a universal interest, and that it 
can write down among its delegates representatives of all the 
teaching bodies, as well as the educators of any prominence in 
Catholic colleges for men in the United States, is a fact of 
considerable note. This could not have been done before the 
establishment of the Washington University. One of the best 
results accomplished by the University is the co-ordination of 
collegiate education. The college now, instead of attempting 
an impossible task of giving a universal education, is circum- 
scribed by limitations. It has a defined field, and with any 
ordinary ability it can cover it Veil. There has been no more 
hopeful sign in the educational world than the assembling of 
this conference of educationists. 



The Peace Congress has been virtually strangled in its birth. 
It has shut out from its deliberations the only great peace-mak- 
ing factor in Europe, the Holy Father. Without religion men 
are savages. The spirit of religion, like the breath of the warm 
wind from the South, soothes and mollifies. It stands for far 
more than selfish interests. It lives a life all its own, far 
above the strife of battle and the clash of steel. In this spirit 
of religion the hope of arbitration lives, moves, and has its 
being. To shut the door against the historical representative 
of the spirit of religion in the world, is to banish that factor 
which alone can bring the deliberations to a successful issue. 
It would be a fitting thing if the delegates from the United 
States would ask that the Holy Father be represented in these 
deliberations. 



1899-] EDITORIAL NOTES. 281 

Let us Christianize Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, 
is the cry going out through the Protestant missionary societies. 
When the missionaries get there they will find more solid 
Christianity among the people of these islands than we have in 
many places in the United States. 

By what standards do you measure Christianity? Is it by 
the prevalence of morality ? The missionaries will find the 
people sober. There is not one iota of the drunkenness there 
that there is in our Christianized land. They will find the 
women virtuous, good mothers, faithful wives ; they will find 
all the home influences well established, and the family life in- 
tact. As to the virtue of the women in Cuba and Porto Rico, 
ask the American soldiers. Possibly the Protestant mission- 
aries may teach the people the tricks of the divorce court. 

They will find the people good church-goers. They attend 
church far better than Protestants do here in New York. Do 
you measure your Christianity by the variety of your churches? 
Go to our new possessions in this spirit, you will simply teach 
denominationalism, a religion torn in shreds by contentions 
not the blessed religious unity Christ prayed for. 

The best thing you can do is to stimulate existing agencies. 
If you think the Catholic Church has failed in doing its'. full 
duty, go and poke up its- officials, to greater endeavor. 

Your present pians will simply result in making a few infi- 
dels but not Protestants. 



It is not without its humorous side to witness the efforts 
made by our friends to explain away the hard, cold facts which 
Governor Rollins, of New Hampshire, brought to light in his 
Fast Day Proclamation. They say in the country districts re- 
ligion is not declining. The governor is perfectly right, and 
any consideration of the realities will bear him out in his state- 
ments. What Governor Rollins says of rural New Hampshire 
Dr. Rainsford says of urban New York, only he adds, shrewdly 
enough, that unless some means are devised whereby a half an 
hour's instruction in religious matters is provided every day in 
the school, this lamentable decadence will go on. 



282 CATHOLICS IN THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. [May, 



CATHOLIC OFFICERS IN THE ARMY AND THE 

NAVY. 



CAPTAIN JOHN J. LEONARD, U.S.V. 

Captain John J. Leonard, commanding Company G, Second 
Regiment Massachusetts Infantry, was born May 22, 1856, 
in Alden, Erie County, N. Y. His father, Michael Leonard, 
and mother, Ann Mungovan (both dead), were born in County 
Clare, Ireland. 

When about thirteen years old his parents removed to Spring- 
field, Mass. When sixteen years of age, he was employed for 
about three years in a clerical position by the B. & A. R. R. Com- 
pany. He then became a clerk in his father's store, and at his 
father's death continued the business until 1887. His duties as 
tax assessor demanded his entire time. Captain Leonard was 
elected to the assessorship in 1884 to fill a vacancy, he having 
already served for five years as an assistant assessor, being thus 
eminently qualified for his official duties. Two years later he was 
re-elected to a full term. His re-election to the same position in 
1887 and 1890, and again in 1893, at the latter time being made 
chairman of the board, is a speaking tribute to his fidelity and 
ability, and a wise expression of the high esteem in which he 
is held by his fellow-citizens. He was re-elected in 1896 and 
again in 1899 for full terms. The honor thus accorded him is 
all the more appreciated by himself and his friends when it is 
remembered that he is a staunch Democrat in politics, and that 
the city is a Republican stronghold. 

For twenty-two years he has been the secretary of the 
Catholic Total Abstinence Union of the Diocese of Springfield, 
and has been a delegate to fifteen national conventions of the 
C. T. A. U. of A. Captain Leonard was the chairman of the 
general committee that managed the monster field-day of the 
Springfield Union in 1892, which was one of the largest Catho- 
lic temperance demonstrations ever gotten up in America, and 
at which event thirty-three thousand people were present at 
Hampden Park, Springfield, among whom were the governor, 
lieutenant-governor, and other distinguished guests. 

Captain Leonard is one of the governing board of the Mas- 
sachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters, a member of the A. O. H., 
and many other useful and charitable organizations. 

The military record of Captain Leonard reflects credit on 
his practical judgment and wisdom. Joining Company G, 



1899-] CATHOLICS IN THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. 283 




CAPTAIN JOHN J. LEONARD, U.S.V. 

Second Regiment Infantry M. V. M., April n, 1877, as a P"' 
vate, he was appointed sergeant two years later, and in 1880 
was promoted to be first sergeant. June 27, 1882, he was 
elected first lieutenant, holding the rank until March 7, 1887, 
when he was promoted to captaincy, a capacity in which he has 
since served with efficiency. The inspector-general's depart- 
ment of Massachusetts, as the result of the annual inspections 
of the militia of Massachusetts just prior to the war with 
Spain, says of Company G : " Command rated very good. Dis- 
cipline, drill, and general instruction most commendable. Offi- 
cers, non-commissioned officers, and men thoroughly earnest 
and efficient. Books, records, and papers in faultless condition, 
models for imitation throughout the service. Great credit is 
due and should be given officially to this company." 
. At the opening of the Spanish-American War the Second 
Massachusetts Infantry was among the first to volunteer their 
services to their country. It was the first volunteer regiment 



284 CATHOLICS IN THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. [May, 

in the United States to reach Florida, the seat of active pre- 
parations for the Cuban campaign. Captain Leonard's com- 
pany led the Second Massachusetts through the campaign up 
to July 7, when the captain was detached from his command 
to serve as commander of a battalion the first battalion, of 
which G company was a part, becoming the third battalion. 
The regiment landed at Baiquiri June 22, taking an active part 
in the battles of El Caney and San Juan Hill, July I and 2 ; 
G company's losses being two men killed and three wounded 
at El Caney July i, and one man killed at San Juan Hill 
July 2. The company did its share of trench-digging, being 
attached to Brigadier-General Ludlow's First Brigade, Second 
Division of the Fifth Army Corps. The brigade occupied the 
right of the corps during the siege of Santiago, and had five 
different positions between the third and fourteenth days of 
July, when Santiago surrendered. 

The disease period was a trying time for the whole Fifth 
Army Corps, the Second Massachusetts having its share. Cap- 
tain Leonard's battalion consisted of one-third of the regiment, 
but his losses from disease were less than seventeen per cent, 
of the loss in the regiment. The theoretical knowledge of war- 
fare acquired by long service in the militia of the common- 
wealth of Massachusetts assisted Captain Leonard and his officers 
very materially in caring for and directing the men under them. 
The regiment reached Montauk August 19, was furloughed 
August 27 for sixty days, and mustered out of service November 3. 

Following is the comment made by the chief mustering 
officer of. the State of Massachusetts on the United States 
records of Co. G, Second Massachusetts Volunteers, in a letter 
to Captain Leonard: "Allow me to compliment you on the ap- 
pearance of your company, books and records, which were by 
far the best turned in by the Second Regiment, and are ex- 
cellent in every respect." Captain Leonard re-entered the ser- 
vice of the militia of the Massachusetts commonwealth, on 
which list he will undoubtedly rank as major, but by reason of 
the ill effects of the Cuban fever will soon ask to be retired. 

Rev. John J. McCoy, P. R. of Chicopee, Mass., speaking at 
a recent banquet tendered Captain Leonard and Sergeant 
O'Connoll by the Sacred Heart Total Abstinence Society of 
Springfield, of which Captain Leonard is a charter member, 
said, amongst other things, a close acquaintance with Captain 
Leonard for nineteen years gave him ample opportunity to 
judge of his worth, and he reiterated the statement that the 
captain was worthy of all the honor done him. He recalled an 



1899-] WHAT THE THINKERS SAY. 285 

incident that showed the character of the man. At the time 
the regiment was called to undergo no one knew just what, he 
met the captain's pastor, and the latter had shown him a letter 
from the commander of Company G asking for the prayers of 
himself and his men in the struggle that was before them. 
Here was a man, the speaker added, who, filled with zeal and 
anxiety of a noble sort, made it one of his first duties, when 
it became evident that his company was to see actual service, 
to reverently request his pastor to pray for himself and the 
men under him. It was typical of a man whose life was good 
and noble and uplifting. 

WHAT THE THINKERS SAY. 

To the Editor of the Catholic World. 

SIR : In Mr. Sidney Lee's recently published Life of William Shakespeare 
the biographer says emphatically that Shakespeare was a Protestant. 

The only person within a century of Shakespeare's date who ever made a 
statement on the subject, one way or the other, verbally or on paper, was Arch- 
deacon John Davies, the Vicar of Daperton, in Gloucestershire, England, a clergy- 
man of the Establishment. 

In or about the year 1703, Archdeacon Davies made some autograph notes 
upon the Diary of the Rev. William Fulman (also a clergyman of the English 
Church) ; and, among these notes, is the following direct statement: 

" He (Shakespeare) died a Papist." 

Now, as Archdeacon Davies was a Protestant clergyman, this statement is 
what lawyers call " a declaration against interest," and therefore one to which 
great weight is to be reasonably given. Moreover, the use of the word " Papist," 
instead of " of the old Faith " or " Catholic," shows that the statement was 
made reluctantly and with feeling. Even if contradicted, these considerations 
would favor it. But it stands uncontradicted ! 

In cases of a conflict of documentary or of oral evidence, or of tradition, a 
historian has undoubted right to use his own judgment to a certain extent, or, 
at least, to give his opinion as to the burden of probability. But where there is 
but one statement of fact, either way, and that statement is unimpeached, an ex- 
pression of judgment personal to the historian seems, to say the least, uncalled for. 

Of course, Shakespeare was obliged, like every other subject of Elizabeth, to 
outwardly conform to the two" Acts of Uniformity " which obtained during the 
period including Shakespeare's natural life. 

But Archdeacon Davies' statement leads to the conclusion (and I, for one, 
can arrive at no other) that, toward the close of his life, Shakespeare sought oc- 
casion, in some form, to publicly announce his attachment to the religion of his 
fathers and of his race. 

It is urged that, had Shakespeare been a Catholic, he would not have been 
buried in the chancel of a Protestant church. But Trinity, Stratford, was a 
church of the old faith, long before Henry VIII. 's date, and, as the parish 
-church, had not changed its legal Foundation. As part owner of Stratford tithes, 
Shakespeare was a lay-Rector of the Foundation and so entitled to sepulture in the 
chancel. Yours respectfully, APPLETON MORGAN. 

Rooms of the New York Shakespeare Society, April 5, 1899. 



286 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [May, 



THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 

THE Catholic Summer-School, located at Cliff Haven, N. Y., on Lake Cham- 
plain, will hold a session of seven weeks from July 9 to August 25. 
Among the speakers there will be representatives from the Catholic University 
at Washington, D. C., and from many of the leading colleges. Systematic courses 
of lectures are arranged dealing with the progress of social science ; recent de- 
velopments in the study of biology ; willpower in the domain of ethics; char- 
acter studies of authors and statesmen ; episodes of American history, including 
the war with Spain ; and a number of talks at the piano illustrating famous 
musical compositions. 

During six weeks special provision will be made for instruction on approved 
lines to secure the professional advancement of teachers. The main object kept 
in view by the management 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 instruction 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 expense, one may listen to the best thought of 
the world, condensed and presented by unselfish masters of study. The oppor- 
tunity thus provided of combining different classes of students for mutual im- 
provement will be most acceptable to professors and lecturers who wish to have 
an appreciative audience to enjoy with them the fruits of the latest research in 
history, literature, natural science, and other branches of learning. All these 
branches of human learning are to be considered in the light of Christian truth. 
Applications for copies of the prospectus to be issued as soon as possible 
should be sent, with a two-cent stamp enclosed, to 123 East Fiftieth Street, New 

York City. 

* * * 

From the New York Times we take the following account of a book that is 
having a large sale and has provoked much discussion : 

The Rev. William Barry is a writer of smooth and scholarly English, and 
handles his subject with power and clearness. In Tht Two Standards he has 
given us a forceful romance that it is a pleasure to read in spite of the introduc- 
tion of many disagreeable characters therein portrayed. The title The Two 
Standards is somewhat misleading, and its significance does not appear until 
late in the story. The first standard is money and lawless love, the other is 
righteousness and equity. The one is expounded through five hundred and odd 
pages ; the other and better part is meanwhile conspicuous by its absence. The 
plot lingers and is a laggard in unfolding, but the character-drawing is perspicu- 
ous and powerful. The heroine, Marian Greystoke, is the headstrong daughter 
of a worldly, speculating country vicar, and the other members of the household 
are quite unlovely. Mr. Barry's picture of this English clergyman's life is not a 
pleasant one, but it is a faithful portrayal of a type. We may sincerely trust 
that the class is a small one. Marian's mother is a canting Calvinist and en,- 



1899-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 287 

tirely out of sympathy with her daughter. The family has been reduced from a 
comfortable competence by the stock-gambling of both father and mother, 
and has nearly reached a state of absolute penury. This is particularly harass- 
ing to Marian, who, obstinate, proud, and selfish, has great social ambi- 
tions. She goes on a visit to London, and there, for the first time, comes into 
contact with the life of a great city and with people of wealth. She is fascinated 
by all this, and by means of her fine voice obtains entree to the homes of some 
few families of position. In this way she meets a wealthy speculator and pro- 
moter, whom she marries. He is temporarily fascinated with her voice and 
personality, and for a time is very devoted. Marian speedily finds, however, 
that gold does not always buy happiness, and through trial and suffering she 
learns her lessons as surely in her palace as was the case in her former home in 
the country curate's house. 

The later development of her character is thrilling and pathetic, and many 
times enlists the reader's sympathy, though frequently now and again inspiring 
disgust. Marian does credit to her early training and environment, and runs 
her inevitable course. Nearly all the people in the book are either sordid in 
their motives or scheming for self-aggrandizement or revenge, and they are 
far from being altogether lovely. Miss Raby, a woman physician, the friend 
Marian visits in London, is as near being unselfish and lovable as any one in the 
tale. She is the only one who appears to act from disinterested motives. There 
are several artists and musicians who figure prominently, but rarely to their 
credit. 

The 'fivo Standards is a novel of parts, to be read for its artistic construc- 
tion and beauty of diction rather than for entertainment. Its tendency is rather 
depressing, and its ethical horizon can hardly be called elevating, although the 
moral to be drawn from the career of Marian and her husband is unmistakable. 
The book has a distinctive atmosphere entirely its own, and is clever to a de- 
gree. The musical element therein is not without alluring representation and 
symbolization. 

* * * 

In that excellent paper, the Liverpool Catholic Times, a writer using the 
signature C. N. has stated a most important truth in these words : 

Literature is fortunately, or unfortunately, one of the most untrammelled of 
arts, wherefore it appears so easy and tempts so many; upon the writer's artis- 
tic perception, knowledge of life and good taste, depend what he eliminates and 
what he presents, and how and with what effect. We know that humanity can 
never be totally depraved, and we read with this reservation in our minds. If 
Protestant writers, in seeking the quaintness of another age, delight in such 
subjects as " The Madonna of the l-'each-tree," that is partly because everything 
then existing, good and bad, was necessarily Catholic and Catholicism is so 
seductive that no one, friend or enemy, can ever leave it alone and if the bad 
is picked out by preference, magnified, and dwelt upon well, it is a personal 
choice. 

We Catholics have a more proportionate view of the robust iniquities of 
our robust forefathers, because we remember that the same epoch gave the 
church those brilliant saints whose intellectual activity and purity of life are our 
example, and we cannot read any local history without meeting the lesser but 
widespread rank of good men who have left a fair repute behind them within 
their more restricted scope. 



288 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [May, 1899.] 

No doubt, a Catholic author could not write without the risk of unkind com- 
ment such a book as, say, The Chaplain of the Fleet, by Besant. We might 
have expected Protestantism, being modern, with its loud-voiced protestation, 
its Bible, its tract-distributing ladies and street-preachers, to set us " misguided 
Papists " a very admirable example indeed in Christian perfection, instead of 
deliberately reviving the backslidings of its ancestors, and needlessly pointing 
out where Christians have fallen short of their high ideal in a manner generally 
misleading, often offensive. But let us be indulgent, we who reside in touch 
with the vivifying heart of the church, who never loses her power of rebuking 
and reforming the children that sully her outer garment. We may watch with 
impunity, as we often have the opportunity of doing, the pot calling the kettle 
black, since we know that the kettle holds pure water. 

* * * 

Mr. J. D. O'Connell, of the Bureau of Statistics, Washington, D.C., has done 
excellent service in teaching correct history through the daily papers. With a 
full knowledge of the facts he contends that it must appear to any person of com- 
mon sense that not even one-tenth of our white population is of English descent ; 
and even if that fraction was of such descent, any person who is not blind may 
easily see for himself, no matter where he goes in this country, that the dark- 
haired type of our people is at least in the proportion.of seventy per cent, to the 
remaining thirty per cent, of light-haired people. It therefore goes without 
saying, even if we should accept every light-haired American of English ances- 
try as an Anglo-Saxon, that this fraction of the English element in our make-up 
is too insignificantly small to be worth the trouble of seriously considering as a 
factor either in the past or in the present of our national development. 

Is it not about time to call a halt on these Anglo-maniacs who imagine that 
they are greater and worthier than the overwhelming mass of their fellow-citi- 
zens ? I think it is time. No one has a right to intrude his ignorant balderdash 
upon the reading public about " Anglo-Saxons " when he cannot even name and 
prove a single characteristic of the alleged Anglo-Saxons or describe ethnologi- 
cally or physiologically the mental traits which distinguish the Angles and Saxons 
of England from the Britons and Celts of England. If he can do this, what is 
the result? Simply this : that the Angles and Saxons are still a comparatively 
insignificant element in the make-up of the English people, and infinitely 
more insignificant in the make-up of the American people. The language we 
have is undoubtedly a Germanic tongue a brave language but its mother 
would not "know it to-day. Like the Angles and Saxons themselves it was 
developed and refined by the ennobling and civilizing influences of Celtic, Greek, 
and Roman letters and literature, and the Mediterranean arts, sciences, and In- 
stitutions of the so-called Latin race. 9 

If predominance of race is anything to be proud of as a factor in the devel- 
opment of our institutions and national progress, certainly the so-called Anglo- 
Saxon element cannot for a moment be considered as other than a very small 
fraction of that factor ; and just as certainly the dark-haired race " Celtic," or 
whatever you may call it must be awarded the honor and glory of making 
America what it is to-day, and of making the " English-speaking peoples " 
throughout the world what they are to-day. M. C. M. 




"He was seen by Cephas ; and after that by the eleven. Then was he seen 
by more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until this 
present, and some are fallen asleep" (I. Cor. xv. 5-6). 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD, 



VOL. LXIX. JUNE, 1899. No. 411. 



THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHURCH IN THE 
PHILIPPINES. 

BY BRYAN J. CLINCH. 

HAT there are Catholic churches and priests, and 
even bishops, in the Philippines is known, but the 
popular impression is that those priests are some- 
thing quite different from Catholic priests in the 
rest of the world. Special correspondents have de- 
scribed the islands as overrun and plundered by a 
crowd of lazy and dissolute monks, who own most 
of the land and live in luxury on the tributes of 
their native tenants. Even some Catholics share, to 
a degree, these ideas. A friend of ours now serving in Manila 
expressed surprise at the great number of priests there, not 
adverting to the fact that the great majority were fugitives, 
driven there by the events of the last few months in other parts 
of the country. We have heard others conclude, from the 
butcheries committed by savage mobs on priests and monks, 
that Catholic priests must be odious tyrants and hated by the 
population. They wholly forgot that similar massacres have 
been committed in the most civilized countries within the pre- 
sent age. The murder of Monseigneur Darboy and his priests 
by the Paris Commune was no evidence either of offence given 
by the victims or hatred of Catholicity by the French people 
at large. We believe the same is the case in the Philippines 
to-day. 

THE COUNTRY IS NOT AN UNKNOWN LAND. 

It has been subject to civilized laws and visited by Euro- 
pean traders, travellers, and scientists during a longer period 

Copyright. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE 

STATE OF NEW YORK. 1899. 
VOL. LXIX. 19 




290 THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. [June, 

than the existence of any European settlement in this land 
of ours. Its actual condition can be ascertained as easily as 
that of India or Chili or Poland, if one only takes the pains 
to seek the same sources of information in the proper places. 
The impressions given by a flying visit to Manila by either 
soldiers or correspondents, ignorant for the most part of either 
Spanish or the native languages, are not such sources. The 
writer resided for some years in the house of a gentleman 
born and educated in Manila at the beginning of the century. 
He is acquainted with at least one scientific explorer of the 
group who visited it forty years ago, and he has met and con- 
versed freely with Spanish missionaries who had spent years 
there in different parts of the islands. From the knowledge 
thus gleaned, and from a study of the historical works pub- 
lished within the last ten years in Manila itself, and the offi- 
cial returns published before the insurrection of Aguinaldo, as 
well as from the records of the various Catholic religious orders 
available to any student, he has drawn the facts concerning the 
Church in the Philippines which he now offers to the reader. 
In this he has been materially aided by the Rev. Father 
Doherty, C.S.P., who accompanied General Merritt to Manila 
last year as a Catholic chaplain. 

ANTI-SPANISH PREJUDICES. 

The character of the Spanish friars is a favorite theme for 
charges such as defamers are accustomed to make against the 
Catholic clergy of our own country, and equally devoid of 
truth. The worst of it is, that between the hostile feeling to 
everything Spanish which prevailed so widely during the past 
year, and the want of knowledge of the islands among our- 
selves, many Catholics have been disposed to give some cre- 
dence to the wildest calumnies, unsupported by a shred of evi- 
dence and set afloat by men directly interested in the plunder 
of the church in the Philippines. 

The New York Herald purported to give the authority of 
an unnamed Catholic priest for the following extraordinary 
statement : 

" The peace treaty provides free exercise of religion in the 
islands and a guarantee that the property which belongs to 
the church shall not be taken from it. There is, however, a 
vast quantity of property, especially in the Philippines, which 
nominally belongs to the church, but to which there are many 
claimants. 



1899-] THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. 291 

" If the islands are to be held by the United States, as is 
now almost certain, it is to be expected they will be placed 
under the hierarchy of the United States. 

" The government will not look with favor on the proposi- 
tion to allow the Spanish priests to remain in power and office 
in these islands. While they are cordially disliked by a large 
body of the natives, they are still very influential, and their 
presence there (though guaranteed by treaty) would be a con- 
stant menace to the interests of this country, and a hindrance 
to the work of Americanizing the islands. 

" Two priests accompanied General Merritt when he sailed 
for the Philippines. One of them expressed himself in vigorous 
terms as to the character and habits of the Philippine priest- 
hood. They are totally different from the priests of this coun- 
try ! The priests are almost all friars, being members of 
powerful religious organizations. As the organization never dies, 
they (sic) accumulate wealth very rapidly. In this case they have 
been assisted by the government, which gave the church vast 
wealth which had been left behind by the original owners, who 
fled to escape punishment by the rebels. These lands the church 
holds on a tentative title, and it is expected [by whom ?] it will 
be compelled to surrender a large quantity of it either to the 
government of the United States or to the original owners." 

NEW YORK HERALD'S MISTAKES. 

If this statement came from any of the common run of " no- 
popery " lecturers it would only excite a smile of contempt. 
Though one of the two priests may have expressed himself in 
vigorous terms as to the methods of the Spanish in the Philip- 
pines, neither of them made the remarkable assertions credited 
to them in the context.* The vast property nominally be- 
longing to the church needs some further definition before its 
non-existence can be affirmed, but the expectation that the 
islands will be placed under the hierarchy of the United States 
is grotesque in its ignorance of Catholic Church law and prac- 
tice. The hierarchy of the Philippines has been organized on 
the common law of the Catholic Church for over three cen- 
turies, and will remain the same whatever the changes in gov- 
ernment of the islands. The church does not submit its laws 
to the whims of politicians, be they Russian, German, or Anglo- 
Saxon. The hierarchy of Canada, of Malta, and of Ireland is 
not under the hierarchy of England, nor will the hierarchy of 

* This is on the authority of one of them personally, the Rev. Father Doherty. 



292 THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. [June, 

the Philippines be under the hierarchy of the United States, 
whether the two countries be joined politically or not. 

As to the government of this country having anything to 
say as to who shall exercise the pastoral office among Catho- 
lics, the writer wholly forgets both the constitutional prohibi- 
tion against establishing a State Religion, and the treaty obli- 
gation guaranteeing natives of Spain expressly their full per- 
sonal rights in the islands. If a parish priest of Spanish birth, 
who has been regularly appointed by his bishop, has not the 
full right to retain his post, regardless of the favor or dislike 
of the administration at Washington, then indeed liberty of 
conscience must be a dead letter in this land of ours. As to 
their remaining in "power and office," an elementary acquaint- 
ance with the country would have taught that the priests of 
the Philippines for the last four years have absolutely no offi- 
cial power beyond that of consulting membership in the paro- 
chial councils or juntas. The hatred to them supposed to be 
entertained by a large body of the natives may be true, but 
we would like some better authority for it when coupled with 
a groan over the influence they enjoy notwithstanding. That 
it is a menace to the interests of this country is hardly to be 
believed by any intelligent Catholic in America. That the 
majority of the Spanish missionary priests are friars is true, 
and also that religious organizations do not die ; but neither 
warrants the conclusion that they are totally different from the 
priests in this country, or that orders invariably accumulate 
wealth very rapidly. There are Franciscans and Dominicans 
and Augustinians and Jesuits here as well as in the Philippines, 
and if they are accumulating wealth very rapidly in conse- 
quence, their neighbors are not aware of the fact. The final 
statement of the remarkable means by which the religious or- 
ganizations have been assisted by the government in the accu- 
mulation of wealth is very wide of the mark. If it means 
anything, it must imply that the Spanish authorities, when 
blockaded in Manila, confiscated the property of its own sub- 
jects opposed to the rebels and handed their lands over to the 
church at the moment when its priests were being massacred 
through the island. The hint that the United States govern- 
ment would grab this supposed property for itself, in defiance 
of treaty obligations, supposes that the administration has the 
morality of a buccaneer. We have dealt with this utterance 
at more length than it deserves in itself, because it shows an 
ignorance of the condition of the Philippines which may exist 



1899-] THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. 293 

even in the minds of some American Catholics. We shall try 
to give a more accurate sketch. 

THE CHURCH ORGANIZATION THERE. 

The organization of the church in the Philippines is in essen- 
tials the same as in every other Catholic country. The Arch- 
bishop of Manila and four suffragan bishops have the same 
spiritual authority over the priests and people of their respec- 
tive dioceses as the Archbishop of New York has over the 
priests and people of New York, or the Archbishop of Dublin 
over those of Dublin. The relations between the Philippine 
bishops and their clergy are, indeed, more strictly defined, but 
it is only because the general canon laws of the church are 
established there, which make parish priests irremovable unless 
for cause given and proved. The peculiarity in the Philippines 
is that the larger part, about three-fourths, of the regular par- 
ishes are entrusted by long established law to various religious 
orders, Augustinians, Franciscans, Recollets, Dominicans, Bene- 
dictines, and Jesuits. Each order, as a corporation, has the 
right of presentation to certain parishes. On the death or re- 
moval of a priest in those parishes, the head of the order sub- 
mits three names to the bishop or archbishop, who chooses one, 
and gives him canonical appointment if himself satisfied of 
his fitness. If not satisfied he may require other names to be 
submitted, but in practice little difficulty is found in the selec- 
tion. The Augustinian or Dominican priest in charge of a 
parish is subject to the bishop in everything relating to its 
administration and to his own conduct as a priest. He is not 
released from his vows as a religious, however, and may be re- 
moved at any time by the superiors of his order, besides being 
bound to the observance personally of its special rules. Such 
an administration of parishes is not peculiar to the Philippines. 
It is known in the United States, in England, the West Indies, 
and in other missionary countries. It is only that it is more ex- 
tensive in the Philippines than elsewhere that gives a peculiar 
character to the church there. 

WHY THE FRIARS ARE SO NUMEROUS. 

To account for this predominance of religious, or friars, as 
the Spaniards term them, in the Philippines we must go back 
over three centuries. The Spanish kings of that day regarded 
as a duty the conversion of the savage races within their do- 
minions. The Philippines, when Legaspi established the first 



294 THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. [June, 

European settlement in Zebu in 1564, were peopled by Malay 
races in about the same condition as the Hawaiians were when 
first visited by Cook. They had no central government nor 
towns, and they were engaged a good deal in piracy. Legaspi 
settled his first post and afterwards Manila without bloodshed, 
and in fact there has been little fighting in the whole history 
of the Philippines except with the Sulu and Bornean pirates on 
the south, or the English and Dutch rivals of Spain. Philip II. 
applied to the Augustinians for some of their priests to in- 
struct the natives in the Christian religion and the ways of 
settled life. Eighty years of experience in the American 
colonies recommended the choice of friars rather than secular 
priests for such a task, and the result has justified the selection. 
The Augustinians were followed by other orders, anxious to 
share in the work of conversion. When Manila had become a 
place of some importance it was made a diocese like any other 
part of Catholic Spain, but the friars continued to attend to 
the instruction of the wild natives. By orders from Rome, the 
districts converted were left under jurisdiction of the mission 
orders even when a hierarchy was established of four, now five, 
bishops. The last vestiges of heathenism have long disappeared 
from most of the islands. A few Negritos and Igorotes in a 
condition like that of the Sioux of the Western prairies a gen- 
eration ago are still found in Luzon. In Mindanao there is a 
large Mohammedan population, perhaps half a million. Through 
the rest of the group the whole population is Catholic, but the 
friars up to the present continue to furnish pastors to the de- 
scendants of their original converts. 

Where sanctioned by the Holy See, as in the Philippines, there 
is nothing abnormal in such a condition of affairs. The major- 
ity of missionary countries in Africa, Polynesia, and the West 
Indies are to-day administered by religious orders or congrega- 
tions, from which bodies both priests and bishops are drawn. 
A similar course was followed by the church in the conversion 
of Europe. Anglo-Saxon England is a well-known, historical 
instance. The heathen Anglo-Saxons were converted to Chris- 
tianity by the Benedictines and the Irish monks of Columbkill's 
order, and down to the revolt of Henry VIII. the monastic 
orders retained the right of providing pastors for a very large 
part of the parishes of England, and even bishops for several 
dioceses. It is worth remembering that in the whole Asiatic 
continent and its dependencies, at the present day, the Philip- 
pines are the only country which can be called Christian, though 






1899-] THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. 295 

Christian influence has been supreme in a large part of it for 
nearly four centuries. There are three times as many Chris- 
tians in the Philippines as in the whole of British India. 

It does not detract in the least from the credit of the men 
who have built up this Christian population that the Catholic 
Filipinos are different in political institutions and material 
civilization from European or American Catholic nations. Chris- 
tianity is a spiritual not a material force. It teaches men of 
every race their common destiny, and the laws of conduct 
towards God and man which will enable them to attain that 
destiny ; but it does not attempt to mould them on any par- 
ticular political or social lines. In earlier days a common faith 
did not make Catholic Frenchmen the same as Catholic Ger- 
mans nor Italians, in social life or national character. It does 
not make the Malays of the Philippines Europeans to-day. 
They have much in common with their fellow-Christians of 
other lands, but they are still Asiatic in temperament and in- 
telligence. Christianity united Jew and Greek and Roman in 
a common faith and common Christian morality, but it did not 
give the Jewish convert the artistic temperament of the Greek 
nor the political genius of the Roman ; neither has it given the 
Filipinos the energy nor the political instincts of the Indo- 
European races. The latter may or may not come in the course 
of time, but their development is not the task set to preachers 
of the Gospel by the Church and its Divine Head. 

ARE THE CHRISTIAN NATIVES, THEN, A CIVILIZED PEOPLE ? 

The question was put to a priest who had spent many years 
among them in active work, and who had been born and educated 
in the north of Spain. " Civilization is a very elastic word," was 
his first answer ; but after a moment he added unhesitatingly, 
"Yes, I can say they are." He then described briefly the 
points on which he founded that opinion, which we shall give 
as he gave them, letting our readers draw their own conclusions : 

The bulk of the population, about six millions roughly es- 
timated, is of the Malay race, divided into three nations. The 
largest is the Tagal, which occupies the greater part of Luzon, 
and numbers about three millions. The Visayas, who occupy 
the islands to the south, of which Panay, Zebu, Samar, Leyte, 
and Mindoro are the chief, are about two and a half millions, 
and the Pampangos between six and seven hundred thousands. 
Each division has a distinct language, but none ever had a 
common national government. Their social organization when 



296 THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. [June, 

the Spaniards first came to the Philippines was a number of 
small tribes under the rule of chiefs, mostly hereditary, but 
none of any extensive dominions. In becoming Christians their 
mode of government was little changed. The friars endeavored 
to group them into villages to a greater extent than they had 
been in their savage days, but the chiefs, under Spanish names 
of capitan or gobernadorcillo little governor continued to 
direct the common affairs of each pueblo. A Spanish governor 
in each island or province controlled the general administration, 
and the governor-general at Manila was practically the absolute 
ruler of the whole group, subject, of course, to the laws of 
Spain and the will of its home government. The natives are 
nearly all farmers or fishermen, the first class owning their own 
lands subject only to the taxes imposed by the general govern- 
ment. Having no political traditions and little intercourse with 
the outside world, they have for generations found sufficient 
occupation for their energies and thoughts in the quiet routine 
of daily life in a fertile country and under a tropical sun. 
The parish church has been the chief centre of their social life. 
They have gathered around for worship on Sundays and holy- 
days, they have come to it for baptism, for marriage, for buri- 
als and ever-recurring periods, and they neither know nor desire 
political assemblies, nor the contest of parties. The schooling 
of the children is provided for by at least one school for boys 
and one for girls in each pueblo, and if any of the pupils de- 
sire to follow higher studies there are colleges in the towns, 
and a university at Manila which receives whites and natives 
alike to its courses. Some time ago the university was credited 
with two thousand students preparing for the different profes- 
sions, law, medicine, and the church. Lawyers and judges and 
doctors of pure Tagal or Visaya blood are found, though not 
numerous in proportion to the native population. There are 
also rich planters cultivating large estates by hired labor, but 
the great majority of Tagals, Visayas, and Pampangos are 
small farmers. The Spanish friar stated that the proportion of 
the natives that can read and write is larger than in many 
European countries, and includes the majority of both men and 
women. It may be added that slavery is wholly unknown and 
has never existed in the Philippines under Spanish rule. 

THE MESTIZOS ARE THE NATIVE POLITICIANS. 

The white population is very small, not exceeding fifty thou- 
sand, or one per cent, of the whole, excluding the army. The 



1899-] THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. 297 

half-breeds, or Mestizos, are several hundred thousand, but the 
majority among them are not of Spanish but Chinese origin. 
From the first settlement the Chinese element was conspicuous 
in the population of Manila, and to-day the Chinese half-breeds 
form the bulk of the population there and in the other trading 
towns. The character of the Mestizos is different from that of 
the Malay country population. In business intelligence the 
Chinese can hold their own with the shrewdest traders of the 
white race, and they have transmitted their character to their 
Christian descendants in the Philippines. The Mestizos have, 
besides, the advantage of acquaintance with a European lan- 
guage and schooling. The Chinese are also as a people fond 
of forming secret societies among themselves. This trait has 
been inherited by many of the Mestizos. As a body they are 
more intelligent and less moral than the Tagals or Visayas ; 
much as town and country populations even of the same race 
differ the world over. They furnish the largest part of the 
native professional men and clergy, and nearly the whole of 
the politicians. It is with this class almost exclusively that 
Americans or Europeans who visit Manila or other towns come 
in contact and form their ideas of the Philippine natives. 

THE SURPLUSAGE OF BIRTHS OVER DEATHS. 

What has been said will give a clearer idea of the natives 
as they are than general reflections about their advancement or 
backwardness in civilization. They are Asiatics, and have the 
general Asiatic characteristics of calmness of disposition, resigna- 
tion and obedience to established authority, without any thought 
of changing the legislation under which they have been brought 
up. If leading orderly lives of regular labor, respecting the 
lives and property of those around them, and practising the 
observances of the church of the largest part of the civilized 
world, entitles them to be called civilized, they are so. If 
lack of modern machinery or ways of government debars 
them from that name, they are not civilized ; but then the same 
might be said of the French habitans of Canada or the early 
settlers of most of the United States. It is needless to discuss 
the point further. One thing certain is, the Catholic Filipinos, 
Tagals, Visayas, and others, are a rapidly growing population 
under the Spanish regime. The returns of 1896 gave an annual 
increase, by the surplusage of births over deaths, of about a 
hundred and sixty-five thousand in seven millions of population, 
or twenty-five per cent, increase in ten years. In British India 



2gS THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. 

the increase by the last census was about ten per cent., in 
England and Canada about twelve, and in most countries of 
Europe lower. In our own country the increase is almost the 
same as in the Philippines, though at least a third of it is due 
to immigration. 

CONTRAST HAWAII WITH THE PHILIPPINES. 

In order to understand the significance of these figures, it 
should be noted that nearly all the islands of the Pacific, inhab- 
ited a hundred years ago by races allied to the natives of the 
Philippines, have been almost depopulated since the appearance 
of European civilization. Hawaii, which received its introduc- 
tion to civilization under the guidance of American ministers, 
as the Philippines received it from the much-maligned friars, is 
a striking example. When Messrs. Bingham and Thurston were 
entrusted with the destiny of the Hawaiian natives by the 
widow of Kamehameha I., their first care was to take a census 
of the people. It gave over a hundred and forty thousand. 
Sixty years of Protestant civilization and teaching had reduced 
the number to thirty-eight thousand, with only a couple of 
thousand American civilizers to take their place. In 1750 the 
population of the Philippines was given at nine hundred and 
four thousand, exclusive of infants under seven. In 1896 a 
detailed census gave the number at nearly seven millions, who 
had grown up under the instruction of the Spanish friars, and 
in the Catholic morality taught by them. The Protestant mis- 
sionary colony in sixty years had, by its own statement, pos- 
sessed itself of nearly all the land and wealth of Hawaii, and 
it ended its mission by rising in arms and seizing the govern- 
ment on that very plea. At the present moment over four 
hundred friars in the Philippines are lying in prison in tropical 
jails, liable at any moment to the death which has already 
come to more than fifty at the hands of fierce mobs, for the 
sole reason that these friars are natives of Spain. Yet writers 
in the American press do not blush to talk of the greed and 
laziness and immorality of the Spanish friars, even as a 
Hawaiian missionary in Honolulu reviled the memory of the 
heroic Father Damien, and hinted at personal immorality as 
the reason of his death in the Molokai leper settlement. 

FRIARS SECURED RESULTS. 

To gather together a people of seven millions out of a few 
tribes of pirates and uncivilized barbarians, to instruct them in 



1899-] THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. 299 

the doctrines of Christianity in their own tongues, and to fur- 
nish them regularly with all the sacraments and rites which 
form an essential part of the life of every Catholic, is not the 
work of laziness, and that work has been done by the friars of 
the Philippines without peradventure. To pass life in almost 
solitary work in a tropical climate among men of a foreign 
race, without family, without personal property, and without 
the choice of even his own field of work, is not a prospect to 
attract idle or dissolute or greedy men. Yet such is the pros- 
pect for every member of a religious order who devotes him- 
self to work in the Philippines. Nothing is easier for unscrupu- 
lous men than to throw out reckless charges of immorality, 
and few things are harder to refute when neither names nor 
dates are given. But why, it may be asked, should Catholic 
men, believing the doctrines of the church, deliberately bind 
themselves by solemn vow to life-long chastity, simply to gratify 
immoral tendencies. The records of the Philippines do not 
warrant the charge. 

MARRIAGE STATISTICS. 

In every country the number of Christian marriages annu- 
ally solemnized is regarded as a fair, if not absolutely sure, 
test of the general morality. It is a stronger test in Catho- 
lic countries, where divorce is unknown. General poverty and 
general immorality are accepted as the natural causes of a 
small proportion of marriages among any population. Apply- 
ing this test to the Philippines, it would appear that the 
morality of its people bears comparison with any other land. 
In 1896 the official statements of the various countries showed 
that in the English colonies of New Zealand there was one 
marriage to every hundred and forty-two individuals, in New 
South Wales one to every hundred and forty, in Scotland one 
to every hundred and thirty-five, in France one to every hun- 
dred and thirty-three, in Prussia and England one to each 
hundred and twenty-five, and in the Philippines, in the districts 
served by the friars, one to every hundred and twenty per- 
sons. Incidentally, this statement, taken directly from the 
parish church registries, which are scrupulously kept in every 
parish under charge of the friars, disposes effectually of the 
common accusation that the natives are kept from marrying by 
the exorbitant fees required by the Spanish priests. By the 
ordinary church law of the Philippines, as of other Catholic 
countries, the priests are bound to bless all lawful marriages 



300 THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. [June, 

without fee, if the applicants are too poor to pay one. In 
other cases, a very moderate " right of the stole " is prescribed 
by the common law of each diocese. 

COMPARATIVE NUMBER OF PRIESTS AND PEOPLE. 

The "swarms of lazy friars" that form a picturesque if 
rather unkindly feature of so many pen pictures of the Philip- 
pines are even more mythical than the exorbitant fees col- 
lected by them. We have already mentioned the reason why 
so many are found at the present moment in Manila, but the 
official records of both the religious orders and the govern- 
ment, published long before Dewey entered Manila Bay, show 
that in no Catholic country is the number of priests so small, 
compared with the population, as in the Philippines. The 
priests are fewer than in almost any diocese in the United 
States compared with its Catholic population. In 1896 the 
whole clergy of the islands only numbered nineteen hundred 
and eighty-eight priests between all the orders and the seculars 
combined. The secular clergy amounted to seven hundred and 
seventy-three, of whom about one-half were of the native races. 
These had charge of a population of over eleven hundred thou- 
sand. The archdiocese of New York last year had five hundred 
and ninety-seven priests for less than a million of Catholics, 
St. Louis three hundred and eighty-eight for two hundred and 
twelve thousand, and Chicago four hundred and fifty-nine for 
over half a million. The secular priests of the Philippines are 
almost exactly in the same proportion to the population as are 
the priests in Chicago, which certainly is not the happy hunt- 
ing ground of swarms of idle clergymen. 

THE CASE OF THE FRIARS. 

The argument is far stronger in the case of the " friars." The 
whole number in the Philippines, Carolines, and Ladrones was 
only twelve hundred and fifteen, including Jesuit and Domini- 
can professors in the colleges, those in charge of the Manila 
observatory, and the missionaries among the Mohammedans of 
Mindanao and the heathens of the Carolines. The latter occu- 
pied a hundred and five of the hundred and sixty-seven Jesuits, 
the other sixty-two being in Manila in the usual scholastic 
work of their order. Two hundred and thirty-three Dominicans 
supplied the religious needs of three-quarters of a million of 
Catholics. That the task was not a nominal one is shown by 
the registration during the year of forty-one thousand baptisms, 



1899-] THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. 301 

eight thousand marriages, and twenty-nine thousand interments 
with the funeral rites of the church. The Jesuits and Benedic- 
tines, besides their literary work, attended to the parish needs of 
nearly two hundred thousand Christians. 

The Franciscans, properly so-called, had two hundred and 
forty priests in the Philippines, and this two hundred and forty 
attended to a population of over eleven hundred thousand. 
The Recollets had three hundred and twenty-one priests for a 
million and a quarter of Catholics. The task of the Augus- 
tinians was the greatest of all. Three hundred and twenty- 
seven priests, including the superiors and the general adminis- 
trative force in Manila, attended to the religious wants of two 
million three hundred and forty-five thousand Catholics. In 
the year they baptized a hundred and fifteen thousand children, 
buried with due rites fifty-one thousand Catholics, and blessed 
sixteen thousand seven hundred marriages. Add to this the 
celebration of Mass and other public church offices for over 
two million Catholics, the preaching, teaching, hearing of con- 
fessions required by them, and all the other details of the life of 
a Catholic parish priest, and let any discerning man say whether 
it was a work that left any chance for lazy self-indulgence. 

THE FRIARS ARE NOT WEALTHY. 

The wealth of the friars is another favorite theme for our 
press-men. It is commonly asserted that the orders own as 
much of the land of the Philippines as the New England ex- 
missionaries have acquired in Hawaii. The actual facts are, 
that the only property owned by the orders are a few estates 
devoted to the support of hospitals and colleges. In the mis- 
sions the buildings of the church and presbytery, with a garden 
attached, are the sole landed property held by the clergy. 
Their support is provided for by a salary paid by govern- 
ment in the same way as in most European Catholic countries. 
The usual amount is five hundred dollars a year in silver, though 
in some large parishes eight hundred dollars are allowed. Un- 
less a pueblo or parish has more that ten thousand people, the 
salary for only one priest is allowed it by the treasury. The 
friars in many cases employed assistant priests, generally natives, 
to help in the administration of large parishes ; but the support 
and salary of these assistants had to come from the one salary, 
or private charity. As the friars are bound by their vows to 
accumulate no private property, any annual savings they might 
make were handed over to the superiors for the common needs. 



302 THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. [June, 

The revenue would not permit the accumulation of the fortune 
of a Vanderbilt or an Astor, even if an order never enforced 
the vow of poverty. Allowing the highest rate of salaries to each 
Augustinian employed on the missions, he would receive an an- 
nual revenue of ten cents a head from the people entrusted to 
his charge. The taxes, it must be remembered, are not* collected 
by the friars. They are raised by the native " capitan," who 
transmits them to the Spanish provincial governor, who in turn 
forwards (or rather used to forward) them to Manila, The 
total amount paid to all the missionaries for the religious ser- 
vice of nearly six millions of Catholics was much under a 
million dollars in silver annually. We think the Episcopal 
Trinity Church of New York could nearly equal that figure, 
and Trinity certainly has not the spiritual care of one per cent, 
the number ministered to by the Spanish religious in the 
Philippines. 

NATIVES ARE SINCERELY ATTACHED TO THEIR PRIESTS. 

As to the disposition of the natives of the country towards 
their pastors, we were assured by all the exiled Augustinians 
who passed through San Francisco this year that it was one of 
sincere attachment. Two of them, when arrested by the revo- 
lutionary emissaries in their residences, had been delivered by 
their parishioners, and another assured us that in nine different 
pueblos he had witnessed the general grief of nearly the whole 
population on the arrest of their spiritual guides. As he told 
the story, the arrest and murder of so many priests (there were 
over fifty put to death and more than four hundred are now cap- 
tives) was the work of small revolutionary parties, backed by the 
power of the revolutionary government set up by the Manila 
Mestizos. In a way the course of events was not unlike that 
of the early days of the French Revolution under Jacobin rule. 
The capital dominated the provinces more by fear than sympa- 
thy. The Philippine country folk are wholly unused to arms or 
violence. A missioner assured us that before the revolution 
the number of murders committed in the island of Panay, with 
a population of over half a million, hardly averaged one in the 
year. In Manila among the Chinese Mestizos it was worse, 
but even there the amount of public crimes was much less than 
in most American cities. It is easy to understand how among 
such a population a few armed bands, claiming to be backed 
by the army of Aguinaldo and the American fleet, were able 
to pillage and slay at will. In many cases the jails were 



1 8 9 9-] 



THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES. 



303 



emptied and the released convicts, maddened with drink, atro- 
ciously maltreated and murdered priests and religious ; but these 
were not the acts of the population at large. It might be as- 
serted with as much justice that the French Catholic people 
sympathized with the. murders of the Commune, or that the 
latter showed the grinding tyranny of the murdered archbishop 
and his priests. 

One thing appears clear, and that is that the expulsion of 
the Spanish friars would convulse the whole social system of 
the Philippines to an unknown degree. Religion is intimately 
connected with the life of the natives, and for nearly six mil- 
lion the friars are the only teachers and guides. The Philip- 
pine languages the only ones in use are practically unknown 
outside, and it would take generations to train up an adequate 
supply of priests from the native population^, even were voca- 
tions numerous enough among them. Spaniards or not, the 
friars cannot be dispensed with unless the Philippines are to 
risk the fate of San Domingo during the last century, and their 
population be thrown back into barbarism. 

NOTE. In regard to the alleged immoralities of the friars, we have a personal statement 
from the Superior-General of one of the religious orders in the Philippines, that during his 
term of office, which has extended over a number of years, not one case of any grave breach of 
discipline has been reported to him, and this would have been the case had any occurred. As 
may be supposed, the same high standards of conduct prevail in the Philippines as prevail 
among the more highly civilized nations. EDITOR CATHOLIC WORLD MAGAZINE. 





O 

elo\7ed / Tiost, Lrord (Christ Incarnated, 
I hy Benediction speeds from sea to sea, 

[JJitfinely sWift, as by tfye lAina/s decree, 

J\|iag'ra's crystal whirl, through asons dead, 

n purpliqg foam has sWept its \7aulted bed 
'Auroral mist I \}y incense Wreathing h,igh, 

prorq sea and surf to opalescent sky, 
'And 1 hou, Word, the Sacramental (Dread! 

Ofqthroqed in humble mystic erqblem still 
Omnipotence Worlds out its mystery, 

|n ansWer to a yearning World's desire: 
I l]e Word, Cfiod's ar)cieqt promise to .fulfil, 

[Becomes our blessed daily |y read, and | hee, 
(y e)a\?incj post, a clay-consum,ing fire! 

CLARA CONWAY. 



Loretto Chapel, Niagara Falls. 





" IT HAD ONCE BEEN PAINTED RED MARGARET'S FAVORITE COLOR." 




THE RED-HOUSE. 

BY P. M. EVERS. 
I. 

T stands at the foot of the winding steep that 
leads from the valley to the meadows on the up- 
lands. It had once been painted red Margaret's 
favorite color ; but the wind and rain have 
stripped the covering from the planks and left 
them black and gray. The bricks of the chimney have been 
eaten away by the storms of half a century, and the broad, 
old-fashioned shingles are moss coated and decayed. The porch 
has disappeared, and the two diamond-shaped windows are 
choked with cobwebs that tremble' in the wind which rattles 
the laths and broken plaster of the walls. 

There is a feeling of loneliness about the place that pains 
the heart. It is strangely quiet and drear, just as it was when 
they carried poor Margaret's body down the garden path to 
the black hearse on the roadway. But even on that day I re- 
member to have heard the crying of a dog that had crawled 
YOL. LXIX. 20 



306 THE RED-HOUSE. [June, 

beneath the cedars of the hedge. To-day there is no sound, 
and the place seems dead ; and not one of those that now 
toil in the fields on the upland, or that spin in the valley be- 
low, know the story of the . red-house ; nor have they a mem- 
ory, as I have, of a sad-faced woman, whose heart-tragedy lies 
buried with her in the grave on the hill, bending over the 
tulips and lilies along the garden path. 

Margaret's garden, at the front, is hidden by a rank growth 
of weeds. In the old days a well stood by the hedge, and the 
honeysuckle grew thick and sweet along its latticed sides. To- 
day there is nothing left except a gaping hole half filled with 
rubbish, and a gate lies beneath the cedars rotten from the rain 
of years. 

The door of the house hangs upon one hinge ; when you 
push it open the scratching of the rusty iron echoes shrilly 
along the storm-streaked walls. That room to the right, with 
its window facing the meadows, was the kitchen. Long ago 
there was an open fireplace at the northern end, a tall clock 
standing against the opposite wall, and close to the hearth 
bricks, where the fire-irons lay on the yellow stone, stood two 
rush-bottomed chairs. That room across the hallway was Mar- 
garet's. The window faces the west, and at sunset the narrow 
panes of glass shone through the green hedge like tongues of 
fire. It was here that the woman kept her watch for the home- 
coming of the reapers who came down the steep from the up- 
lands with a song on their lips, and the steel of their scythes 
swinging red in the fires of the sun. The room is small'; but 
it was a world for her, and within its walls the touch of life's 
tragedy came upon her with the desolation of death. 

The furniture of Margaret's room, like the kitchen, was scant 
and simple. In one corner by the window stood an arm-chair 
that had been in Margaret's family for years beyond her mem- 
ory. Once, long ago, in that chair she waited for the coming 
of the searchers from the marsh, whose burden, cold and stiff, 
was her own son. In that same chair they found her keeping 
her long, last vigil for one whom she was never to see again. 

In that corner stood an old-fashioned bed, with a tick filled 
with chaff ; Miley's trundle cot was pushed close to its 
foot ; a figure of the Crucified One hung above it on the 
wall beside another picture of Margaret herself when a girl. 
To-day the rooms are bare and chill, and the bleak November 
sky throws deep shadows into the corners. The yellow plaster 
lies in broken chunks upon the yielding floor, and through the 



1899-] THE RED-HOUSE. 307 

ragged holes in the roof have blown rain-soaked leaves that 
cling in masses along the basement board. The air is musty 
and thick; but you can still make out the spot where the bed 
stood, for the floor there is not so dark as the rest, and above, 
stained into a clinging piece of mortar, is the pale impress of 
the cross. The fire-place is choked with fallen bricks ; and the 
kitchen shelf, hanging on one nail, swings in the sudden gusts 
that blow down the chimney's vent. The furniture has been 
gone long since ; there is nothing left except dust and wreck- 
age, memories and silence. 

There is very little in the life of the poor beyond hope and 
sacrifice and weariness. Their dreams are of rest and peace ; 
and the pathos of their heart-tragedies is never fully revealed, 
nor even known, to the richer ones of earth. The broken 
shelf in Margaret's kitchen, mouldering in the damp gloom of 
this November day, could tell a tale as full of love and sorrow 
as the tumbled stones of a king's palace. , 

It was in that chair I loved to watch Margaret Thane, with 
Miley in her strong young arms, and she crooning to him one 
of those wordless lullabys that only young mothers know. Her 
face was rounded and fair, and her eyes were as black and 
deep as night shadows in the valley. Only once did I see the 
love-light flash into them, and that was when, at the father's 
coming, she held out in her arms their first born Miley. In 
such days, when the keen gladness of being is upon us, the 
sternness of life and its crosses generally lose reality and be- 
come like a vague dream in the night improbable and forgot- 
ten. But in Margaret's song there was ever a strain of sad- 
ness, though I never knew the cross that dragged upon her 
soul till afterward. 

Beside the old seat with its covering of woven horse-hair 
stood a small pine table, with a cloth of patchwork that 
Margaret had made long ago when a girl. A woman's work- 
basket rested in the centre, and more than once in the .after 
days, when sorrow weighed upon the worker's soul, I had seen 
her hand steal beneath the skeins of wool and draw forth a 
tiny pair of woollen shoes. They were Miley's, and the touch 
of the woman's hand upon them was reverent and tender. Fifty 
years ago, when the tulips and tiger lilies blazed along the gar- 
den path and the cedar tops were green as spring grass, I saw 
a woman knitting those shoes as she sat upon the steps of the 
porch. Her hair then was the color of rush-tops in autumn, 
and her low, sweet song came over the hedge clear as the 



308 



THE RED.HOUSE. 



[June, 



notes of the unseen lark at daybreak. In the after years 
she sang no song, and the strands that showed beneath her 

cap were thin and white. 

II. 

Fifty years have passed 
since Richard Thane first 
set his forge on the valley 
slope. He it was that built 
the red-house. It was fin- 
ished in March when the 
ice-floes were crashing down 
the river, and the stiff cedars 
on the bleak uplands were 
lashed by the northern wind ; 
and at the break of spring, 
when children were making 
their hunt for first violets, 
there was a wedding in the 
chapel on the slope, and 
Margaret Kiel became Mis- 
tress Thane. Two weeks 
later, Geordie Moore passed 
through the valley of Burn- 
ley, and I saw him no more 
for many years. 

The school was closed 
earlier than usual, and the 
hill-folk were glad, for there 
was always work for young 
hands on the meadows. The 
last day was dreary and wet 
and the sky sheeted with 
rain-mist ; but toward 
evening the sun burst 
through the cloud 
banks and 







" THERE IN THE DOORWAY STOOD MARGARET." 



1899-] THE RED-HOUSE. 309 

blazed a path of gold and crimson across the marshes and 
the strip of sea beyond. The dull, gray light that hung 
along the valley slopes in the morning was weighted with 
loneliness. I missed the trailing notes of the bobolink running 
down the wind ; the storm hung over the glen like a gray 
blanket, and the hills loomed up bare and lifeless. Geordie 
once told me that on days like this he felt a touch of death 
lurking along the slope, and the dead who slept under the 
sods of the upland seemed to troop along the paths and by- 
ways. I thought it was this mood that hung upon him the day 
of the "reception." I knew better years after. 

I sat in front of Jimmie Brame, whose daughter Nellie was 
"prize lass" of the year. At my right sat Margaret. At 
the closing, Jimmie leaned forward in his seat and whispered : 
"Henry, the master's no' well the day, think ye so ? I 'm 
thinkin' he 's older lookin' too ! " At that moment Geordie 
began to speak, but his words were without energy or life. 
Margaret was looking straight at him, and pity shone in her 
eyes. Not once did the, master look our way; but as the 
woman held out her hand to him in parting, a light flashed in- 
to his eyes such as I have seen upon the face of a young bride 
when she passed from the church on her wedding day. 

Dr. John and I watched Geordie go down the slope that 
evening, and as he passed the red-house a dog ran out and 
barked at his heels, but he took no notice. His head was 
bowed, his hands clasped behind his back, and his steps slow 
and difficult like those of a wearied reaper laboring painfully 
through the night-shadows homeward. 

" Some trouble at home," said I to the doctor. " Nay, not 
that, lad ; it's here," placing his hand over his heart. When 
Geordie reached the turn of the road he paused and glanced 
backward. From the red-house the bluish smoke of a fresh 
wood fire curled upward. The sun at that moment strug- 
gled through the cloud rifts, lighting the hills and glen with 
broad tongues of fire. The man's form, outlined sharp and 
clear, paused for an instant, then turned and passed from 
sight. 

Jimmie Brame's first greeting the following morning was: 
"Have ye seen the master, Henry?" 

" Not since night." 

" It beats all, man ; but I 'm sore troubled of a dream. Ay, 
I know he 's no* well, and I 've been fearsome the whole night. 
Mistress Hayes says he 's no' been home the whole night. I Ve 



3io THE RED-HOUSE. [June, 

been thinkin' maybe he 's sick doon at the village, and I 'm on 
my way there noo." 

Jimmie spoke fast, and, without waiting for my answer, 
went his way. Something must have befallen the master. 
Never had he been absent from home at night. It was Nancy 
Hayes's boast to the women of the parish that Geordie, who 
lodged with her, was a " trim man for the house." " Ay, ay," 
she would say, "he reads by the first rush, an' he smoket by 
the second, and then he 's awa' to bed, and he's oop by the 
first glimmer o' morn." 

While Jimmie was gone to the village I searched along the 
marsh path, for the bogs were treacherous footing at night, and 
especially when the sea tide was rolling in. There was no 
trace of the master, and when Jimmie returned, hours afterward, 
a dozen voices were calling : " Did ye find him ? " The look 
on the man's face was enough, but he answered with a sor- 
rowful shake of his head : " He 's gone for aye ; he sailed awa' 
i' the night packet. It waur unkind, not a man o' us to be 
wi' him at the goin' and call him God-speed." Then the sexton 
turned suddenly homeward ; his cheeks were wet ; I saw them 
in the sunlight. 

That night Jimmie came to my home and in his arms were 
two bundles. 

" Ay, ay, Henry, he 's gone for aye ! see for yoursel'. Tell 
me, man, what means it all? I'm no good i' the sight ony 
more." With that he handed me a letter, and it read : 

MY DEAR FRIEND : I had always hoped that your hand 
would be in mine at the parting, but it could not be. I will 
not return to Burnley. Do not seek the cause. Keep my bet- 
ter part in your memory, and forget my going. It was hard 
to leave without a greeting, but it was better so. 

You will keep the book wherein you find this note as a 
memory of me. The letter within the smaller package you are 
to give to Mistress Thane. Take the roll-book to Henry Carey. 
Give the keys to Dr. John. 

GEORDIE MOORE. 

For many days after the master's going I heard no song 
from the garden at the foot of the steep. When the school 
doors were opened the next term a new master sat in the 
chair at the desk. With the passing of the years Geordie 
Moore was almost forgotten except by a few, and these in 
time died and were buried among the cedars on the hill. One 



i8 99 .] 



THE RED-HOUSE. 




HE WENT DOWN THE BROAD WAY EVEN TO THE LAST STEP." 



day when the sound of the sickles crept among the grain, and 
the lassies were busy laying the winnow-sheets on the hill 
slopes, I came upon Margaret sitting on the school-house step. 
Miley, a sturdy chap of nine, was playing with pine cones in 
the grass, and the woman was reading from a bit of paper that 
lay open on her lap. It may have been fancy, but I believe 
to this day that she had been crying. 



312 THE RED-HOUSE. [June 

" The days are growing short i* the light, Henry," she said. 

" Ay, surely they are," I answered. 

" And the leaves are turned in the valley, and the marsh is 
brown." 

" Ay, but they 're trim for a' that." 

" They are, Henry, and Geordie loved these days. Do you 
mind how he worked wi' me in the lang meadow ? Ay, Henry, 
but I say his sickle did most o' the work. I could no* help 
but joost stand and laugh at him. And sometimes he would 
look at me so sad-like. Ay, he waur a good man. Do ye 
ever miss him, lad ? But we '11 no' see him again no, never 
again "; and the woman's voice grew soft and low, and her 
hand unconsciously crushed the paper on her lap. Two months 
later a cry of fear stilled the song that hung upon the woman's 
lips, and the tragedy of Margaret's life swept upon her with 
suddenness and terror. 

Miley had gone to the marsh for turf and had not returned. 
By night-fall the sea wind was hurling clouds of snow across 
the lowlands. For two days they sought him, and for two 
days a half-crazed mother sat by the window peering out upon 
the dreary marsh where the driving snow and sleet sheeted 
the waste of dead grass. I kept the pitiful watch with Mar- 
garet. Once she tried to pray, but her heart was out in the 
storm with the searchers. At night her pleading eyes never 
left the doorway. At every shriek of the wind, as it rattled 
down the chimney, she would start in fear, and once when a 
log in the grate cracked with a loud noise she leaped upright 
from terror. It was two hours after midnight of the second 
day when sleep, came to her; and an hour later the searchers, 
with Richard at their head, laid their gruesome burden, stiff 
and cold, upon the kitchen floor. 

Long years have not taken from my memory Margaret's 
awakening. Richard was on his knees by the quiet form of his 
only son, sobbing like a child. He began to brush the coating 
of ice from the upturned face of the dead, when a noise made 
the searchers look up. There in the doorway stood Margaret. 
One hand grasped the post for support, the other was pressed to 
her forehead. Even in the yellow glare of the rush-light her 
face shone with that strange pallor of fear. There were no tears 
in her eyes. It was only at the burial of the lad among the 
cedars that those blessed drops saved her mind from ruin. 
For an instant she stood thus then she came slowly across 
the room to the fireplace and stopped beside the corpse. Her 



1 8 9 9.] 



THE RED-HOUSE. 



eyes met those of Richard. A pause for another instant, one 
heart-shriek then unconsciousness. 

They say that the lustiness of youth can rob death of its 
terrors, but time never turned the edge of Margaret's sorrow. 
When they lowered Miley into his narrow home of clay among 
the cedars the woman's heart went with him, and the shat- 
tering of the dreams that came to her as she sat knitting the 
shoes on the porch was as keen a tragedy as the fall of a 
princely kingdom. 

From the day when that funeral train made its way home- 
ward slowly to the red-house, Richard Thane became a changed 
man. His forge was silent for days at a time. And for many 
nights together Margaret waited in vain for his home-coming. 
The victory of the grim conqueror against the home at the 
foot of the steep was as nothing to the desolation that the 
tavern beyond the headland wrought in that man's soul. He 
went down the broad way even to the last step. 

The flowers along the garden-path were uncared for. Time 
and again I sa\v Margaret wandering alone through the cedars 
on the uplands. One day when the hills were white with win- 
now-sheets and the chaff blown about by the wind, Jimmie 
Brame met me on the slope and, pointing to the red-house, 
said: " Richard 's gone to sea." 







TWO HOURS AFTER MIDNIGHT OF THE SECOND DAY SLEEP CAME TO HER." 



314 I HE RED-HOUSE. [June. 

For many days I did not see the woman. The house was 
silent and the fires of the forge were cold and dead. It was 
the third week of harvest when I met her in the glen. She 
was sitting on the school-house step, and a letter lay in her 
lap. Once before I had seen her thus, and her words came 
back to me: "But we'll no' see him again no, never again." 
As I came near she hastily put the letter into her pocket, and 
this time there were tears in her eyes. 

"Ay, Henry, it's like an awfu' dream to me that Miley 's 
gone for aye, and that his father's i' the drink. I do no' care 
for the home any more, lad ; there 's no fire i' the hearth, nor' 
a good man to come for his sup. I'm all alone now, and , my 
heart's oop there" pointing to the graveyard among the 
cedars. As I turned to go the light from the sun fell upon 
her, and I noticed that her hair was white as snow. 

III. 

For two years the woman kept her dreary, hopeless vigil 
in the house at the foot of the steep. Often I have seen her 
thin, drawn face pressed closely against the western window at 
sunset, and her eyes, dim with weary watching, were always 
turned to the bend of the village road. 

"I'm tired, lad," she said to me once. "To see Richard 
again, that's all I ask. Then I'll go home to Miley. Ay, but 
my heart 's sore for the Father's house, and peace." 

It was a day in early harvest-time. I was passing Jimmie 
Brame's garden. -He was tying the tall green stalks af the 
holyhocks to poles he had driven into the ground. Nellie was 
watering the flowers that grew along the path's edge. Her 
hair shone like the grain that falls beneath the reaper's blade, 
and on her clear face glowed the flush that plays on the leaves 
of the hedge rose. A low thrumming of insects came from the 
fields, but not a spear of grain was bending. The leaves on 
tree and shrub were drooped and parched. White, dry dust 
lay thick upon the weeds; the sandy path gleamed hot and 
yellow in the sunlight, and over the waste of marsh hung a 
purple haze. Out beyond the slender headland narrow strips 
of white lifted upward from the blue line of sea. They were 
the sails of the fishing fleet making ready for a night trip to 
the banks. 

As I came to the hedge I called out : " We need rain, 
Jimmie." 

" Ay, Henry, that we do ; an' I 'm thinking we '11 ha' it plenty 






when it comes." Then in 
a lower tone he added : 
" Margaret 's sick i' the bed, 
lad, an' I 'm thinking she 's 
no' long for the valley. 
She'll be goin' home soon." 

When I entered the red- 
house that afternoon I saw 
Doctor John sitting in the 
great arm-chair. Margaret 
lay moaning with fever. 
Through the open window 
came a warm breeze from 
the hills, burdened with the 
scent of the wild roses and 
the chant of the reapers' 
song. 

That night I kept the 
watch by the restless wo- 
man, whose mutterings were 
at first confused and rapid ; 
but in the deeper part of 
the night they grew more 
clear, and after a lull she 
began: "Ay, why did ye 
no' speak, Geordie? I lov- ' 
ed ye, ay, wi' my whole 
soul ! Could ye no' see it 
all when ye were cutting 
the grain wi' me above ? 
I hungered for ye, lad ; 
but I thought ye could 



m 



" I HRAR A WOMAN'S 

LOW, SWEET VOICE 
DRIFTING THROUGH 
THE GOLD MIST OF 
BUDS." 



316 THE RED-HOUSE. [June, 

never care for me, and I had no right to tak' ye any way no, 
no ! " There was a pause. 

" Poor Geordie, an' he loved these days." She moved un- 
easily for a second or two. 

" Ay, Henry, I could no' help but laugh at him, an' he 
would look at me so sad-like. An' he '11 no come again ; no, 
never again." A long-drawn sigh escaped her lips. Her hands 
moved feverishly over the covering as though in search of some- 
thing. Then she began as though reading from a letter. Her 
words came slowly and with quick breathing : 

"Ye must forget all that I've told you. Ye must no' think 
o' me any more. I '11 go awa' from here, an* ye '11 no' remem- 
ber my words. I loved ye well ay, my heart was alwa' longin' 
for ye ; but ye have followed another's footsteps, an' I Ve lost 
ye for aye." Here the thin, feverish hands were pressed to the 
dry lips as though she were kissing the letter from which she 
read. For an instant there was silence then a half-sob came 
from her lips, and she cried out : " O Geordie ! I loved ye 
too well, too well, lad ay wi' my whole heart ; I waur too proud 
to look at ye, but I loved ye all the time. Forgive me, lad, 
it's hard for me too but ye mus' no' ask me to forget ye no 
no. I could no' do that no' that I." . . . And then the 
poor lips trembled, the frail hands were clinched tightly in the 
bedclothes, and she shrieked aloud: "O God, Miley ! Dead! 
Dead my God, ha' mercy ! " Back upon the pillow she fell 
exhausted. And when the first streaks of red were staining 
the east I went up the steep homeward. 

They told me afterward how she died. Toward evening of 
the next day she grew slightly better, and persisted in sitting 
in the arm-chair by the window. There they found her with 
her face pressed close to the glass her open, sightless eyes 
staring down the roadway. And there in the midst of her last 
vigil the angel touched her, and the watch was ended. 

Five days later a man came up through the valley of Burn- 
ley, his face shining with a love-light that had never wholly 
died. He came with a two fold message. One of death, and 
one of life. The first told of Richard's death at sea off the 
banks of St. Pierre ; the other story lies buried in the man's 
heart. The light that was on Geordie's face as he picked his 
way across the marsh came too late Margaret's eyes had 
been sealed for ever ; and while the man went down through 
the valley at the close of day with the shadow of death press- 
ing upon him, the woman's heartaches were over for aye. 



1899-] THE RED-HOUSE. 317 

Once in the after years, at the break of the toses, a gray- 
haired man came to Burnley, whose face-lines told of a tragedy 
worse than death the tragedy of living. He came in the early 
morning when the blue smoke from the valley homes was cutting 
the air straight as an arrow's flight, toiling up the long, steep 
hill that leads to the quiet acre on the uplands. At the set of 
the sun he came down the steep, and as he passed the red- 
house at the foot he plucked a bit of the greening cedar from 
the hedge. In the dusk, I saw him glance backward at the old 
house in the shadows ; then Geordie Moore passed from my 
sight for ever. 

The two mounds in the graveyard on the hill are overrun 
with ivy and wild grasses, and the sleepers beneath them have 
been forgotten these long years. It is only when I pass the old 
house at the foot of the steep that the past with its dead comes 
back to me. Then it is that I hear a woman's low, sweet voice 
drifting through the gold mist of buds in a love song to the 
child at her breast. I can see again the longing and tears in 
Margaret's eyes as she sits on the school-house steps. And it 
all ends with the vision of the funeral train toiling its sad way up 
the steep to the cedars on the uplands. Through the gray 
mists of rain comes the sound of the priest's chant, doleful as 
the wail of wind at midnight " Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison." 




FIDELITY. 



FIDELITY. 

BY JAMES BUCKHAM. 

I HAVE no fear lest love forget, 

Though spaces vast should intervene, 

And years, like mile-posts dim, be set 
So far the outmost stands unseen. 

There is no here nor there to love ; 

It flies as far as souls can fly, 
And swift-returning as the dove, 

Brings back a token from the sky. 

Forget ? Ah ! love knows not the thought ; 

Nor love nor heav'n can change its hue. 
There never was a soul forgot, 

That held its faith serene and true. 

My own shall always be my own, 

In whatsoever realms or lands. 
And some time, ah ! what bliss unknown, 

What clasping of the outstretched hands ! 





1899-] GERMAN HUMOR. 319 



GERMAN HUMOR. 

BY CARINA B. C. EAGLESFIELD, B.A. 

|OME have doubted the existence of my subject, 
and no less a personage than Mme. de Stae'l, 
who in most respects left so true a criticism on 
Germany, may be counted among these. We 
regret that she did not know Heine, though 
she may not have considered him a German at all only a con- 
tradictory mixture of Greek and Jew. The Germans themselves 
seem to have had their doubts of the quality of their own 
humor, and Germany's greatest humorist, Jean Paul Richter, 
scores his countrymen in the following fashion : " I know the 
Germans; like metaphysicians, they wish to know everything 
from the bottom, very accurately, in large octavo, with no ex- 
cess of conciseness and few citations. They rig out an epigram 
with a preface, and a love madrigal with a table of contents. 
They determine the course of a zephyr by a sea-compass, and 
the heart of a girl by conic sections." Richter evidently appre- 
ciated and enjoyed the limitations of his fellow-citizens. 

The quality of German humor may not compare favorably 
with that of other nations, but that the quantity is surely 
sufficient for the needs of the people, the good digestions, the 
merry faces and genial appearance of the average German will 
attest as a fact. That remarkable series on " International 
Humor " which has lately been inflicted upon the public shows 
how useless it is for most people to try to understand or laugh 
at the jokes of other nations. The humor of one country may 
be so entirely unsuited to that of another as to remain a sealed 
book; it may even be quite out of range of their understand- 
ing. Yet that humor which is true to life seems destined to 
last, only local and narrow manifestations being doomed, and 
its written record is as imperishable a part of man's spiritual 
possessions as is poetry, providing only that record be the real 
reflection of life. 

This inability to penetrate into the inner life of another 
nation is a serious reflection on our limitations, and we never 
cease to be amazed by it. The French point quite as proudly 
to Alphonse Daudet as we do to Mark Twain ; yet the same 
laughter-loving, humorous Daudet could see nothing funny in 



320 GERMAN HUMOR. [June, 

the American humorist, even failing to laugh after his jokes 
had been laboriously spelled out to him. Professor Boyesen 
once told an anecdote illustrative of the vast difference in 
national point of view. While teaching German in Columbia 
College he gave to each student of his German class the task 
of writing a short autobiography, and what was his surprise to 
find that every American but one had taken it as a joke and 
made up fictitious, and in most cases very funny, autobiographies 
of themselves. But the Germans and Scandinavians, to a man, 
told their story in the most matter-of-fact and prosy way. 
Boyesen concluded that humor was the most prominent trait 
in the American character, the only one common to the entire 
nation and differentiating it from all others. 

The study of a people's humor will bring us in closer touch 
with them than the same amount of investigation in any other 
direction. The value of jests to the student of ethnology is 
little appreciated, and a study of jocular literature would do 
much to throw light on this phase of national development. 
Consider how defective our knowledge of the ancients would 
be without Aristophanes, Horace, or Juvenal! The ability to 
laugh at the same jokes which stirred the risibles of the 
Athenians does more than any learned exposition of their cus- 
toms to bring us near to that people. 

Humor seems to be a development in every nation, and the 
farther we go back in history the graver we find men. Indians 
are proverbially serious, and they represent an early stage of 
development. In some nations humor grew more rapidly than 
in others, and particular varieties characterize every nation. 
The Greeks incline to wit, the French to badinage and bons- 
mots, the English to humorous writing, and among the Germans 
humor seems to have been developed only when the nation re- 
belled against the spirit of the times. We have Luther's humor 
directed against the prevailing abuses of the church ; Lessing's 
wit against the Philistines in art; Richter sends his shafts at the 
artificialities of society, while Heine makes his bitter protest 
against the enslaved political condition of his beloved Germany. 

Being a development, we are not going to look for very 
brilliant specimens in the early German writers, and so are not 
disappointed in finding little which will bear transplanting out 
of its age and circumstances. Almost the earliest humor (ex- 
cepting the story of Reynard, which is now supposed to go far 
back of the German version) is that of Hugo von Trimberg, 
and I have no desire, after wading through his horse-play, to 



1899-] GERMAN HUMOR. 321 

give it wider circulation. To us moderns there is no humor 
in Trimberg, though he appears to have amused the Middle 
Age burghers most satisfactorily. Hans Sachs is more readily 
understood, and his verses on " St. Peter's Lesson " still raise a 
laugh. It is, however, directed at St. Peter, and there is a cer- 
tain flavor of malicious pleasure derived from the old saint's 
dilemma which we do not now associate with pure humor. The 
childhood of a people is undoubtedly more cruel than its man- 
hood, and its jokes must sting with practical application before 
they are enjoyed. A cruel, joke-loving boy often grows into a 
gentle though witty man, and when it suggested itself to me 
to test their ancient quips and witticisms on some children I 
found that they were heartily appreciated. In fact peals of 
laughter were evoked by a reading of Grimmelshausen's Raid 
on the Parson s Kitchen, and the broad allusions and irreverence 
were entirely lost on their pure young ears. The humor of 
Grimmelshausen is the best the seventeenth century can show ; it 
is moreover as broad as Homeric laughter, and so racy and native 
to the soil that it must truly represent the life of the period. 
The colors are all dashed in and there are no fine lines, but 
then the people of that day did not probably understand nice 
distinctions, and a humorous etching would be lost upon them. 

The growth of individualism in nations is steady and con- 
stant, suffering few interruptions. In art we see it in the chang- 
ing character of the human face. All mediaeval painters gave a 
certain uniform type to the face and even figure, and the 
literature of humor proves them true to life in so doing. Men 
looked more like each other then than now, and sharp dis- 
tinctions in feature and expression were not so commonly 
seen. Knights had a certain expression, priests another, 
burghers still another; but each class looks astonishingly alike. 
As types multiplied and blended into each other, the humor 
grew more individual and less uniform, till we find its culmina- 
tion in the dialect sketches of Reuter and his followers. 

Does this not partly explain why we find so little humor 
among Oriental nations ? Individualism is not and never has 
been cultivated by the Oriental. The tendency of their re- 
ligions is to suppress personality, and their highest ideal of 
happiness is summed up in the word " Nirvana," which is a 
merging of the individual into the godhead, an entire forget- 
fulness of separate existence. This view of life is inimical to 
the evolution of humor, and as we grow away from it the 
humor of the race is bound to improve. 
VOL. LXIX. 21 



322 GERMAN HUMOR. [June, 

The Germans think that their humor has come from exter- 
nal impulse, and I doubt whether the highest quality can be 
thus developed. Humor to be of the lasting kind must smack of 
the soil, of the people, and give a true picture of their life. 
The Germans are predisposed by temperament to the humor- 
ous view, and the reason may lie in the deep seriousness of 
their outlook upon life. The practical struggle for existence 
comes too near to them ; they see the incongruities of things, 
but are so deeply moved thereby that tears, not laughter, are 
evoked. One step further would lead them into the calm region 
of humor, but as yet that step has not often been taken, and 
we look to the new civilization in Germany to lead the 'people 
into a higher development of the humorous faculty. The won- 
derful strides which Germany has made in the past few years 
in the commercial world, her expansion of trade and the in- 
creased ease of living, all tend to give the nation a chance to 
cultivate its innate humor. A certain amount of comfort and 
freedom from carking cares are essential to the humorous view, 
for a man does not incline to joke when he is half starved or 
in danger of being arrested for " lese majesteV' 

A nation which can boast of such music and poetry must 
be intensely emotional, too much so for humor to be generally 
exhibited. When one considers the extravagance of emotional- 
ism in the Werther period, one is tempted to think that a nation 
which could at one time be so silly, so sentimental, and so wise 
can have no sense of humor. Yet, when the revolt came, the 
nation, and with it Goethe, the author of the Werther craze, 
was sane enough to laugh. 

There is deep wisdom in the humorous view, and the strong- 
est minds are most capable of seeing the ludicrous : but Emer- 
son has expressed the high function of humor so much better 
than any one else that I will quote the entire passage. He 
says: "A perception of the comic seems to be a balance-wheel 
in our metaphysical structure, an essential element in a fine 
character. Wherever the intellect is constructive it will be 
found. We feel the absence of it as a defect in the most noble 
and oracular soul. The perception of the comic is a tie of 
sympathy between other men, a pledge of sanity, and a pro- 
tection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in 
which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive 
to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, noth- 
ing can be done for him." 

The value of humor for all sorts and conditions of men is 



1899-] GERMAN HUMOR. 323 

immense. It strips the unreal from religion, social conventions, 
and art ; and every one needs above all else a sense of humor 
to help him to support life. The appalling rate of suicide in 
Germany would doubtless be lower if the iron of circumstances 
had not eaten so deeply into their national character as to 
weaken this saving quality. 

The highest expression of the German intellect is found in 
Goethe, and he combined humor with his most tragic creations. 
He is almost as full of humor as Shakspere himself. Schiller, 
who is more typically German, had little humor, and is much 
like the English Wordsworth, though Schiller shows his supe- 
riority in wishing he had more, while Wordsworth is not known 
to have regretted the fatal lack. 

We are indebted to Cicero for this apt simile, that " a jest- 
book is like a salt-pit, out of which we can extract salt to 
sprinkle where we will," and we fail to find anything which is 
not improved by the salt of humor. It is significant that the 
most unfruitful periods in German literature have been those 
in which the ebullitions of wit were most rarely heard, and their 
great intellectual eras have invariably been ushered in by the 
outposts of humor. Luther was a wit and a humorist, though of 
an exceedingly coarse variety. Lessing was the forerunner of 
the classical period, and his weapons were polished wit and 
biting irony. Poor unhappy Heine helped to pave the way for 
German unity, and his patriotism scintillated and flashed like a 
two-edged scimiter. 

But the German sense of humor is best shown in their 
humorous tales, in which the pathetic verges on the comical, 
and one vacillates between smiles and tears. Dickens had this 
German aspect, and his stories have an immense following with 
them. Just such stories as Dickens delighted in writing are 
frequently met with in the German, though no German novel- 
ist has as yet equalled Dickens in his knowledge of the story- 
teller's art. He had the supreme ability to tell a tale, and 
that is what the average German novelist has not. 

Till we reach Wieland, in the latter part of the eighteenth 
century, we find little or no humor which seems to deserve 
mention. Wieland, however, had several qualities which are 
too rarely found among his countrymen, light and graceful 
humor, and keen, satirical wit. He will be remembered longest, 
without doubt, because of his romance of the "Abderites," a 
story dealing with the follies and foibles of provincial life under 
the guise of ancient Greece. The story is full of effective 



324 GERMAN HUMOR. [June, 

satire, and there are in it many excellent hits. One episode 
deserves quoting : " There was only one surgeon dentist in 
Abdera, who travelled in a lowly way from place to place with 
a donkey and hired driver. It was a terribly hot summer day, 
and the doctor was crossing a wide heath where there was no 
shade from bush or tree. So he was glad to sit down and 
rest awhile in the shadow cast by the figure of the donkey. 
Against this appropriation of his donkey's shade the driver 
objected, saying the dentist had not rented the shadow of the 
donkey when he rented the services of the animal. The den- 
tist must come out of the shade or pay something for the use 
of it. He refused and a lawsuit followed. The best lawyers 
were employed on both sides, and soon the whole town was 
divided into two parties, styled respectively ' donkeys ' and 
'shadows.' So bitter was their enmity that a 'donkey' would 
not sit down at the same table with a 'shadow.'" 

From Wieland to Richter is a long step, but no other writer 
seems to possess enough humor to justify being lifted out of 
his well-earned oblivion. Bayard Taylor, whose knowledge of 
and sympathy with Germany was deep, believed that much 
humorous writing was done by Lichtenberg and Fischart, but I 
feel sure that his judgment was too partial. Richter stands 
alone, head and shoulders above all other Germans. He was 
called, even in Germany, " der Einzige" " the only one"; and 
Schiller once remarked that Richter seemed to have fallen from 
the moon. In passing judgment on so bizarre a creature one 
is reminded of the old proverb : " What is most extraordinary 
try to look at with your own eyes." And this I have tried to 
do, yet no man ever appeared so difficult of analysis. At 
times he seems a German of the Germans, at others no coun- 
try on the face of the globe could claim him, so strange is the 
jumble of fancies which he sets before us. But at all times 
he is a genius, there can be no doubt on that score, and a 
genuine humorist. His fame began in 1796, when he stormed, 
as he called it, "the sacred citadel of Weimar," going there to 
make Goethe and Schiller a visit. This fame rested on his 
book Hesperus, though he had previously written some satires, 
which he called " the product of his vinegar factory." But 
Richter's nature was alien to satire ; was too gentle and kindly, 
and too deeply moved by the sorrows of human beings, to 
excel in this style of writing, and, fortunately for him, he under- 
stood himself so well as to soon abandon this field. Mr. 
Lowell once said that " true humor is never divorced from 



1899.] GERMAN HUMOR. 325 

moral conviction," and in Richter we find the essence of his 
humor extracted from his sound morality and love for his fel- 
low-men. Everything he touched was transformed by his 
humor, sometimes so grotesquely that the likeness is perverted 
and the picture only a caricature. Carlyle recommended Rich- 
ter to universal study, and if it is given to any one to repro- 
duce Richter's style, Carlyle was the man to succeed. His lack 
of form is almost as striking as Richter's ; and both men felt 
that they had the privilege of taking any liberty they pleased 
with their mother tongue. The most serious defect in Richter's 
genius is this lack of form. If he can be said to have any 
style, it is so entirely his own that it comes under no rules of 
criticism. He luxuriates in the wildest liberty of expression, 
and the result of his vast reading is given in season and out 
of season, in the body of the work, or in foot-notes which 
bear not the slightest connection with anything previously said. 
It is difficult to gather an idea of the exuberance of his humor 
from a mere extract, but to establish good our claim I have 
selected Von Kabel's Last Will and Testament as offering an 
example which can easily be appreciated by any nationality. 
It seems that Von Kabel was a very rich old philanthropist 
who did not intend leaving any of his vast fortune to his 
greedy relatives, yet on his death they all appeared, and the 
story turns on the reading and contents of the will. Seven 
heirs came to the funeral; after leaving millions to the town, 
the last clause read as follows: " I leave my house to that one 
of the seven gentlemen who, in one-half hour from the reading 
of the paragraph, shall outdo -his six rivals by being the first 
to shed a tear over me, his deceased relative, before an honor- 
able magistrate, who shall register the fact. Should there be a 
drought at the end of that time, then the property goes else- 
where." The struggles of the "seven dry provinces" to weep 
within the prescribed time are irresistibly funny, and the humor 
is spontaneous and natural. The victory is finally awarded to 
the poor school-master, Flasch, when he rise?, saying: "I be- 
lieve, gentlemen, I am weeping." He then sits down and lets 
the tears run cheerfully down his cheeks. 

The transition from Richter to Heine is as abrupt as 
though one were to turn from a garden full of lively, happy 
children to the fever ward of a hospital. The two men had 
nothing but genius in common, and that each had in abundant 
measure. What Richter lacked in form Heine had in perfec- 
tion, and the German language under the magic of his touch 
loses all traces of its customary stiffness and harshness, and be- 



326 GERMAN HUMOR. [June, 

comes flexible, musical, witty, and pointed. Heine, in fact, re- 
created German prose, and his style has ever since been the 
coveted model of every writer. There is something of a uni- 
versal genius in Heine ; his wit is understood by every nation, 
yet one does not perceive the national flavor in it to the ex- 
clusion of its clearness. His humor appears best in his prose, 
though he lets its bright shafts gleam in many a lyric. Some- 
times indeed he spoils a beautiful poem by his fatal lack of 
seriousness and coarse irreverence. His mind was undoubtedly 
diseased, and his pathological condition will explain his frequent 
lapses from good taste. Heine's humor is never persistent, 
Richter's was too much so ; we grow weary of being caught in 
its interminable meshes, and long to hear something positively 
sad to drive the laughter from our faces. Heine's Pictures of 
Travel bear the test of time better than any other piece of hu- 
morous writing in German. In them we traverse the entire 
circle of humor, wit, poetry, and prose. The turns he makes 
from pathetic to tragic, from lofty flights of beautiful fancies 
to baldest statements of facts, are like nothing so much as 
glittering sheets of summer lightning. Many an exquisite pic- 
ture is sacrificed to the mocking demon of his wit, and in this 
evil propensity Heine resembles Byron, though so superior to 
him in lyric genius. It seems as though he dared not take 
himself seriously, lest the agony of living break his heart. 
Heine is always making fun of the Jews and of his apostasy to 
Christianity. Of his school-days he says : " I could never get 
far in Greek ; it went better with Hebrew, for I always had a 
great predilection for the Jews, though they to this day have 
crucified my good name. In fact, I could never get as far in 
Hebrew as my watch did, which had a much more intimate in- 
tercourse with the pawnbrokers than I, and in consequence ac- 
quired many Jewish traits ; for instance, it would not go on 
Saturday." And in another place he says: " I will say nothing 
against Gumpel's nose, for it was evident from it that he was 
of high nobility and descended from that ancient world family 
into which the Blessed Lord himself once married without fear 
of a mesalliance. Since those days the family have come down 
a little ; in fact are often obliged to pick up a living by selling 
old pantaloons and lottery tickets. But they have not lost the 
hope of some day coming into their own property, or at least 
obtaining emigration damages with interest, when their old 
legitimate sovereign keeps the promises by which he has been 
leading them about by the nose ever since. Perhaps this lead- 
ing them about by the nose is the cause why the latter has 



1899-] GERMAN HUMOR. 327 

been pulled out to such a length, or it may be that these long 
noses are a sort of uniform whereby Jehovah recognizes his old 
body guard, even when they have deserted." Heine's anomalous 
position of a converted Jew was awkward and mortifying, and 
his sharpest stings were directed against his childhood's faith. 

Till the present century one could count on the fingers of 
one hand all the humorous productions of the first class in Ger- 
man, but the last fifty years have brought forth many genial 
and witty writers. None, it is true, equal Richter or Heine, 
but each is doing his own particular work with patient fidelity 
to nature and genuine natural endowment. Most of the very 
modern humorists use so much dialect that it is almost impos- 
sible to get anything like a good translation. Reuter wrote in 
Platt Deutsch, Eckstein is full of school-boy slang, and Stinde, the 
greatest of moderns, uses the Berlin dialect so generously that one 
must have lived there to enjoy him. He is the Mark Twain of 
Germany, and is considered by many his superior. But Scheffel and 
Raabe and Hauff can be translated, and their humor bears the test. 

The Germans frequently make the statement that much of 
the newspaper wit of America comes from German papers, and 
it would be interesting to make a comparison between their re- 
spective funny columns. I will frankly confess that I do not 
dare to hazard an opinion on this delicate and ticklish subject, 
preferring to leave the question to my readers. Nothing so 
tests or strains a friendship as an adverse criticism of one's 
favorite jokes, and nothing so humiliates a man as to see a 
room full of grinning faces where his alone remains serious. 
The Fatherland and Uncle Sam are closely knit together 
through many a tie of blood and kindred, and, as it is beyond 
doubt that they can enjoy the music, art, and poetry of both 
countries, it is not so serious a matter if there remains some 
difficulty in laughing at the same jokes. 

So far Germany has not had a humorist who can take his 
stand at the side of Cervantes, Shakspere, or Aristophanes, but 
the time may come when she will raise wits and humorists 
equal to those of any country. George Eliot comes to a sin- 
gular conclusion in her estimate of German humor when she 
says : " We have noticed that the pointless and stupid jocularity 
of the boy may ultimately be developed into the epigrammatic 
brilliancy and polished playfulness of the man ; so we believe 
that racy wit and chastened delicate humor are inevitably the 
results of invigorated and refined mental activity, we can also 
believe that Germany will one day yield a crop of wits and 
humorists." But I do not at all agree with her. The Germans 



328 GERMAN HUMOR. [June, 

have passed far beyond the age of bo}hood; they not only 
equal in intellectual development all other nations but sur- 
pass them in many directions, so their " stupid jocularity " does 
not belong to an early stage of development. The nation has 
already reached manhood, and if they are not as brilliant and 
epigrammatic as others, we must look elsewhere for the solu- 
tion. But why are they deficient in this ability ? Emerson's 
essay on the " Comic " suggests a solution which does not lack 
humor in itself. He says : " Reason does not joke, and men of 
reason do not ; a prophet in whom the moral sentiment pre- 
dominates, or a philosopher in whom the love of truth pre- 
dominates, these do not joke, but they bring the standard, the 
ideal whole, exposing all actual defect; and hence, the best of 
all jokes is the sympathetic contemplation of things by the un- 
derstanding from the philosopher's point of view." We must 
grant that Germany is full of philosophers and logicians and 
prophets as a nut is full of meat, and if we accept Mr. Emer- 
son's curious definition we must take it for granted also that 
these serious philosophers are constantly seeing jokes which are 
invisible to commoner mortals. 

It cannot be entirely a matter of development, this genius 
for humor, since with this one exception Germany leads the 
world of thought. The reason lies further back, even in the 
constitution of the national character, and if one could describe 
the lack by one happy phrase,'! should say that this poverty 
of wit arises from an inherent lack of tact in the German 
character. Now, literary tact is as powerful an agent as social 
or political tact, of which we hear so much, and its presence 
implies those qualities which mark all great humorous creations. 
Without tact there is no sense of time, of order, of gradation ; 
no ability to prune, nor take the reader's place and view the 
performance from the outside. This is the secret of the failure 
of German prose to come up to the standard of other nations, 
and the addition of this one little word tact to their humorous 
writing would raise to the highest place much which will now 
always rank as second. 

If tact can be developed, as George Eliot thinks, then there 
is no reason to doubt that Germany will attain to its posses- 
sion at some future day. Then we will have the exuberance 
of Richter pruned to classical brevity, the wit of Stinde and 
Eckstein and Reuter true to human nature at large, and the 
whole world will share what is now only enjoyed by those of 
the Germanic race alone. 




BEGUINES PAST AND PRESENT. 329 



BEGUINES PAST AND PRESENT. 

BY VIRGINIA M. CRAWFORD. 

MID all, in modern Belgium, that is characteristic 
of the ancient Flemish provinces, nothing neither 
belfry nor town hall, neither the Gothic cathe- 
drals with their Renaissance decoration, nor the 
stately high-gabled guild-houses testifying to the 
prosperity and piety of earlier centuries is so exclusively re- 
presentative of Flanders as the Beguinages, which have existed in 
many cities since the close of the twelfth century. They pre- 
sent a unique aspect of the Catholic and religious life of the 
nation. They are the direct outcome of that solid Flemish 
piety, at once practical and mystical, which illuminates the 
canvases of Memling and Matsys, and has left an ineffaceable 
imprint on the social life of the people ; and although, in the 
days of their early prosperity, the Beguinages spread with 
wonderful rapidity into neighboring countries, it has been in 
their native land alone that they have survived the transforma- 
tions of seven long centuries. They form a link with the past, 
glorious in those annals of religion, of art, of commerce, of 
civic prosperity to which the Belgian of to-day is wisely turn- 
ing for inspiration, and of which he is jealously preserving the 
precious monuments that have come down to him. Among 
these the Beguinages have an honored place, and signs are 
not wanting that these mediaeval institutions are taking on 
themselves a fresh lease of life and that they still respond, as 
they responded seven centuries ago, to the special social and 
religious needs of the Flemish people. 

It was in 1180, some forty years before the Saint of Assisi, 
south of the Alps, conceived the scheme of his great Tertiary 
Order, that Lambert le Begue, a holy, stammering priest of 
Liege, founded the first bguinage, a little cluster of humble 
cottages erected around a chapel, in which poor and pious 
widows could live in safe retirement. It was a first tentative 
effort towards bridging over the chasm that had hitherto 
separated the world from the cloister, a first step towards the 
work of Dominic and Francis, which, in the very next century, 
was to take on itself such marvellous proportions. Already the 



330 BEGUINES PAST AND PRESENT. [June, 

Crusades were draining Europe of her noblest sons, her ablest 
and most valiant fighters. Many spent long years in the East, 
very many never returned at all, and wives and daughters, in 
addition to the loss of their loved ones, were frequently reduced 
to terrible want and misery. Many women took the veil in 
cloistered communities, but many more felt in themselves no 
call to the strictly religious life, or were debarred by the cir- 
cumstances of their position, or by the lack of dowry necessary 
to obtain admission. It was for such as these that the holy 
Lambert founded his first philanthropic institute, which was 
intended to be largely dependent on the alms of the charitable ; 
and that his action was in harmony with the need of the times 
is shown by the rapid adoption of his scheme in other towns. 
Within half a century it had found imitators throughout 
Flanders and Northern France ; it had penetrated into North 
Germany, up the Rhine to Cologne and Strasburg, and from 
thence into Switzerland. 

The Bguines, as they soon called themselves after their 
stammering founder, or, as some say, after St. Begga, a holy 
matron of the seventh century, or again, in more prosaic 
fashion, because in their poverty they were reduced to beg for 
alms (Flemish beggen, to beg), were never in the strict sense of 
the word nuns, and probably it was only by degrees that a 
modified religious rule was adopted by what seem to have 
been in the first instance simply little secular communities. 
They took no perpetual vows; they did not surrender the con- 
trol of what property they might possess; they were entitled 
to leave the community at their pleasure, even to marry after 
having done so. But as long as they were inmates of the 
Beguinage, as the cluster of little cottages came to be 
called, they were pledged to a life of prayer and poverty and 
humility ; they took temporary vows of obedience and chastity^ 
and performed the community exercises in common ; they 
labored with their hands, visited the sick, undertook various 
corporal works of mercy, and submitted themselves to a life re- 
gulated by routine and protected by many of the minor ob- 
servances of the religious state. The inmates lived on the plan 
that still prevails in alms houses, in little cottages built to ac- 
commodate one or two or three persons ; but as a rule the 
Beguinage was enclosed within walls, and could only be ap- 
proached through a gateway under charge of a portress. 
Necessarily, the privacy of each little house permitted a free- 
dom in the details of life which could not obtain in a con- 



1 8 9 9-] 



BEGUINES PAST AND PRESENT. 



33i 



vent cloister. Moreover, the Bguines were allowed, under 
certain regulations, to leave the enclosure, to visit their rela- 
tives in the city, and to make their own small purchases of 
food and clothing. It was in this very freedom that the attrac- 
tion of the life lay 
for elderly wo- 
men, and for wid- 
ows accustomed 
to the regulation 
of their own house- 
holds, who could 
not accommodate 
themselves to the 
rigorous renuncia- 
tion of the clois- 
ter. Yet in its 
main aspects the 
life was a religi- 
ous one. "The 
B 6 g u i n e s " to 
quote the words 
of Miss Mary 
Robinson, who 
has a sympathetic 
chapter on their 
origin in her vol- 
ume of essays, 
The End of the 
Middle Ages 
" were the ser- 
vants, if they were 




"THE BEGUINES WERE ALLOWED, UNDER CERTAIN REGULA- 
TIONS, TO LEAVE THE ENCLOSURE." 



not the Spouses of Christ. They were not called to heights 
of sanctity, to miracles of renunciation rather to sober, un- 
emotional, every-day goodness, to humble services for suffer- 
ing humanity. Even in the early years of their develop- 
ment the word Bguine became a term of reproach on the 
lips of the worldly. They never enjoyed the consideration be- 
stowed on their cloistered sisters. For a short time, indeed, 
during the thirteenth century much honor accrued to them 
through the sanctity of one of their number, Mechtilde of 
Magdeburg, who was gifted with visions, and poured out her 
love of God in ecstatic poems which were sung in the vernacu- 
lar by all the people of the city. And two centuries later 



BEGUINES PAST AND PRESENT. 



[June, 



tliere was the little Beguine, Mathieuse, to whom, 
in a moment of trouble, the great crucifix be- 
fore which she was praying deigned to address 
words of counsel and comfort. The crucifix, 
black with age, hangs to this day in the church 
if the Grand Beguinage at Ghent, and is an ob- 
ject of devotion to all the sisterhood. But in a 
general way the record of individual Beguines 
lias not come down to us; their identity has 
been blotted out beneath the long black veils that 
enveloped them whenever they crossed the -thres- 
hold of their humble dwellings." 

In their original form the Beguinages enjoyed 
i prosperity of comparatively short duration. 
There seems to have been no connecting links 
between the various communities, no organized 
ecclesiastical supervision to insist on the rule 
;md to deal with irregularities. As the number 
of the foundations grew, and the first fervor of 
the inmates declined, the evil results of this want 
of definite organization made themselves felt. 
Already by the middle of the thirteenth century 
many of these praying communities of ignorant 
women became tainted with a mystical panthe- 
ism, which was undermining much of the con- 
templative life of the period. From the first there 
had been many connecting links between the hum- 
ble Beguines and the still humbler Beghards, or 
Weaving Brothers, of contemporary Flemish 
origin, who early incurred the condemnation of 
the church for their pantheistic errors. And 
somewhat later many of the communities fell under the influence 
of the Fraticclli, or apostate Franciscans, who, filled with a false 
zeal for the rigors of poverty, wandered through Europe preach- 
ing against the authority of the church, and accusing bishops, 
and even the popes themselves, of every corruption. In imita- 
tion of the Fraticclli, some of the Beguines left their homes and 
entered on a wandering mendicant life. Heresy soon begat 
laxity of morals. In 1244 the Archbishop of Mayence decreed 
that no woman under forty years of age should be admitted 
to the Beguinages in his diocese, and numerous decrees from 
Rome pronounced censures alike on Beguines and Beg- 
hards. 



" INS I INCT WITH 
MEDIAEVAL CHARM. 



1 899.] 



BEGUINES PAST AND PRESENT. 



333 



It was to the two great Tertiary orders of Franciscans and 
Dominicans that the church turned for the reform of the dis- 
organized Beguines, and by degrees all that was orthodox and 
reputable among them was enrolled under the banner of one 
or other of the great founders. By these means the Beguines 
still retained all that was valuable and practical in their original 
features ; their essential scheme of life, midway between the 
world and the cloister, remained unaltered, but they were hence- 
forth guided and 
disciplined by a 
definite and re- 
cognized rule, and 
were brought into 
close contact with 
the religious life 
of the church. 
Dominican or 
Franciscan friars 
were appointed 
confessors and 
chaplains to the 
various communi 
ties, and every 
B6guinage was 
henceforth gov- 
erned by its 
"grande dame," 
or sup e ri o ress, 
who, aided by a 
council of dis- 
erects, watched 
over the secular 
interests of the 
community and 
maintained the 
necessary d isc i- 
pline. The unreformed communities were definitely condemned 
by the church at the Council of Vienne in 1311, and from that 
time forward they lingered on in an unrecognized form, sub- 
sisting on the inexhaustible charity of the poor, and throwing 
in their lot with the vast crowd of pious mendicants whose ex- 
istence throughout Europe presented one of the most difficult 
problems with which the church had to deal at that time. By 




BUILT ON A PLEASANTLY IRREGULAR PLAN STOOD ROWS OF 
PRIM LITTLE GOTHIC HOUSES." 



334 BEGUINES PAST AND PRESENT. [June, 

the beginning of the fifteenth century all mention of them dies 
out of contemporary chronicles. 

In the Flemish provinces many of the great Bguinages 
submitted themselves at once to the new rule imposed by the 
church, and it is as communities of Franciscan and Dominican 
tertiaries that they have subsisted with varying fortunes to this 
day. Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Mechlin can each boast a com- 
munity of Bguines in their midst, who are regarded by the 
people with a reverent affection. It is, however, to Ghent that 
one must go in order to see the life of a Beguinage in its full 
and most perfect development. At Bruges, in the ancient B- 
guinage by the Minnewater, more than half the little white- 
washed houses stand empty, and a mere handful of sisters 
assemble in the old church for the daily office. At Ghent, on 
the other hand, the Grand Beguinage contains to-day no less 
than 550 B6guines within its sheltering walls. It is a city 
within a city an oasis of spiritual peace and mediaeval calm 
and solid Catholic piety in the midst of the bustle and conten- 
tion and rivalries of a great industrial centre. 

Thither, furnished with a letter of introduction to one of 
the superiors, I wended my way last August, passed the Porte 
d'Anvers, through narrow and somewhat malodorous streets, to 
a sober Gothic gate-house. As I passed beneath the archway, 
I seemed to step into a new world. Within, a high Gothic 
church with tall, slender spire, rose up from a wide expanse of 
green turf, and all round, built on a pleasantly irregular plan, 
stood rows of prim little Gothic houses, two stories high, built 
of brick, with stone facings and high-pitched roofs, and gabled 
windows. The paved streets were immaculately clean, and 
practically deserted ; here and there a single black-veiled figure 
passed with quick, decided step, but over all there lay an 
almost solemn hush beneath the bright noon-day sun. Never 
was I in a more soothing, reposeful spot, instinct with mediaeval 
charm. And yet, as a matter of fact, the whole enclosure has 
barely been built a quarter of a century. The old original 
Beguinage was situated in a different quarter of Ghent, but 
partly owing to the attitude of petty persecution adopted 
towards the community by the Liberal government of that day, 
and partly owing to the fact that the land on which it stood 
was required by the municipality for town improvements, its 
very existence was threatened. A number of leading Belgian 
Catholics came to the assistance of the Be"guines in their dis- 
<-r P o<; an rt generously took upon themselves the erection of a 



1 899.] 



BEGUINES PAST AND PRESENT. 



335 



new Beguinage on condi- 
tions that rendered it se- 
cure from all danger of 
state or municipal inter- 
ference in the future. The 
Duke of Arenberg present- 
ed the necessary land, and 
the planning of the pious 
little city was entrusted to 
M. Verhaegen, a noted au- 
thority on Gothic architec- 
ture, who carried out his 
task with really delightful 
results. 

The enclosure contains 
eighty houses, each inha- 
bited by two, three, or four 
Be"guines, and fourteen con- 
vents, each designed to ac- 
commodate from twenty to 
thirty inmates. Every B- 
guine must have lived six 
years in a convent and 
have reached the age of 
thirty before she is en- 
titled to a share in a house, 

and, as a matter of fact, many continue to live in the convents 
from choice. All the buildings stand back some three or four 
yards from the roadway, from which they are divided by a high 
wall and solid Gothic gateway. On each conventual door is in- 
scribed the dedication of the house in Gothic lettering: "Huis 
van S. Godelieve," or S. Begghe, as the case may be. I noticed 
as I passed that the names of the popular Flemish saints pre- 
dominated, then those of the great saints of the Franciscan and 
Dominican orders. The Bguines of Ghent follow the rule of 
St. Dominic, and their church is served by three friars of the 
order. I did not penetrate into any of the little houses, but at 
two of the convents I met with the kindest of welcomes and 
was allowed to inspect all the internal arrangements. I was 
charmed with all I saw. 

The space between the house and the wall is invariably laid 
out as a garden, with diminutive flower-beds and narrow paved 
walks. Those that I entered were bright with geraniums and 




HOTEL DE VILLE, GHENT. 



336 BEGUINES PAST AND PRESENT. [June, 

begonias, and were tended by the sisters with lavish care. 
Within the convents reigned the scrupulous cleanliness for 
which the Flemish housewife is celebrated. Dainty white cur- 
tains to every window softened the conventual aspect of the 
rooms, and the Bguines, busy in kitchen and workroom, looked 
up with a friendly nod and a bright smile as we passed. A 
very great deal of beautiful needle-work is produced by the 
community, and they frequently have many more orders for 
trousseaux and layettes than they can carry out. Each sister 
is paid for the work she does, and is allowed to take private 
orders ; and, indeed, it is mainly by needle-work that the poorer 
Bguines eke out their slender resources. Each convent has 
its large, airy workroom, where the Bguines all sit apart, sew- 
ing in silence, with their work on a little square desk before 
them. Upstairs the cells are a little more spacious and a little 
less rigorously bare than those of a convent. Poor, indeed, 
they are, and simple, but there is an undeniable charm in these 
little Gothic chambers with their blue or white bed-curtains, 
their little shelf of books, their pious prints, their immaculate 
neatness. 

But of all the features of a Be"guinage none is so character- 
istic as the refectory. Here, in the place of the long con- 
ventual table, a succession of what appear to be high, square, 
wooden cupboards are ranged round the room. These are 
fitted with upper and lower doors; the upper portion being 
opened, a tray can be drawn forward, and the sister sits in 
front of it to eat her dinner, the cupboard door screening her 
from the observation of her neighbor. In principle, each 
B<guine is responsible for her own food. She may cook or 
procure for herself what she likes, keeping it in her own cup- 
board, together with her own crockery and cutlery. As a 
matter of convenience, however, the daily soup and potatoes 
are usually cooked in common, and so also is the whole of the 
Sunday dinner, in order that on that day, at least, even the 
poorest of the Bguines need not stint herself. But as regards 
the details of the food, each inmate caters for herself and 
follows her own tastes, and in order that no envious compari- 
sons may come to mar the perfect charity by which all should 
be united, no one is allowed to pry into her neighbor's cup- 
board. It is a quaint arrangement, and the privileges it con- 
fers are much prized by the Beguines, who, though none of 
them are rich, are nearly all possessed of some small means, 
to which they can add by the work of their needle. Needless 



1 899.] 



BEGUINES PAST AND PRESENT. 



337 



to say, however, that where a Be"guine is really destitute, and 
is debarred from work by age or infirmity, she is zealously 
tended at the general expense of the community, while the 
more well-to-do inmates of the houses are allowed in their old 
age to pay for the services of their younger and poorer sisters. 

The dress of a 
Be"guine when in- 
doors consists of 
a black serge 
habit, a blue 
apron, and a stiff 
white cap. When 
they go out they 
pin on to their 
heads a very large 
black veil which 
falls round them 
like a cloak, and 
in church, for 
Mass and Bene- 
diction, they fur- 
ther wear a stiff 
white veil, which 
I am told has a 
very picturesque 
effect. Unfortu- 
nately I was not 
able to be present 
at any service in 
their fine Gothic 
church, which has 
some good inter- 
nal decoration in 
polychrome d e- 
sign. It is, however, the floor of the church which attracts the 
immediate attention of the visitor. The whole of the spacious 
nave is occupied by alternate rows of bright blue cloth cushions 
and low, blue-seated stools. These are for the use of the in- 
mates of the convents, each one of which has its allotted space, 
the superiors and the inmates of the houses occupying blue- 
seated chairs and pries-dieu in the aisles. The bright blue 
against the white of the well-scrubbed boards has a pleasantly 
cheerful effect. Quite separate from the church is a charming 
VOL. LXIX. 22 




THE PAVED STREETS WERE IMMACULATELY CLEAN AND 
PRACTICALLY DESERTED." 



. ,,. 

338 BGL*r.\ T Es PAST ANg ^PRESENT. [June, 

little chapel of St. Anthony, tQ^. whom '.the community entertain 
a special devotion, and at whose' -altar the holy Mass is fre- 
quently offered. 

The daily life of the Bguines is an alternation between 
prayer and needle-work. They have no obligatory office to 
say, but on the other hand they have a great deal of vocal 
prayer. The whole life is led in community ; the Bguine 
never retires to her cell for private reading or meditation ; all 
the devotions are recited in common. Rising at half-past four, 
she hastens to the church for Mass and meditation, generally 
returning there for a second Mass at 7 o'clock after her frugal 
breakfast. Domestic duties occupy the early hours of the 
morning, cooking, laundry, and housework being undertaken in 
turn by the sisters. The hour from nine to ten is daily de- 
voted to reciting the fifteen decades of the Rosary with suitable 
short meditations. Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is 
given in the church every afternoon at sunset. There is very 
little regular recreation ; conversation is allowed over the work 
for an hour after the early dinner, and again for a short time 
in the evening; but it is only on Sundays and feast-days that 
general recreations are held, when the younger members play 
at bowls, and every one is expected to join in the mild diver- 
sions of the hour. There is necessarily, however, a good deal 
of intercourse with the outside world to break the monotony 
of the daily routine. Customers have to be received and visit- 
ed, and many errands executed in the town. After the age of 
forty every Bguine is free to go out alone ; they may all visit 
their friends in Ghent with moderate frequency, and once a year 
they may absent themselves from the Bguinage for a fortnight. 

In one respect, at leas f , the Bguines seem to have departed 
from the original scheme of their pious founder: there are 
practically no widows among them, although they are not ex- 
cluded by any rule. Women join the order at every age, but 
the majority enter young, prepared to spend their whole life in 
the homely, peaceful retirement. They belong for the most 
part to the petite bourgeoisie, to the farmer and well-to-do peas- 
ant class; they are the women whose lives, if lived. in solitude, 
are singularly lonely, limited to the most petty interests, and 
frequently overshadowed by a sense of failure. To such as 
these the horizon of the Bguinage, far from being a narrow 
one, is wider than that of their own homes ; their natures ex- 
pand beneath its softening influences and they grow in all those 
virtues that go to make sweet, cheerful, kindly women. For 



1 899.] 




" DAINTY WHITE CURTAINS SOFTENED THE CONVENTUAL ASPECT." 

such indeed they all seemed to be with whom I had the good 
fortune to come in contact during my too brief visit. The 
modern philanthropist, with his passion for utility, would per- 
haps like to see them embark on definite charitable labors, 
hospitals, refuges, or the like. Without examining whether or 
not such a course would be practicable, it is surely sufficient 
justification for their existence that they fill a distinct place in 
the social life of the city, while the example of their industry, 
their piety, their unaffected goodness is probably all the more 
potent because their lives, though separate, are yet in such 
close touch with those of their sisters in the world. To me it 
seemed that in no other place could one realize so forcibly the 
binding power of God's love. For here, in the Grand B6guin- 
age, without the searching discipline of the cloister, over five 
hundred women are living in absolute charity one toward the 
other, with a charming courtesy in their daily intercourse, and 
a real sisterly affection for one another in their hearts. Only 
the Catholic faith can so transform frail feminine nature. 
Only the Catholic Church can turn her humblest daughters to 
such admirable purpose. 




340 MR. WHISTLER AND THE EXPATRIATED. [June, 



MR. WHISTLER AND THE EXPATRIATED. 

BY FRANK WARD O'MALLEY. 

! R. WHISTLER is a poster-artist, isn't he?" a 
gentleman asked me recently. My questioner is 
not an American of only ordinary education if 
he were, he probably never would have even 
heard of Mr. Whistler but a man that has had 
the advantage of European study and travel, a professor in a 
well-known medical college, and one of the leading surgeons in 
the United States. I told him what every art-student knows : 
Mr. Whistler is the great painter of the nineteenth century 
the greatest artistic genius America has ever produced. 
"What, greater than Longfellow, Lowell, Whitman?" 
Yes, greater in his art than any one of these literary men 
was in his. 

Many will doubt the truth of this assertion, just as my friend 
the surgeon doubted it. To prove my statement I shall refer 
them to the English critic, Mr. George Moore, and indirectly to 
Mr. Ruskin. Mr. Ruskin, of course, needs no endorsement, but 
Mr. Moore is not as well known as he should be, and I shall 
repeat a remark once made to me by one of our foremost 
artists and art instructors, Mr. William M. Chase : " I always 
feel perfectly safe in recommending Mr. Moore's book, to art 
students," he said, " and his is about the only work I can 
honestly say this of." 

Mr. Moore, in a criticism of Whistler's art, says that Whis- 
tler is " capable of painting portraits, perhaps not so full of grip 
as the best work done by Velasquez and Hals, only just falling 
short of these masters at the point where they were strongest, 
but plainly exceeding them in graciousness of intention, and 
subtle happiness of design. . . . His artistic perceptions are 
more exquisite than Velasquez's. He knows as much, possibly 
even a little more, and yet the result is never quite equal." 
Further on are the words : " The greatest painters, I mean the 
very greatest Michael Angelo, Velasquez, and Rubens." Mr. 
Ruskin tells art-students to study the works of Velasquez " with 
trust in their being always right " {Elements of Drawing). I 
could give many more quotations of a like nature from Mr. 
Moore's book, but these are sufficient for my purpose. 



1899-] MR. WHISTLER AND THE EXPATRIATED. 341 

Now, would Mr. Ruskin tell students of literature to study 
the works of even Milton "with trust in their being always 
right"? If he did, those that are at all familiar with "Paradise 
Regained " or " Paradise Lost," for that matter would not 
stop to inquire if such advice was at all safe they would know 
that it is not ; and if Mr. Moore, or any one else, said that 
Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson just fell short of Milton at the 
point where he is strongest, we should know that his praise was 
altogether extravagant. Mr. Moore, however, does not compare 
Whistler to a man merely so great in painting as Milton is in 
poetry ; he likens him to one of the three greatest painters that 
have ever lived. He speaks of " Michael Angelo, Velasquez, 
and Rubens," just as he would speak of Shakspere, Homer, and 
Dante; and in the same breath he pronounces the name of 
James McNeill Whistler of Massachusetts! 

Let him that has a love for beauty go to Memorial Hall in 
Philadelphia to see Mr. Whistler's " Lady with the Yellow 
Buskins"; and if this observer has the grace to understand, he 
will see what perhaps he has never seen before : a slip of a 
girl, in modern street costume at that, so exquisitely rendered 
that the full beautiful is attained. Manners, phases of thought, 
come and go, but that girl in the cape and gown of our day 
will always be in fashion. Five years hence the careful wo- 
man will quietly tear up the photograph of herself she thinks so 
beautiful to-day, because it has become old-fashioned ; but three 
hundred years after Whistler's model has been laid away in her 
grave, her descendants will pause in awe and admiration before 
that girl putting on a yellow glove. Not a jarring note is there 
anywhere in the color, composition, or drawing. The beautiful 
grays and browns are so soft and delicate that they appear to 
have been blown upon the canvas. One of Alma-Tadema's or 
Bougereau's hard touches would as surely ruin the picture as 
the interpolation by a modern playwright of a new act in 
" King Lear " would ruin the great tragedy. 

A closer study of the face of this girl will help us to under- 
stand just where Mr. Whistler falls short of Velasquez. The 
complexion is a dry yellow, and thus it keeps its place in the 
picture ; but it does so at the expense of truth. Velasquez had 
genius enough to surmount this difficulty and obtain harmony 
without resorting to such means. Cover the face, and you have 
a more perfect creation than The Scarlet Letter ; uncover the 
face, and you have a work of art that is much nearer perfec- 
tion than " Evangeline," to be very modest in comparison. 



342 MR. WHISTLER AND THE EXPATRIATED. [June, 

The whole execution of the picture is in Mr. Whistler's best 
style, which Dr. John C. Van Dyke has happily described as 
"the maximum of effect with the minimum of effort." The 
" Yellow Buskin " is not his masterpiece ; he has done even 
greater things in portraiture, notably the painting of his mother 
and that of Miss Alexander. 

Nor does he reach his greatest heights in his portraits. 
Never until his series of " Nocturnes " was created were the 
witcheries of the night depicted with so wonderful a beauty ; 
for "out of the night Mr. Whistler has gathered beauty as 
august as Phidias took from Greek youths." As a painter of 
the wonders of the dark he stands absolutely unapproachable. 
In portraiture his imagination is necessarily restricted ; in the 
Nocturnes it has full play. A bit of blue shadow, illumined 
here and there with the artificial lights along the river front, 
the street, or on the bridges; or, as in some of the Nocturnes, 
darkness without any artificial light, a bath of blue and purple 
shadows, and that is all ; but among the folds of that luminous 
darkness it is not paint the crickets must be chirping away 
off in the distance, and peace is about the firesides, and sin 
and shame are mercifully covered, and life breathes and pul- 
sates. There is drawing in these night scenes, wonderful draw- 
ing. They do not try to trick us by a story no hollow-eyed 
girl lurks in the shadows of a doorway but they do strive to 
attain the end of all great pictorial expression : the presenta- 
tion of beauty for its own sake. They succeed, and therefore 
they are truest art. 

Mr. Whistler does not live in America, and a comparatively 
small collection of his works is owned on this side of the At- 
lantic. Like all American artists, he knows that if he would 
more easily pay the butcher and the baker he must go to 
Europe, where his work is appreciated. He knows that if 
George Inness had lived and painted in the forest of Fontaine- 
bleau instead of in a little New Jersey town, his work would 
have been more eagerly sought after, although it would proba- 
bly have suffered by the change. He knows that, thanks to 
the ignorant, unpatriotic assertions made by our half-critics, 
the impression has gained ground among the American people 
that no painting is of value unless it is done in Europe. Con- 
sequently, when the wealthy citizen decides that he should have 
" a few good pictures about the house," it never occurs to him 
that there are such men living as American artists. So he buys 
the Bougereaus, the Alma-Tademas, the Detailles, and the De 



1899-] MR. WHISTLER AND THE EXPATRIATED. 343 

Neuvilles, and he does not know that these are as far below 
the Whistlers, the Sargents, the Innesses, and the Chases as 
Thelma is below The Scarlet Letter. 

This disregard for American art has, indirectly, another 
effect upon our artists that is more to be deplored than their 
banishment from home. There have been American painters 
that possessed more genius than will-power, and in their daily 
struggle against the coldness and lack of appreciation of their 
countrymen they have prostituted their great talents, simply 
because they must do so or die of starvation. There is a well- 
known American painter that lives abroad whose art has suf- 
fered in this way. A few years ago he was producing remark- 
able pictures in an Eastern city of the United States and 
almost starving in the meantime. He knew his work was good, 
but he also knew there is nothing the American public dislike 
in pictures so much as good work, because such work is above 
them ; he thought, moreover, of those that were depending 
upon him for support, of the discouragement and the misery 
of it all, and in an evil hour he fell. He knew the untaught 
love the photograph because they understand it, especially if 
it is colored, and from the day of his fall to the present he 
has given the colored photograph. To-day his home is in Paris; 
he always places " Paris " after his signature now, and he re- 
ceives a small fortune from the sale of his pictures every year. 

Now that he is wealthy it may be asked, Why does he not 
give up his artificial style and return to the simplicity arid 
truth of the old days ? He cannot if he would : the bloom 
has been rubbed from the fruit. A musician or a painter does 
not bring out the wonderful tones of youth after years of no 
practice. This man's late pictures are well painted, it is true, 
but they are so debased by that hardness and metallic glitter 
the public admires that they are valueless to lovers of real art. 
Had his early work been appreciated here, his pictures would 
have lived ; his present work will die when he dies. Sir Freder- 
ick Leighton, in one of his biennial addresses at the Royal 
Academy, warned artists and art-students alike of the dangers 
of the desire for money. " No worse snare lies across the 
artist's path," he said, and there is no more pathetic realization 
of his meaning than the instance just cited. 

There is a man that lives in a little Connecticut town who 
to day is painting landscapes that for depth of imaginative feel- 
ing, poetic expression with color, are only approached by the 
creations of few living landscape pajnters, and excelled by none. 



344 MR. WHISTLER AND THE EXPATRIATED. [June, 

Thousands of educated Americans have never heard of him, 
perhaps, but I have seen a serious student of art reverently 
raise his hat when he pronounced the name of Charles Harold 
Davis. 

Mr. Whistler, Mr. Sargent, Mr. Abbey, Mr. McEwen, Mr. 
Alexander Harrison, and many other well-known painters, have 
been practically driven from their own country. A few, notably 
Mr. Chase, the late George Inness, and Mr. Davis, have remained, 
and they have finally prospered, not because of the feeling 
shown toward them by their countrymen, but in spite of that. 
They have prospered ; but do they, and the artists that have 
left us, receive the appreciation from America they deserve? 
Do we regard American painting with that affection we give 
to American letters? There are no monuments raised to our 
dead artists ; the American press does not strive to awaken in 
us a proper realization of the glory that is ours ; we do not 
take the trouble to learn even the names of our painters. 

Some one objects that we cannot call this art American. 
If it is not American, what is it? Are the essays, the poems, 
the romances of the New England men any the less American 
because they were written in the tongue of England ? The work 
of our American artists of to-day is not English, French, nor 
Italian ; it is made up of the art of all these nations, just as 
our people, our customs, our institutions, are composed of ele- 
ments derived from European countries. Like America, our 
art is cosmopolitan. Then why not be bold enough to call it 
the American school ? No one can seriously dispute the asser- 
tion no critic, so far as I know, has ever thought to call Mr. 
Sargent's or Mr. Whistler's art French or English. Foreign 
critics, as a rule, have been strangely silent about the nation- 
ality of these men. We, however, are as silent. We do not 
proudly assert that they are Americans we drive them from 
their homes instead. We raise monuments to a few of our 
bookmen, we teach our children to lisp the names of Longfel- 
low and Lowell and the others, and all this is as it. should be ; 
but in our pride in these we should not forget the greater or 
equal names of Whistler, Inness, Sargent, Chase, and Davis. 



1899.] THE HEART'S TEACHING. 345 

THE HEART'S TEACHING. 

(To a Jesuit Novice.) 
BY C. J. CLIFFORD, SJ. 

SEARCH not the azure deeps of sky 
For God in splendor throned apart ; 

Contend not, mock not, lift no cry ; 
For lo ! thine own tremulous heart, 

Round which the surges toss and beat, 

Is still His holiest judgment-seat ! 

Unfettered, self-emancipate, free 

From lurking sophistries of lust, 
Thy feebler self's futility, 

And pride's impalpable, fine dust, 
Thy soul shall yet, in pained surprise, 
Spurn thine old creed's frivolities. 

Not as the Prophets spake of old, 

In riddles darkly understood, 
In trope or vision bravely bold 

With Truth's insistent hardihood, 
Shall He the lesson high impart 
Of His near Self, or what thou art ! 

Be thy best wisdom but to hear 

Oh, thrice and four times blessed then ! 

His light about thy path, how clear 
The new world risen on thy ken, 

When freed from fetters that enthrall 

Thine own heart's God is All in All. 

Be thy best wisdom but to hear 
One haunting Word's articulate Voice ; 

So shall Time's dark grow crystal clear, 
And all thy being's core rejoice. 

O untried School of Mystery, 

Life's page reads plain when read in thee ! 

Beaumont College, Old Windsor. 




Fl^BSH 
&5OODS AND 



BY E. M. LYNCH. 




.HERE must be many Americans who wish to see 
the Old World in its ancient aspect, and not 
from the stand-point of the foreign quarter of 
Continental capitals, or of fashionable cosmo- 
politan watering-places. Of course it is open 
to the robust traveller to start on a track of his own devising; 
but his fastidious family will certainly refuse to accompany 
him in such a journey into the wilderness, and ailing folk 
would do very wrong to join the adventurous tourist. The 
problem, therefore, is to combine novelty with comfort in a 
European playground a paradoxical sort of novelty, which 
consists in the freshness of the antique, the primitive ! 

The old-world flavor is found in conjunction with cleanli- 
ness, civility, and quite enough comfort in the hotel accommo- 
dation of sundry summer resorts of North Italy as I shall 
endeavor to prove by transcribing and enlarging upon sundry 
pages taken almost at random from my note-book. 

The peasants are hospitable in the valleys of the southern 
side of Monte Rosa. George Meredith knows them. He paints 
a characteristic trait when he makes the " wiry, hearty, young," 
and very busy cheese-maker, in the topmost chalet on Monte 
Motterone, cease from his labors to invite six wayfarers to 
cross his threshold, rest in the living-room, and drink the rich 
milk of his dairy. " When cooled and refreshed, Agostino 
gave the signal for departure, and returned thanks for hospi- 
tality. Money was not offered, and not expected." That is as 
true to the life of to-day as it was to that of fifty years ago. 

In the Valle Vogna it is, in a sense, positively dangerous to 
admire the produce of the land. " What fine plums ! " The 
plums are straightway in your hand. 



1 899.] 



FAESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. 



347 



"How clever to make mascarpa! " (It is goats' milk scalded 
and squeezed into a cheese, like " Devonshire Cream," but far 
more substantial.) Next day a grayish-white, egg-shaped object, 
weighing about two pounds, appears at your hotel, " With the 
salutations "of the contadina. 

You have lost your keys in the hay-field. A mother, and 
grandmother, and all the children in a family, will help you for 
an hour in your search, or until such time as the keys are re- 
covered ; and they will think it less than friendly if you attempt 
to pay them for their trouble. 

Yet money is a rare boon in the valley. The women will 
walk four miles (from Riva-Val-Dobbio to the Saw Mills), to 
fetch^a load of one hundred pounds to one hundred and twenty 
pounds of wood, cut in lengths and*bound into a symmetrical 
packet, for the cooper. This bulky burden they carry down 
Valle Vogna, on the top of their shoulder-baskets, to Riva. The 
way is very rugged, yet they are glad to do it for nine cents 
for the double journey. They carry^still heavier sacks of char- 
coal nearly as far for eight cents. Hard work, indeed, for such 
small wages ! 

How gracefully 
they accomplish their 
severe tasks ! " We 
Valvognese" said one 
of them, " are said 
to be like mules so 
strong, sure-footed, 
and enduring! " But 
that is a dishonoring 
comparison. These 
contacting are bird- 
like rather than 
mule-like. 

AMATEUR VETER- 
INARY SURGEONS. 

The men are all 
away from the Valle 
Vogna for nine or 
ten months of the 
year, earning money 

ranee , an( ,,J T Ig POS I TIV ELY DANGEROUS TO ADMIRE THE PRODUCE 

women are the farm- OF THE LAND." 




348 FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. [June, 

ers. They tend their cattle in sickness and health. This 
morning I was witness, from the veranda of the little hostelry 
at Casa Janzo, of a truly characteristic scene. A cow came 
down lame from the pastures. The worst part of her hoof 
had to be taken away, and the newly-exposed surface had 
then to be carefully scraped and cleansed. Five little " cos- 
tumed " women addressed themselves to this task. The opera- 
tor was, I think, the valley dress-maker. My friend Susan- 
nah, the portress, rubbed the top of the cow's tail, than which 
no process is more soothing to the bovine system. The other 
women held up the ailing foot, or kept the beast from fidget- 
ting, or handed the amateur " vet." her instruments. Anywhere 
else there would have been a " cow-doctor," if not a certificated 
healer, to operate in such a case. 

It makes people ingenious to live far away from skilled labor. 
Another proof came before me when I wanted a hinge for the 
" upright " of a small picture-frame. I was told that no metal 
hinges were likely to be had, except at a distance of several 
hours: "Would a cloth hinge answer my purpose ?" I decided 
that I would accept the substitute. 

The cloth hinge looks peculiar, and is less rigid than a 
brass one would be ; but it meets the needs of the case. 

Then some one was in difficulties with a patent substitute 
for matches. As a last resort, the thing was taken to our 
clever padrona (the mistress of the hotel), and in five minutes 
the " Fiat Lux " was mended, and as good as new ! 

Professional aid is nearly as far to seek as skilled labor.- For 
the smaller ills that flesh is heir to Valvognians consult the 
school-mistress of the valley. Arnica, mallows, poppy-heads, 
camomile, and many herbs, " more med'cinal' than Moly," are 
dried by her, or converted into essences. The learned leech 
makes the sign of the cross over the affected part and remedies 
are applied while the practitioner prays, and the patient makes 
the responses. If a tiny child needs healing, the mother, or 
some elder, responds. I think the prayers differ, with the 
drugs, as these differ with the diseases. 

CHALETS AND CASERE. 

Very bare are the inttrieures of this region. A chalet con- 
tains beds ; shelves with wooden and stoneware plates, pots, 
etc., and a few wooden stools. There is sometimes a narrow 
table about five feet long, fastened by a hinge to the wall. 
When not in use, it is held up flat against the wall by a wooden 



1 899.] 



FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. 



349 




"THE WOMEN ARE THE FARMERS." 

button. At the end of the table farthest from the wall when 
let down, there is a hinged leg coming from the under side of 
the table-top ; a space-saving contrivance, for all lies close 
against the wall when the table is not wanted. The rooms are 
dark, because they are only lit from their deep-roofed, brown 
balconies. It is a marvel to see such neat, bright, refined little 
figures step out of dim and empty dwellings. 

The casere are cabins on the upper grazing-grounds (the 
" Alps," properly speaking), and they are barely weather-tight. 
Only in summer are they occupied. The furniture (if it may 
be so called) is mainly cheeses, cheese-presses, churns, and 
milk-pans. But the casera gains a certain interest and pictur- 
esqueness because every object has its use ; and simple, meaning- 
ful forms, even such as hand-churns, round cheeses, pots, and 
pans, almost always please the eye. Ventilation is the one 
thing perfectly provided for in a casera. "Sun, and moon, and 
star-shine too," look in between the stone roofing-slabs. 
Neither casera nor chdlet suggests the " hearth and home " very 
forcibly ; but life in these mountains is not passed indoors. 
There is plenty of sunshine, even in winter ; and the inhabi- 
tants sew, spin, make ricame (point lace used in all the different 
costumes characteristic of the Valsesian country), knit, dress 
the children, chat, and on Sundays sing part-songs, in the sunny 
balconies, when the snow lies thick upon the ground and all 
field-work is suspended. 



350 



FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. 



[June, 



Winter is brightened, here, by the return of the fathers, 
brothers, sons, husbands, and lovers. The men bring back their 
earnings about Christmastide, and, if they can afford such long 
holidays, they stay at home two or three months. 

A MOUNTAIN IDYL. 

One summer Sunday afternoon, when the sun shone bright 
and warm, and that I had a round dozen of letters to write, I 
could not help dimly and half-unconsciously following a scene 
going forward in a neighboring balcony. The house belonged 
to a grandmother of eighty. The old dame and her staid, elder- 
ly daughter sat framed in the warm brown woodwork. A youth 
of about eighteen had come to make them an afternoon visit. 
I think he had arrived from what in the valley's opinion is a 
distant part, perhaps from Varallo-Sesia, more than twenty 
miles away. Varallo is a very lively town, with its constant 
trains of pilgrims coming to the Sacro Monte, and its succes- 
sion of summer guests from Turin and Milan for the hotels, 

and the great hydro- 
p a t h i c establish- 
ment ; with c o m- 
merce, and local po- 
litics, and amuse- 
ments. At any rate, 
this youth had end- 
less histories to re- 
count, as he -sat on 
the lower steps, or 
stood swaying him- 
self, with one hand 
on the balustrade. 
He poured forth a 
veritable budget of 
news ! Another lis- 
tener he had, a pretty 
young girl, wearing 
the costume of the 
Valle Vogna. The 
elder women were in 
the usual dark blue 
and black and snowy 

LACE is USED IN ALL THE DIFFERENT COSTUMES OF THE Willie, leg. , 

VALSESIAN COUNTRY. besides, party-col- 




1899-] FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. 351 

ored head-ribbons, a gay 'kerchief, and the wide-leafed, white 
straw hat, decorated with stiff roses, standing circle-wise round 
the low crown. She rested on the highest step of the short flight 
of stairs, at the feet of one of the seated women. Her con- 
tribution to the conversational family feast seemed to consist 
solely in a fresh young laugh, sometimes a little shy or sad, 
but always perfectly musical. There were three true notes of the 
descending scale : mi, re, do-sharp. The elder women put in 
a gentle question now and then, an exclamation, or an encour- 
aging murmur. Their laughter was too subdued to reach my 
ear across the roadway and the little garden ; but they must 
have echoed the boy's merriment, for without encouragement 
the rich stream of talk must inevitably have dried up. Three 
long letters were finished, and still he was swaying himself to 
and fro, and telling story after story. The faithful murmur was 
coming from his elders. The pretty contadina was swinging her 
hat by its strings, and furnishing the musical refrain, tra la- 
la ; mi, re, ak-sharp ! The light flashed in her brown eyes, and 
on her small, white teeth. 

Six letters were finished, and the balcony scene was still the 
same. Sometimes there were two other elderly women who joined 
the group. Sometimes three tiny children from another cottage 
played in the roadway below. But the youth's smooth baritone 
rolled on in endless narrative, the elders murmured their ac- 
companiment, like stringed instruments con sordini, and the 
girlish voice rang, tra la la ! 

My dozen letters at last were written. The sun was sinking 
behind the giant Corno Bianco ; and the elder dame, the maid, 
and the youth stood on the steps, saying a lengthy good-night 
booming baritone, gentle echo, sweet, singing laugh. 

I kept hearing a peculiar strain for a whole week afterwards, 
and think, somehow, that that youth will hear the notes for the 
rest of his natural life. 

COSTUME-CLAD CONTADINE. 

A group of the elder women in Valle Vogna often reminded 
me of a flock of sleek, graceful magpies blue-black and snow- 
white, and with their bird-like bearing, too ! On Jestas young 
and old veil themselves in white when they are at Mass. The 
veil, in some valleys, is linen ; in some net, or lace. In the 
Val Mastallone no woman gives less than ten lire, say two dol- 
lars, for her linen veil. You hear on all hands that " they 
are very rich at Fobello," the principal village of Val Mas- 
tallone ! . At Fobello and Rimella the finest costumes are 



352 FRESH WOODS AND PAST URES NEW. [June, 

" purfled "; that is, embroidered in gold thread, or silver thread, 
as well as in colored silks. Dowries, in these villages, amount 
often to twenty thousand lire. A peasant's wedding is a very 
wonderful sight to see. I suppose nowhere in Italy are the 
peasants so well off as here. 

Not the peasant women only wear the traditional dress of 
the valley. The few comparatively rich people, who own pro- 
perty, when they come to spend the warmest months of the 
year here don the costume. The ladies of the family of the 
deputy who represents the Valsesia in the Italian Parliament 
are costume-clad. So are the daughters of a great impresario, 
whose life was spent mainly in Vienna, but who was a native 
of Fobello. The ladies use even richer materials than the 
other Fobelline, but they keep to the colors, and the ancient 
shapes, in their garments. 

THE HIGH-AIR CURE. 

The Valle Vogna is healthy. Casa Janzo stands forty-five 
hundred feet above sea-level. The slopes are pine-clad almost 
to the very summits. These rocky walls rise about two thou- 
sand feet higher than Casa Janzo, and below that hamlet the 
Vogna roars at a depth of one thousand feet or so. There is 
shelter from the north and east. (Corno Bianco, Monte Rosa, 
Tagliaferro, stand in the giant row that screens this valley.) 
The air is quite resinous from the fir-trees. Over and over 
Valvognians, returning with ailing lungs from work on low 
levels, have perfectly recovered during their stay at home. It 
is the early history of the Davos Valley over again. Dr. 
Spengler and another consumptive came to Davos, felt better 
there, inquired among the inhabitants, and found many cases of 
cured phthisical patients men who had " come home to die," 
but instead remained to live in the dry, light air of these great 
heights. Casa Janzo is but five hundred feet lower than Davos. 
Some sufferers have discovered the curative properties of the 
air here. It only needs that an ailing physician or two should 
be among those benefited for the valley to grow popular, as 
Davos has done. Valle Vogna has advantages which, in the be- 
ginning, the now famous health resort could not boast.* Nature 
and humanity are both much sweeter on the southern than the 
northern slopes of the Alps. 

ART AND RELIGION IN THE ALPS. 

There are churches and chapels in Valle Vogna, but no 
resident priest, and the population belongs to the parish of 
Riva-Val-Dobbio. Formerly the valley had its spiritual pastor 



1 8 9 9.] 



FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. 



353 

stationed at Sant' Antonio, but " the times are hard," and to 
maintain a curate would overtax Valvognian resources. In 
summer, for the sake of the strangers, the hotel proprietor in- 
vites a clerical pro- 
fessor from a little 
college in the Val- 
sesia to come and 
say Mass on Sun- 
days and festivals. 
The dwellers in 
these uplands are 
most pious and edi- 
fying people. 

There is a curi- 
ous custom of mid- 
night Mass on All 
Saints at Riva. 






"A RECOGNIZED BRIDLE- 
PATH LEADS TO VAL 
DOBBIO." 

This is a region 
of wayside shrines, 
mostly dating from 
two hundred and 
fifty or three hun- 
dred years ago ; and 
St. Anthony is the 
favorite saint, to 
judge by the dedi- 
cations. It is also 
within the region of. 
external fr'escoes. 
The outer front of^the parish church at Riva glows with a Last 
Judgment by Enrico d'Alagna, a fellow-worker with Gaudenzio 
mm at the Sacra Monte of Varallo, and one of the bright 
stars of the Valsesian school of painting. Enrico was Raphael's 
contemporary. 

VOL. LXIX. 23 



LOCALLY, IT is CALLED A 'BELLISSIMA STRADA.'" 



354 FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. [June, 

FRIENDLY MOUNTAINEERS. 

After a stay of a few weeks the stranger is on friendly 
terms with many Valvognians. Lest he (or she) should feel 
unduly important, owing to the multitudinous ".salutations in 
the market-place " (nay, rather, on the bridle-path /), it may be 
well to bear in mind the homely old saw : " More know Tom 
Fool than Tom Fool knows." The kind natives soon betray a 
flattering concern for the visitor's tastes, movements, and home 
surroundings. 

" So you are very fond of cream ? " asked a contadina whom 
I had the good fortune to be able to oblige. What could I 
say but "Yes " ? Who would not like Valvognian cream, which 
is so rich it will hardly flow, but must be ladled into the tea- 
cups or the plate of wild strawberries? When but just skimmed 
it is, in fact, like good whipped cream. 

An acquaintance surprised me with the question, " Was it 
you that killed the viper yesterday ? " (I had more than 
" scotched a snake," and did not think to find the feat thus 
noised abroad !) " And is it true , that your country has three 
thousand miles of ocean against one side of it?" asked a dear 
old dame, whose friend I became by carrying her shoulder-bas- 
ket when she was tired. 

Have I not made out a case for primitiveness and for fresh- 
ness, in the valleys south of Monte Rosa ? Modern comfort can 
be secured at the Hydro, at Varallo-Sesia (Stabilimento Idroter- 
apico), and of Varallo some account was published in a former 
number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD ; at the charming Mountain 
Inn at Casa Janzo, Valle Vogna, and at the delightful Hotel 
Tagliaferro, Rima, Val Sermenza. Other halting places might 
be named as fairly comfortable. Even the critical Baedeker 
" stars " several others in the neighborhood, but I know none 
to compare with the three I have just named. 

Two of these have what to some will be a drawback, while 
to others it will be an attraction they are beyond roadways, 
and are reached by bridle-paths. 

RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS. 

It is strange the local type of humanity does riot correspond 
with types developed in other high mountain regions. The 
rare air, which here expands the lungs of lowlanders to an 
almost inconvenient extent, has been breathed for generations 



1 899.] 



FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. 



355 




MARGHERITA OF SAVOY. 

by this high and narrow shouldered, flat-chested race. The 
people are diminutive, and bodies are very small compared to 
limbs. The gentle, somewhat dreamy, local character shines 
through oval faces. The fingers of these peasants often taper 
so finely as to recall lissome, pointed oriental hands. The 
shape of the heads is highly classical. The limbs of the few 
men to be seen in these valleys in summer are rounded far 






356 FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. [June, 

beyond the average Italian type a roundness which Mr. J. A. 
Symonds said made the gymnasts of Italian Switzerland look, 
beside the German and French Swiss at a Turnfest, like the 
putti of allegorical pictures, or like women. One of the mule- 
teers who went to the ospizio with us came from further 
south, and had the characteristics of many Lombards. He was 
in strong contrast with the Valvognians of the party : broad- 
shouldered, long-waisted, a head taller, sinewy, bright-minded, a 
born fighter! Later I helped myself in a climb with a hand 
on his arm. It felt like a stout wire cable ! Valvognians, in 
France, are decorators, carvers, painters. The men of German- 
speaking Rima work in scagliuola ("Venetian flooring" Italians 
now call it, and have forgotten the word scagliuola). They 
practise their difficult art in embellishing Prussian palaces. 
Valsesians are carvers or carpenters in Lyons, or keep restau- 
rants, or are waiters there. Fobello furnishes Turin with most 
of its albergatori. 

Of course there are many exceptions, but the physical type 
in these parts is marked, distinctive, and just as I have above 
described it. It culminates in the Fobellesi, whose bel sangue is 
a boast. The women of Fobello strike a note of eccentricity 
by wearing leggins that look like trousers, and by adorning 
their secular costume with a quantity of the aforementioned 
ricamc like Greek lace and embroideries of oriental richness 
of color. 

A backward glance was rendered sharper, as to the South 
Monte Rosa folk, when our mules had taken us to Courmayeur, 
and we noticed the tough and bandy-legged mountaineers 
there. 

When I think of the scenery of the Southern Alps, and of 
the peasant friends I made there, I sigh happily a dozen times : 
" I, too, have been in Arcady ! " 

VAL DOBBIO AND GRESSONEY. 

From La Petscia, in the Valle Vogna, up to .Val Dobbio 
Hospice, the path is so steep and rough that all the energies 
that can be spared from the labor of the ascent are only just 
sufficient to recognize and applaud the performance of the 
mules. An Irishman praised his little mare on the ground that 
"she was as handy wid her hind legs as a prize-foighter." Our 
wonderful mules climb as well as if they had four hands 
apiece, instead of four horny, iron-shod hoofs. A recognized 
bridle-path leads to Val Dobbio. Locally, it is called a " bellis- 



1899-] FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. 357 

sima strada" though, to the eye of any one accustomed to flat 
lands and " carriageable ways," the irregular stone steps, occa- 
sional steep, slippery grass slopes, and water-channels full of 
loose stones, are the last track in the world to suggest the 
description: "a most beautiful street!" But the same mules 
have gone almost across country : that is to say, up and down 
rocks and gullies where only the flocks and shepherds pass, and 
then it was that I fully loved and admired our "brave beasts." 
" Bella," pawing the air reflectively before taking a step into 
the unknown, is as pretty a sight as I can think of at this 
moment. 

Val Dobbio boasts the highest hospice in Europe. It is a 
bleak-looking building, in what seems, from a distance, the 
barest of sites ; but in summer it is a paradise of wild flowers. 
Even in mid-September, and after all the long, parching weeks 
of a dry summer, we found a remnant of the wild garden that 
on former visits had so greatly delighted us. Saxifrages, gen- 
tians, one rare ranunculus, and edelweis were among our trea- 
sure-trove. As lately as five years ago, two or three thousand 
Valsesians and Valvognians used annually to return in winter 
by this pass. Many lost their lives in the snow, and Canonico 
Nicolao Sottile charitably built and endowed the refuge. A 
'guardian" is always there. It is now also a meteorological 
station. Lately another pass is more in vogue, and there are 
fewer wayfarers at Val Dobbio. The zigzag descent from the 
ospizio to Gressoney appears to be therefore neglected. Only 
when Queen Margherita goes to Col Val Dobbio would it seem 
that any repairs are attempted. 

The view is sublime from the Col, and it is equally charm- 
ing during the descent. But how to describe it ? I should 
certainly fail to convey an idea of its beauty and grandeur. 
Besides 

" Where 's the mighty credit 

In admiring Alps? 

Any goose sees ' glory ' 

In their 'snowy scalps." 

A ROYAL RESIDENCE IN POSSE. 

Facing Val Dobbio, hundreds of feet above the Val Gres- 
soney, is the site Italy's queen has bought for her summer 
palace. The building will be begun next spring. 

When Queen Margherita came up to the ospizio three 



358 FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. [June, 

summers ago, the Signore Villegiante, from every "summer sta- 
tion " near, converged upon the Val Dobbio. Some ladies, who 
had not foreseen when they came to the Alps the chance of a 
royal bow and smile here, sent to Turin for even finer dresses 
than those with which they daily dazzled their respective table- 
d'Jidtcs. And lo ! the queen was dressed as a Gressoney peas- 
ant scarlet petticoat, black Swiss bodice, white chemisette all 
complete ! 

The gala dress of Gressoney, worn at weddings and on very 
great occasions, consists of the picturesque red skirt, red bre- 
telles (a turned-back waist) over an embroidered green waist- 
coat in which gold is used (this again is actually " purfled," to 
use the fine, old-world term), and the locally-universal white 
home-spun chemisette with large sleeves. The women wear a 
'kerchief, on head or neck according as it is cold or warm. 
" Fine feathers make fine birds." The daughters of Gressoney 
would be very plain without their costume, which, oddly enough, 
they seem inclined to abandon for every-day wear, with the 
exception of the bright skirt, an invaluable touch of color in 
their vividly green valley. 

In all this costumed region there is, for strangers, a shock 
of surprise at seeing tiny children dressed precisely like their 
mothers. We laugh at Sterne for being astonished, on landing 
in France, to find that even the children the?e spoke French. 
But children in the local uniform are comical. They look like 
dolls, or parodies of their elders. 

The gloaming had fallen upon us as we passed the "smart 
villa which the late Baron Luigi Peccoz used to lend the Queen 
of Italy, and the inviting-looking Hotel St. Pierre, at Gressoney- 
St.-Jean, and there was an air full of frost and a sky full of 
stars when we reached the new, admirably situated, and ex- 
cellent Miravalle Hotel, at Gressoney-la-Trinite. The last guests 
of the season had just left, but we were very comfortable 
there when we stayed over Sunday, and also on our return 
from Val d'Aosta. 




1899-] "CATHOLICISM, ROMAN AND ANGLICAN." 359 

"CATHOLICISM, ROMAN AND ANGLICAN." 

BY REV. R. RICHARDSON. 

ROFESSOR FAIRBAIRN'S book, entitled Cath- 
olicism, Roman and Anglican, is important inas- 
much as he has gathered the religious and 
philosophical principles in conflict in the present 
day, and woven them so cleverly together that 
the unsettled mind of many will, it is to be feared, accept 
the argument of the writer as a delivery from the dilemma. 

His line of argument bears some resemblance to the theory 
of Darwin's survival of the fittest. He attempts to show that 
the Catholic Church has been fashioned by the surrounding 
influences to which she has been subject Paganism, Judaism, 
Imperialism and he does not perceive that although she has 
absorbed and adapted herself to the progress of nations, she 
has not changed her teaching; as the tree, to which she is 
likened by the prophets and by our Lord himself, takes up and 
absorbs the different portions of the earth in which it is planted, 
yet still remains the same tree, the same leaves and branches, 
invigorated by the same sap. Of course, when the church was 
planted, she was small like the mustard-seed, and she must 
necessarily have grown to be able to carry large branches in a 
way that would have been impossible in the beginning. 

Before proceeding it will be well to get at the gist of the 
book, which is really contained in the following passage : 

" In a certain sense submission to Catholicism is the victory 
of unbelief: the man who accepts authority because he dare 
not trust his intellect lest it lead him into atheism, is van- 
quished by the atheism that he fears. 

" He unconsciously subscribes to the impious principle, that 
the God he believes has given him so godless a reason that, 
were he to follow it, it would lead him to a faith without God. 
Now, there is more religion in facing the consequences than in 
turning away from them ; for the man who faces the conse- 
quences remains truer to the truth, obeys the most immediate 
and inexorable law of God, that given in his own being. 

" I can understand the man who says, ' I do not wish to be 
either a Pantheist or an Agnostic, but 1 must be what the 



360 "CATHOLICISM, ROMAN AND ANGLICAN." [June, 

best thought and light within me beams as they are of the 
universal and eternal determine, and if they conduct me either 
to Pantheism or Agnosticism, then to either I will go, obedient 
to the laws under which I live and think.' But I cannot so 
easily understand or admire a man who says : ' If I use my 
reason, it will make an Atheist or Sceptic of me, therefore I 
will flee for refuge to the arms of an infallible authority."' 

This, to say the least of it, is a very mistaken view of the 
Catholic position ; it is not thus that the Catholic seeks to 
know the truths of revelation. It is quite true he must follow 
his conscience. But, besides conscience, God has given us in- 
telligence, which we must use to rectify our conscience if it 
be false ; and that intelligence every Catholic is obliged to use 
and not flee from. It will enable him to arrive at the truth 
of the existence of God, and following this great first truth, 
he will find that God, who, since he is infinitely good and wise, 
must therefore have left us a revelation or have revealed to 
man the end for which he has been called into existence. If 
man only uses his reason rightly, he will accept the Incarna- 
tion and the teaching of Jesus Christ as infallibly true. When 
we use the word revelation, we mean the making known or 
revealing to us the hidden things of God, the rewards and 
punishment of the next life, and the manner of worshipping 
God and attaining our salvation. If, therefore, man uses his 
reason rightly, he will be quite sure that Jesus Christ intended 
not only to teach the Jews but all the family of Adam to the 
end of time. He will, if he be of sound mind, look for~such 
an organization, which must teach as Christ did, "as one having 
authority." 

Indeed, we find in the Gospel that our Lord called to- 
gether a body of men to perpetuate his doctrine, to continue 
his revelation by tradition. But to this our author objects 
that tradition is untrustworthy, and so it would be as human 
tradition, but for the divine guidance promised by our Lord. 
"I will send the Holy Ghost," and "he shall guide you into all 
truth, and he shall bring to your remembrance whatever I 
have taught you." And it is just here that the weak point of 
the author betrays itself, for he regards the church as a purely 
human institution. 

But let us see what he has to say about the divine institu- 
tion of Jesus Christ, in a most remarkable passage : 

" I freely acknowledge the pre-eminence of Catholicism as 
an historical institution ; here she is without a rival or a peer. 



1899-] "CATHOLICISM, ROMAN AND ANGLICAN." 361 

If to be at once the most permanent and extensive, the most 
plastic and inflexible, ecclesiastical organization were the same 
thing as to be the most perfect embodiment and vehicle of 
religion, then the claim of Catholicism were simply indisputa- 
ble. The man in search of an authoritative church may not 
hesitate ; once let him assume that a visible and audible au- 
thority is of the essence of religion, and he has no choice ; he 
must become, or get himself reckoned, a Catholic. The Roman 
Church assails his understanding with invincible charms. Her 
sons say proudly to him : ' She alone is Catholic, continuous, 
venerable, august, the very church Christ founded and his Apos- 
tles instituted and organized. She possesses all the attributes 
and notes of Catholicity an unbroken apostolic succession, a 
constant tradition, an infallible chair, unity, sanctity, truth, an 
inviolable priesthood, a holy sacrifice, and efficacious sacra- 
ments.' " 

" The Protestant churches are but of yesterday, without the 
authority, the truth, or the ministries that can reconcile man 
to God ; they are only a multitude of warring sects whose con- 
fused voices but protest their own insufficiency, whose impo- 
tence almost atones for their own sin of schism by the way it 
sets off the might, the majesty, and the unity of Rome. In 
contrast, the Catholic Church stands where her Master placed her, 
on the rock, endowed with the prerogatives and powers he gave 
to her; and against her the gates of hell shall not prevail. 
Supernatural grace is hers ; it watched over her cradle, has fol- 
lowed her in all her ways through all her centuries, and has not 
forsaken her even yet. She is not like Protestantism, a conces- 
sion to the negative spirit, an unholy compromise with naturalism. 
Everything about her is positive and transcendent; she is the 
bearer of divine truth, the representative of the divine order, 
the supernatural living in the very heart and before the very 
face of the natural. The saints, too, are hers, and the man she 
receives joins their communion, enjoys their goodly fellowship, 
feels their influence, participates in their merits and the bless- 
ings they distribute. Their earthly life made the past of the 
church illustrious ; their heavenly activity binds the visible and 
invisible into unity, and lifts time into eternity. To honor 
the saints is to honor sanctity ; the church which teaches man 
to love the holy, helps him to love holiness. And the Fathers 
are hers ; their laborings, sufferings, martyrdoms, were for her 
sake; she treasures their words and their works; her sons 
alone are able to say : ' Athanasius and Chrysostom, Thomas 



362 "CATHOLICISM^ ROMAN AND ANGLICAN." [June, 

Aquinas and Duns Scotus, Cyprian and Augustine, Anselm and 
Bernard, are ours; their wealth is our inheritance, at their feet 
we learn filial reverence and divine wisdom.' But rich as she 
is in persons, she is richer in truth ; her worship is a glorious 
sacrament, her mysteries are a great deep. Hidden sanctities 
and meanings surround man ; the sacramental principle invests 
the simplest things, acts, and rites with an awful yet most bliss- 
ful significance ; turns all worship now into a divine parable 
which speaks the deep things of God. now into a medium of 
his gracious and consolatory approach to men and man's awed 
and contrite, hopeful and prevailing, approach to him. Symbols 
are deeper than words, speak when words become silent, gain 
where words lose in meaning ; and so in hours of holiest wor- 
ship the church teaches by symbols, truths, language may not 
utter. And yet she knows better than any other how to use 
reasonable speech. The Fathers and Doctors of theology have 
been hers. For every possible difficulty of the reason, or the 
heart, or the conscience, she has not one, but a thousand solu- 
tions. If men are gentle of heart, and do not like to think 
that all men without the church must be lost, distinctions are 
made as to the body and soul of the church, as to kinds and 
degrees of ignorance, softening stern doctrines into tenderness. 
If they have difficulties about Infallibility, whether due to papal 
sins and blunders in the past, or freedom in the present, or 
progress in the future, they can easily be obviated by methods 
of interpretation and known and noted constitutional limita- 
tions. In the church alone has casuistry become a science so 
perfect as to have a law and a cure for every real or possible 
case of conscience ; in her schools theology has become a 
completed science, which has systematized her body of truth, 
explicated her reason, justified her being and her claims. And 
so the Catholic Church is, in a sense altogether her own, not 
only an ecclesiastical institution, but a Religion, a system able 
to guide the conscience, satisfy the heart, regulate the conduct, 
adjust and determine the relations of God and man." 

Here, then, is a complete organization, a living, teaching, 
speaking body, existing for eighteen hundred years; but from 
whence came it? The author says, in other parts of his argu- 
ment, that this wonderful organization was the result more or 
less of accident it grew ! But how ? As surely as God put 
sap into the living tree and made it bring forth branches, 
leaves and flowers, so surely did he breathe into his church the 
breath of life, and send the Holy Ghost down upon his church 



1899-] " CATHOLICISM, ROMAN AND ANGLICAN" 363 

to teach truth till the end of time. How else could such a 
supernatural institute continue always to teach and never once 
to contradict herself? This alone is a miracle. When you tell 
me that the church came into existence and was not in all her 
parts created, fashioned by Christ, you might just as well tell 
me that the Times newspaper edited and printed itself. 

And here seems the right place to speak about the priest- 
hood of which he says there is not a vestige in the Gospel. St. 
Paul says : " We have an Altar of which those who serve the 
Tabernacle have no power to eat." St. Paul, then, here supposes 
an altar, a priest, and a sacrifice, quite distinct from the Jewish 
sacrifices. Our Lord is called by him a high-priest, a priest 
according to the order of Melchisedech, to offer sacrifice under 
the forms of bread and wine. And the Prophet Malachias fore- 
told that the clean oblation should be offered everywhere ; from 
the rising of the sun to the going down of the same there was 
to be sacrifice. Now, our Lord was on earth after his resurrec- 
tion for forty days, teaching the ministers of his church all the 
things pertaining to the Kingdom of Heaven, of which nothing is 
written in the Gospel. Where are we to learn what our Lord 
taught ? We can gather these alone from his church ; and that 
church teaches us that the sacrifice of Calvary is continued in 
the Mass till the end of time. We must either believe her, 
the teacher sent by Christ, or give up Christianity as a reve- 
lation. 

Still, the author is very severe upon the idea of the sub- 
mission of our understanding to the teaching of the church, 
which, as we have seen, he calls blasphemy. Let us suppose 
you have to cross a very dangerous desert, and you therefore 
engage a guide about whose competency you satisfy yourself 
that you cannot " possibly doubt." You are a very scientific 
man yourself, and with the help of maps and a good compass 
you imagine you could venture to go by yourself, but your 
friends assure you that it is not safe; the way is intricate and 
you must take the guide, who is perfectly certain of every inch 
of the way. Now, having proceeded with your guide, after two 
or three days you begin, according to your calculations, to have 
some doubt about the way, although, mind you, the guide has 
never hesitated, never retraced his steps, and is quite sure that 
he is right. Now, which would be best for you to do? to sub- 
mit your judgment, your understanding to his and follow it in 
peace, or throw aside your guide and seek your own way ? The 
Catholic Church is an appointed guide; as our Lord said: "He 



364 "CATHOLICISM, ROMAN AND ANGLICAN" [June. 

that heareth you, heareth Me ; and he that refuseth to listen to 
you, refuseth to listen to Me." 

And when I listen to the things confided to her care, I am 
making the highest possible use of my understanding ; not giving 
it up, but using it well. But the author at page 232 says : 
" So absolute is the difference and so emphatic the contrast 
between the two alternatives (that of Christ and the church) 
that we may say, to allow the sovereignty of Christ, is to dis- 
allow the infallibility of Rome; and that to accept the latter is 
to exchange a moral supremacy, which permits no secular ex- 
pediencies or diplomacies, for one legal and economical, which 
must be now rigid and now elastic, as the public interests or 
expediencies of the hour may demand." It might be well here 
to observe, besides the law of God, it is necessary that the 
church as a moral body should make laws to promote piety 
and union. These laws are not unchangeable ; they are made 
by the church, and can be changed or suspended for the good 
of society or of the church herself. But the church cannot 
alter one tittle of the divine law or of that revelation confided 
to her care ; so that these severe reflections upon expediencies 
and diplomacies are uncalled for. But suppose we follow the 
writer and throw over the teaching of the church for that of 
Christ, how are we to know what Christ did teach ? Behold 
the result of such a principle in the floods of iniquity which 
followed the -teaching of Luther every man his own guide, 
to read and judge for himself. This may look like a dignified 
freedom, but it must lead to confusion, and is not Christianity, 
is not the following of Christ. 

Bexhtll, England. 




"ABOVE ALL ELSE KARLSBAD is IN THE 'VALLEY OF REST.'" 




A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. 

BY MARGARET F. SULLIVAN. 
" I'd rather live in Bohemia than in any other land." Tohn Boyle O* Retlly. 

T was of the Bohemia of the mind the poet 'wrote. 
Our philosopher is of a picturesque province of 
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, statistically con- 
sisting of 20,000 square miles, with a population 
of about 6,000,000, or 290 to the square mile. 
The province sends 92 representatives to the Reichsrath, or one 
for every 64,000 inhabitants. For domestic affairs it enjoys 
home rule through an elected body of 242 members, and in 
local councils, communal and municipal. Lying in the middle 
of Europe, the gates of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are more 
open to all the world than those of any other Continental mon- 
archy. Within its borders may be seen a greater variety of 
nationality and heard a larger number of different tongues than 
in any other country on the globe. The heart of Austria-Hun- 
gary is Bohemia. 

To the rest of the world Bohemia is Karlsbad, a valley town 
in the Karlsbad hills. A fixed population of less than 12,000 



366 A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. [June, 

becomes from May to November more than 30,000 ; and any 
morning at the springs, which are within the town, numerous 
and highly medicinal, presents a miniature forecast of a scene 
suggested in Joel of the valley of Josaphat. 

Above all else Karlsbad is in the " valley of rest." There are 
no lights within or without after eleven o'clock ; and most of 
the dwellings and all the inns are asleep before that hour or 
speedily after it. Whoso would burn midnight oil must keep 
away from Karlsbad. Even the newest device of science gives 
its final z-z-z-z-iz without warning at eleven o'clock in the largest 
hotels. There are no public dissipation resorts ; and, as every- 
body goes to Karlsbad for health only, there is neither time 
nor temptation to private folly. Karlsbad is an ideal democracy. 
To return to the poet 

" Here pilgrims stream with a faith sublime 
From every class and clime and time." 

Plentiful here are they who represent " the boast of heraldry,, 
the pomp of power." No incident of its surprisingly bright and 
cheery company of health-seekers is more convincing, more 
salutary, than the pitiable plight of the scions of royalty who 
are sprinkled, prematurely wan, feeble alike of brain and muscle, 
among the common ranks of vigorous and happy people who 
gaze at the " gilded dullard " with insatiable curiosity but with- 
out reason for envy. 

The day begins for all before six o'clock ; for with the 
Angelus the bands begin playing at the springs, and everybody 
must have his and her three glasses of water drank, an inter- 
val of fifteen minutes after each glass, before seven to join 
the blithe throng out to the sylvan breakfast places along 
the river Tepl, which, like a fringed and waving sash, flies 
around the town knotted and twisted, resetted with bridges 
at convenient intervals, and not navigable except for fleets of 
silvery fish that drop anchor about eight o'clock every morning 
in front of the breakfasters and wait for their share of the 
crumbs. Flocks of birds scurry and carol under overhanging 
trees, whose slender boughs make finger-bowls of the river while 
the birds snatch up the unconsidered trifles thrown to them 
from the tables an ideal scene for a St. Francis of Assisi. 
Nobody who can walk or drive out to the river or hill cafs 
for breakfast takes his coffee or tea and roll at his town hoteL 
After breakfast everybody strolls up the hills or idles around 






1899-] A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. 367 

the town, whose old thoroughfare and new, on either bank of 
the Tepl, are enlivened with lace-making and thronged with 
window shoppers and buyers, the shops being chiefly branches 
of large concerns at Dresden or Vienna. 

The pine-capped hills invite to long walks in alternating sun 
and shade ; and from the high plateaus the views are wide and 
beautiful. For those to whom the climb afoot is too severe, 
there is to be had for a small consideration a carriage just 
large enough for one, for many of the roads are wide enough 
through the most picturesque copses and opens for only the 
liltle horse, the donkey. "Dun-key" was long ago a dia- 
lect name for the horse; and " chen," or "dear little," German 
diminutive of affection, may have given us the term that is of 
comparatively modern use. Nor is the beast without dignity in 
legend or literature, although much derided. Not to refer to 
the instances in Scripture, nor to the classic of Spain, nor to 
that most fascinating of Stevenson's works, Travels with a 
Donkey in the Cevennes the apotheosis of sweet headlongness 
it seems bordering on sacrilege to make the apostle of beauty 
and taste a chaperon for the donkey. John Ruskin, writing of 
a pantomime he had seen in which were fairies, rainbows, boat 
races, and much more " celestial," says : " Mixed incongruous- 
ly with these seraphic and, as far as my boyish experience ex- 
tends, novel elements of pantomime, . . . there were two 
subordinate actors who played subordinately well the fore and 
hind legs of a donkey." I could not but recall the conceit 
when, one delicious morning, I enjoyed my first opportunity 
to appreciate the truth in this unwonted Ruskinian domain. 
There were three of us Americans, the Head of the family, his 
wife the writer and their friend, her namesake but not kins- 
woman, a young physician, who, after taking her degree at an 
American university, had been pursuing post-graduate studies 
in Europe. The Head, who had been walking up the hills with 
an artist companion, had decided two things for us two wo- 
men : that the outlook from the plateaus was too lovely to be 
selfishly enjoyed by two men, but that the climb was too much 
in sun exposure for two women. " If you will be at the 
hotel door at ten o'clock," he said, " we will start together." 
There, to our surprise and pleasure, were two donkeys, each 
harnessed to a little two-wheeled, cushioned and hooded carriage, 
a donkey boy for each with a bridle and whip to give the 
animal adequate persuasion to progress. The Head being a 
lover of flowers, birds, and beasts, and not without gentle 



3 68 



A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. 



[June, 



humor, had arranged red carnations across the brow-band of the 
first donkey and white carnations across the brow of the sec- 
ond. Each donkey boy had his special carnation in his button- 
hole. Presenting a bunch of the red to the Doctor, the Head 
assisted her to the first seat, and giving me white ones, to the 
second. The little party set out for the hills, the Head taking 
shortly to the foot-paths, but keeping within hailing distance of 
the procession. Towns-people and sojourners alike looked upon 
us with cordial curiosity, for it was probably the first time in 
the history of Karlsbad that decorated donkeys had trotted 
the stony streets. My little horse performed with fore and hind 
legs a reverberant pantomime like a drum-beat, heard round the 
world of the fast rising hills. The Doctor's donkey had a 
vocal gift of improvisation which, beginning in rapidly executed 

fiorature of the 
original excessive- 
ly ornamental 
Italian school be- 
fore it reluctantly 
submitted to the 
drastic influence 
of German solem- 
nity, ended in a 
long, mellow ca- 
dence like a gran- 
diose processional 
on a rural thirty- 
two-foot pipe or- 
gan. I named my 
donkey " Stacca- 
to," in honor of 
Ruskin and the 
donkey's heels; 
and the Doctor's 
" Legato, "a laurel 
for his voice and 
vocal method. 

Mine was silent 
of throat, but re- 
solute and un- 
flinching in his re- 
solve to furnish a 
heel obligato to 




THE HEAD TAKING TO THE FOOT-PATHS, BUT KEEPING 
WITHIN HAILING DISTANCE." 



I899-] 



A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. 



369 



his more melodious com- 
panion. Those who have 
read Darwin's Animals and 
Plants iinder Domestication 
know much can be done 
with kindness and some 
other things for a sensitive 
creature. Reticent at the 
start, Staccato proved in 
time the thinker, while Le- 
gato, secretly encouraged 
by the subtle Doctor, a de- 
votee of the lyre as of the 
scalpel, continued to astound 
the groves and glades with 
his long andante, always 
ending in dignified trills and 
other elaborate embellish- 
ments, such as only the most 
renowned baritones of grand 
opera have ever been known 
to accomplish. I always 
feared that Legato would 
attempt the high C in a pas- 
sionate moment ; and hav- 
ing heard the great Wachtel 
do it once, its repetition was 
properly a cause for awe 
not unmixed with dread. 
But Legato, to his credit, 
adhered to a strictly au- 
thentic style of vocalization. 
He kept within his register, 
never condescended to fal- 
setto ; while the occasional 
appogiatura with which he 
jewelled a particularly long 
and resonant aria was the 
acme of classic Wagnerian 
execution. Let it be ob- 
served that I have not done 
one of the best balanced 
singers ever known the in- 
VOL. LXIX. 24 





FROM STEEP TO SUMMIT. 



3/o A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. [June, 

justice of calling him a tenor. He was a true baritone and re- 
signed to his gamut, which he seemed incapable of enervating, 
much less exhausting. 

Suddenly Staccato stopped. The boy cracked his whip as 
if it were a percussion instrument ; I interposed in time. Why 
should the faithful beast be beaten ? We were going nowhere 
in particular. There was no engagement demanding haste. 
The Doctor halted Legato and, turning around, asked the cause 
of the stop. Legato rose to the emergency. His vocal chords 
were in superb condition, and Staccato was rooted to the spot 
in silent ecstasy. But we could not tarry all day, as Staccato, 
in meditation, seemed quite willing to do. After futile en- 
treaty, fourteen-syllabled protest in German, and a short but 
pungent jabbing in French by the donkey boy, Staccato was 
still immovable. I looked out of the little carriage, thinking 
that perhaps an obstacle barred the way. There, uninjured, 
untouched, although in tempting proximity, lay a red carnation 
that had fallen from the brow band of Legato. Speaking with 
seriousness, there is among known classes of insects worship of 
special plants and blossoms. Certain categories of animals are 
not lacking in this delicacy. My word, supported by several 
credible witnesses, is given, that when I bade the donkey boy 
pick up the carnation and he replaced it on the brow of the 
leader donkey, Staccato nimbly lifted his heels as Legato his 
voice ; and neither lured by promise of food or drink, nor 
beaten, nor otherwise disciplined, the two kept the even tenor 
of their way and Legato his baritone till we reached an ele- 
vated rendezvous, where a bevy of children offered Staccato 
grass mixed with wild flowers. Staccato, who must have been 
hungry, turned aside in resentment ; but ate the grass eagerly 
when the flowers had been extricated from its blades. In this 
he showed his superiority over members of an avowedly higher 
species, who have been known to eat flowers when coated with 
a thin layer of sugar, a degradation of beauty that ought not 
to be tolerated by either health or taste. 

Next to his heels Staccato's ears were remarkable. In pro- 
portion to his other dimensions, they were the largest air-pad- 
dles I ever saw next after those of the Eiffel Tower colossal 
electric light pharos, which feathered the very heavens, as if 
Titans were rowing an air-ship race. When a shower came on 
the hoods of our carriages amply protected us, but Staccato's 
ears promised to become Niagaras to drench the interior of 
their complex mechanism. He coolly dropped them by his 



1899-] A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. 371 

sides, which, being as smooth as if lacquered by the mikado's 
best lacquerer, shed the water, and at the end of the journey 
he was perfectly dry. There are people who, when Heaven- 
sends a shower, instead of acting philosophically like Staccato,, 
reach out to get all the water possible, and are not content 




" THE DOCTOR." 

until thoroughly drenched. For these and many other kindred 
reasons, Staccato may justly be called a philosopher in Bo- 
hemia; and when I praised his prudence to the donkey boy, 
who seemed a person of discernment, he replied : " Famulate 
his famosity." This was meant to be English, and there were 
evidences that English was spoken in those parts. 



37 2 A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. [June, 

One day Staccato halted in front of a wine-shop on a hill- 
slope in the centre of the town. The wines are medicated for 
the dietary of the place. The bill-board in front of the shop 
bore the strange device : 

" DIETETIC WHINES." 

An English tourist had evidently dropped an h in the neigh- 
borhood, and the sign-board artist, being of a thrifty turn, did 
not let it go to waste. 

Another day Staccato and Legato bore us to one of the 
many glass ateliers that plume the country round about with 
smoke from tall chimneys. In these we found entire families 
occupied, carrying down an artistic avocation from generation 
to generation ; the father a cutter of glass, the son an engraver 
or etcher, another son a finisher, the mother and a daughter 
or two decorators. Attached to each large atelier is a school 
in which the apprentices learn the various things taught at any 
ordinary manual training school, with special instruction in 
drawing, the use of colors, and glass-making. These glass 
workshops are producing now probably the finest decorated 
glass in the world, rivalling the best days of this one-time 
most famous industry of Italy. The standard of the product 
ought not to be judged by the trash called Bohemian glass 
commonly seen in the United States. Many of the chief 
artisans and artists in the works were sent to Venice for a 
part of their education. 

The superintendent of a glass workshop said to one of our 
fair countrywomen, who was examining models for table ser- 
vice : " Will madame have her glass monogrammed ? " " No," 
answered the order- giver proudly, " I've got a crest with words 
onto it. I want to get them on straight." Up to the moment 
of our withdrawal to Staccato our fair countrywoman had failed 
to remember the words that were " onto it." 

The boy approached Staccato another day with a basin of 
water and a sponge and said interrogatively, " Lavation ? " Our 
perplexity over this new sort of English was relieved by the 
Head, who handed the Doctor and me each a copy of a work 
of which this is the exact title : 



1899-] A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. 373 

NEW 

POCKET DICTIONARY 
ENGLISH AND GERMAN, 

to which is added 

A Pocket Companion for Travellers, 
containing a Collection of Conver- 
sations, a Geographical Vocabulary, 
and a Table of Coins, &c. 

By 

DR. R E. FELLER. 
B. G.T. 

Vol. I. f 

ENGLISH-GERMAN. 

42. edition. 

LEIPZIG : B. G. TEUBNER. 
1892. 

We had heard of Baboo English, Pigeon English, and English 
as spoke in Portuguese ; this is Donkey-Boy English. The 
donkey boys, like our college undergraduates in summer, earn 
at winter as well as summer resorts the wherewith to prose- 
cute their pursuit of learning. This dictionary was clearly made 
by students of the numerous universities with which Central 
Europe abounds. The process was simple. They wish to make 
in English an equivalent for " dienen," to " serve " in German. 
They turn to a Latin dictionary and find " famulus," servant. 
They prefix its first syllable to the English suffix, " ate " ; result 
" famulate, to serve." " Famus," Latin, " celebrated " ; they suf- 
fix " ity " to the root and make " famosity," " fame " to serve 
his reputation or increase his fame: "famulate his .famosity." 
In like manner seeking English for German " absud," decoc- 
tion, they go to the Greek " apozeo," to boil off, and stop at 
" apozem," by analogy to apophthegm. 

By this process, which has been in desuetude since the days 
of John Milton when acting as Latin secretary to Oliver Crom- 
well, and of Samuel Johnson when making a dictionary out of 
his own head, we get these examples, taken at random, liter- 
ally transcribed from Dictionary Feller : 

Donkey-Boy English. Ordinary English. 

Ablactation, weaning. 

Absconscious, hiding. 

Acanaceous, prickly. 

Acceptilation, receipt. 

Acception, meaning. 

Alcolothist, the sexton. 

Acritude, sharpness. 



374 A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. [June, 

Staccato being like one Will Shakspere, who knew little 
Latin and less Greek, never attempted to use a kind of English 
he did not understand in which also he showed himself a true 
philosopher and superior to many of his superiors. But what 
may not be expected ? Evolution asks as its first forenecessary 
infinity of time. Given a bright variety of the " little horse " 
(Dictionary Feller), indefinite domestication with a Donkey 
Boy at the top of a hill, whithjr he has been intelligently 
drawn by a Staccato of the far future, may not some grateful 
scientist write as a companion to that justly famous work the 
" Descent of Man " the " Ascent of the Donkey " ? There is 
nothing in evolution to make this absurd. 

Europe contains many churches which, owing to discord 
among Christians, were built by the Goths, to be subsequently 
restored by the Vandals. Staccato led us one day to a Karls- 
bad church chiefly distinguished by a wooden statue of Saint 
Joseph with the Infant in his arms. Truth demands the ad- 
mission that they whom the Lord Hamlet described as "ground- 
lings," because they " are capable of nothing but inexplicable 
dumb shows," laugh at this statue. This humor is perfectly 
explicable on a theory of our own. Truth requires the fur- 
ther admission that we saw " the judicious grieve " before 
the Foster Father in this unusual equipment, which was com- 
pleted with draperies that would not impede his progress 
afoot or mounted. But when did the unskilful laugh or the 
judicious grieve over that famous work by David depicting 
Napoleon crossing the Alps " on a fiery and prancing charger 
in full uniform, with embroidery and bullion fringes and mantle 
flying in the wind ? " The critic I quote,* speaking of a fantas- 
tic style of pictorial drawings recently in vogue, says it "lacks 
intellect and morals, but is highly decorative." David's " Napo- 
leon Crossing the Alps " is pictorially " without intellect," because 
Napoleon would not have been guilty of such folly, and without 
" morals," because the drapery might have precipitated horse 
and rider into an avalanche, altering the decrees of Providence ; 
but it will be conceded to be "highly decorative." The truth, 
moreover, " was perfectly accessible " as Delaroche learned : 
" Bonaparte crossed the Alps in a plain undress and riding a 
mule led by a guide." 

It is a fundamental of art, as especially illustrated in archi- 
tecture, which is a form of sculpture, that design shall follow 

* Hamerton, " Man in Art." 



1 899.] 



A PHILOSOPHER IN BOHEMIA. 



375 




A HILL-TOP RENDEZVOUS. " STEPHANIE'S WARTE." 

function. The only perils these Bohemian Christians know are 
the mountain crevasse of winter, the valley torrent of spring. 
Was it not tender and true to fit out the Foster Father in the 
only way which would enable him, consistently with truth, to 
safeguard his sacred trust from the only perils to which, in their 
imagination, he could be exposed ? Was not he too a philosoher 
in Bohemia? Let him who would condemn the Saint Joseph in 
top boots, by the unrecorded sculptor of Bohemia, cast his stone 
first at " Napoleon Crossing the Alps," one of the most cele- 
brated pictures in the world and by the most famous painter of 
France. 




376 A DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. [June, 



A DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. 

BY MARGARET M. HALVEY. 

F any one had told me that my own office could 
ever look to me so unfamiliar and lonely as it 
looks to-night, I should not only have refused to 
believe, but felt insulted besides, imagining the 
speaker insinuated that I was tiring, in my old 
age, of the profession I love. 

It was my first love too, for I was a " born doctor," so every- 
body said, and continues to say, more as a matter of tradition 
now than of actual knowledge, of course; for I am the old doc- 
tor of to-day, and those who smiled at the improvised clinics of 
my boyhood ay, and most of those who rejoiced in my early 
honors and teased me on my college airs are long since passed 
away. 

It is their grandchildren who try to be companionable now 
to the old man, with no chick or child of his own, and who 
are careful, bless them ! so to word their confidences that they 
may not recall too vividly the memory of my own youth and 
its love's young dream. I have said my profession was first ; 
well, yes chronologically considered ; but there was a time, 
of which my young friends have heard, when professional suc- 
cess was secondary indeed to my hopes of winning Mary's love. 

Mary, my wife ! She has sat with me in this office many 
an hour, which explains why it is still my office when the 
fickle tide of local fashion has long since turned in a different 
direction. Some of those old books here have been privileged 
to feel her touch ; for books were precious then, when patients 
were not plentiful nor fees prodigal, and Mary took care of 
the few I had accumulated as gifts and college necessaries. 

For years her picture hung above my desk, where I now 
write. I took it to the new home when the young doctor 
came to share the office. The girls whose mothers had been 
her contemporaries stole shy glances at the smiling face, saying 
never a word in reference to it, unless I introduced the sub- 
ject. They were all familiar with the story their children 
know it now of Dr. Hall's one year of married life with the 
girl who was in her day the beauty and belle of our native town, 
and who married in the face of her family's sensible objections. 



1899-] A DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. 377 

They could tell as well as I the date of that terrible diph- 
theria epidemic, due entirely to the lack of sanitary precau- 
tions for which I had battled from the day of my graduation. 

They have heard how I tried to fight it, as was my duty, 
when it came, not single-handed, as they might tell you, but 
with Mary for helper. I never consented to her undertaking 
what she did, but alas ! I allowed her to overrule me, and so 
the expected happened. She and I were taken down together, 
just as help came and the shadows had passed from the misera- 
ble hovels she had cleansed and the fine homes where she had 
brought the light of consolation. 

When I arose, once more alone, the doctor's one happy 
year was ended, and since then he has only counted busy ones, 
prosperous and peaceful, perhaps, in the ordinary acceptation 
of the words. 

My practice has been prosperous. Our little town, grown 
considerably, has never outgrown its confidence in my profes- 
sional ability, and my home has been assuredly peaceful since 
the day Sister Judith, putting away apparently every other 
consideration, took up the lines of household management, 
lately fallen from the dead hand of Mary, my wife. 

Judith believes in me, too in all except my ability to take 
care of myself, which is her province, shared of late with the 
young doctor. 

Between them, they have insisted on my foregoing evening 
office hours, and this is the reason, of course, my own sanctum 
looks so strange to-night, when, as I told Judith, I positively 
must look in because, as the town knows, the young doctor is 
away on his wedding trip. 

Indispensable now those wedding tours, it would seem. So 
think Paul's mother and Paul's wife's mother, whose opinion 
counts for much more, for besides being mother-in-law, she is 
the " leader of fashion in our midst," as the Weekly Visitor 
describes her in its announcement of to-day's event. Judith 
admitted the necessity too, and as Mary and I could afford 
none in our day, I cannot claim the "personal experience," 
which phrase is my only weapon when I feel myself called 
upon to contradict any new departure of Dr. Paul. I do not 
grudge the boy his weeks of leisure, nor do I feel at all un- 
able to resume the duties from which he has of late years re- 
lieved me. I only wish I felt as well assured of his happiness. 



3/8 A DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. [June, 

A break is caused here by Judith's entrance, for my diary is 
the one personal possession of which she is not joint care- 
taker, and its safety is only guaranteed by concealment. 

When I thought that she had merely come in her character 
of guardian, I was certainly inclined to give her scant welcome, 
for I had just begun to enjoy the evening's privacy and the 
chance of talking unreservedly on paper. When one is nearing 
the golden anniversary of his graduation day, professional re- 
serve has become so truly second nature that only on paper 
can one venture candid speech. 

Now as to Judith's errand : " she did not dream of my be- 
ing lonely," nor did she anticipate night calls for me, because 
Dr. Paul made a most exhaustive round this morning before 
the eventful noon Calso, it would appear, a most exhaustive re- 
port to my sister as well). 

Therefore, notwithstanding the dreadful snow-fall, and the 
prevalence of that new disease she and Paul insist on calling 
" la grippe " it is ordinary influenza Judith was quite sure 
that except in case of accident, which seldom occurs with us, 
every one could await comfortably my morning visit. 

She came then because she was uneasy Judith always did 
like to share such symptoms and her uneasiness was caught 
from Mrs. Kane, Paul's mother, who caHed to inquire if I ex- 
pressed any private opinion regarding that sudden seizure of 
her son's in church to-day. 

Now what in the world is strange about a sudden faintness 
of less than five minutes' duration ? 

Judith and Mrs. Kane thought there was in his case. " He 
was always strong, but then his grandmother's half-brother had 
succumbed only forty years ago to heart trouble, and of course 
that remembrance now worried Paul's mother." Naturally so ! 

"Is it always hereditary, Henry?" asked my sister. 

" No ! " I said. " I don't believe in heredity at all, at 
times ; for, if there was much in the doctrine, how could Paul 
Kane, for instance, be, as the old women call him, 'a rock of 
sense ' with a mother as silly as his? " And I was about to add 
something regarding godmothers too, Judith bearing that rela- 
tion to Paul, until I recollected just in time there was no 
argument for anti r heredity there. 

Ordinarily Judith would have looked dignified and left me 
to my own reflections ; to-night she reverted to her girlhood's 
plan of wheedling, as she used to do when I was an over- 
worked student and she wanted me to suspend study, for just 



1899-] A DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. 379 

one night, to carry her skates to the town lake or act as escort 
to a " high tea." 

Well then, without being bearish, I knew no more than I 
had said at the time. Did she forget that Dr. Kane had, en- 
tirely against my wishes, made an unusual number of calls and 
under unusual circumstances, for the heavy snow-fall rendered 
the carriage practically useless. 

Then, naturally, he was embarrassed to find that, owing to 
his unforeseen delay, the bridal party had preceded him, taking 
refuge in the sacristy to escape the crowd of sight-seers whom 
not even such weather could deter. Added to all this the sacristy 
was overheated, perhaps not for the bride and her under-dressed 
attendants, but one who had been ploughing his way amongst 
snow-drifts, and rushing through a dressing process even more 
tiresome to the ordinary man, might well succumb there before 
the accusing glances of a delayed bridal party. 

"It was only momentary, of course," Judith admitted, care- 
fully rehearsing the circumstances ; the flurried best man of the 
occasion was just explaining, for the benefit of all concerned, 
that, owing to the storm, the bride's bouquet had failed to ar- 
rive indeed the city train had too, for that matter when the 
bridesmaid, to smother Paul's regret apparently, thrust in his 
face the enormous bunch of fragrant violets which had been 
substituted at the last moment. 

Then, to everybody's concern, the groom grew deathly white 
and certainly swayed a little there was no gainsaying that 
fact. 

"I should fancy the violets would have restored him," re- 
marked Judith; "they smelled so deliciously and the relief it 
must have been to see that they were to be had ; they did go 
beautifully with Lilian's costume, for a mercy didn't you think 
so, Henry?" 

There was no use telling another bearish truth : that I had not 
given the combination a thought ; neither did I remark audibly 
the circumstance of Judith already calling the new Mrs. Kane 
by her given name, when, as every one in town was aware, she, 
Judith, had never been admitted to the ultra select circle pre- 
sided over by the lady's mother, whose difficulty in securing 
seven local eligibles for as many blooming daughters was, to 
my mind, the only reason that Lilian's fancy for the young 
doctor had not been rudely nipped in the bud. 

Instead, I advised Judith to go home a matter of a few 
blocks only and if she cared in passing to call on Mrs. Kane, 



380 A DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. [June, 

she could say my diagnosis was unchanged : " A passing faintness 
from over-exertion ? " 

" Exactly ! with no tendency as yet developed to follow in 
the way of a departed step-granduncle.' 

After she was gone, however, her remarks, as they had trailed 
into the monologue she often substituted for conversation, kept 
recurring to my mind. " Those flowers, now ! Had I ever 
noticed that Paul disliked violets? Come to think of it, he had 
never brought her any, and she could hardly say that of any 
other flower " ; which I dare say is true, for he rarely returned 
from a country round without a bouquet of some sort for his 
godmother. Sometimes they came from the gardens of thought- 
ful patients, sometimes from the country hedgerows ; frequently, 
I fancy, when these sources failed, Pearson, our town florist, sup- 
plied the deficiency. 

In the days when I first undertook to train my assistant in 
the way he should go, Judith and I had differed somewhat 
in our view of this habit. 

" Such a pretty attention to one of my age ! " she was prone 
to comment when her godson's back was turned, while I 
quite as often remarked to his face, that a man of his age 
carrying a bouquet, a doctor at that, looked lackadaisical. 

To have started something in one's own way and then have 
extraneous thoughts actually forced on the mind you had just 
managed to concentrate in one direction, is very embarrassing to 
the amateur story-teller ; so before I could resume my inter- 
rupted page I sat, pen in hand, scrawling idly over some blanks 
that lay near on my littered desk. I find one I have mechani- 
cally filled in with Paul Kane's name as patient, and under the 
heading of diagnosis the unsatisfactory word " Idiosyncrasy," 
which enables me to take up the dropped thread of my narra- 
tive. 

Great men have owned this idiosyncrasy a repulsion for 
certain blooms and perfumes ; then why not Paul ? and why not 
violets ? 

What a plausible explanation this would have been, and how 
much more satisfactory to the romantic bride and her bevy, 
than that commonplace one of over-exertion. Mrs. Borden 
herself might consider it a point in favor of the new son-in-law, 
that he shared one peculiarity in common with some celebrities, 
and even crowned heads. 

Judith would not have believed it, probably ; for with the 
single exception of his mother, she considered herself as best 



1899-] A DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. 381 

acquainted with Paul's peculiarities. But is she? I have often 
thought there is a page of his life book I alone have scanned 
and understood, and that, with no spoken word of explanation, 
the boy understands my knowledge thereof. 

We are his own people in a sense, Judith and I, for we 
adopted him in all but name on the death of his good father, 
whom I rather suspect my sister refused as a husband in the 
days when she thought I needed her most. 

There was never any enforced separation from his mother, 
of course, beyond the customary one of college years ; but she 
tacitly recognized the desired arrangement by devoting her 
time and straitened resources to the education of her girls, 
leaving Paul to me. 

His childish confidences regarding dismembered birds and 
surreptitious experiments on family pets were mine in his 
school days and during his college years. Why, it freshened my 
knowledge of theoretical medicine to keep pace with the boy's 
progress and hold my own in our discussions. When he gradu- 
ated with high honors it was natural he should come to me, 
and the towns-people accepted him freely and gladly as the 
doctor's successor, who was being " trained in." 

Some' might demur a little, to be sure. " Oh, he is so young, 
"doctor!" a girl-mother some years his junior might say when 
incipient whooping-cough alarmed her household ; but the sen- 
sible portion of the community understood that he had the 
double advantage of new methods and my practical experience 
besides, while the fact of being Frank Kane's son was also in 
his favor. 

My pet patients I kept still for my own a sort of special 
practice, upon which Paul understood he must never intrude 
in the old man's day. There was one little girl who declared 
vehemently, " The hour you send Dr. Kane here, I shall leave 
for the City Hospital." She did not think then, poor child ! 
how near the time was when such a contingency might arise, 
although she and I had a thorough understanding, that dated 
from the winter her folks brought her home from the beloved 
convent school where she had just pulled through a serious 
attack of rheumatic fever. 

We have no Catholic academy or sisterhood in our town, 
where members of that creed are in the minority, and those 
who, like the Moretons, prefer such education for their girls, 
are obliged to send them to a distance. 

" Margery must not leave home again, nor indeed study 



A DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. [June, 

under any circumstances," was all I said to the worried parents; 
but the child forced me to be more explicit later on. 

" You take me away from my dear sisters and my studies, 
and forbid even my singing-lessons, when every one calls my 
voice promising. Now I obey on one condition that I know 
the whole truth." 

And so for years she and I shared the knowledge, which 
she insisted must be spared her parents as long as might be, 
that her heart had been so badly weakened by the treacherous 
illness there seemed small prospect of her accomplishments 
being ever utilized. 

The girls with whom she sang at times, for whom she played 
so good-naturedly at the impromptu dances, never understood 
why Margery did not further display her beautiful voice, or 
why Margery, who was so lithe and graceful, never danced or 
skated ever so little. 

The young men, always finding her sympathetic in a " good- 
comrade " sort of way, wondered why one never gained on 
his companions in Margery's favor. " The prettiest, liveliest 
girl in town she was so often bridesmaid," Judith used to say. 
" It might be she should never be a bride." Rather it was, 
she never would sweet, brave Margery ! 

It was at a Halloweve party the first shadow of the end 
feU the shadow she and I alone anticipated. A slight para- 
lytic stroke, so slight that there was little difference in her, 
even to me, except that she no longer rose from her sofa to 
greet me ; and my visits were daily now not that I could help 
much, but she was my pet patient. Dr. Kane, dropping me 
at her door each morning as he started for his suburban rounds, 
asked me at last how Miss Moreton was doing. " Nicely 
enough," I answered him ; and took occasion to remark that 
my professional calls should not interfere with his social ones, 
for he made it a point, as I say, to avoid even the appearance 
of intrusion on my special practice, and Margery had been his 
schoolmate before the convent days, and had always remained 
his sisters' friend. 

A while later, I told him enough to allow him as a physi- 
cian to draw his own conclusions ; but he made no comment, 
and I never met him at Margery's house, where the young 
people still loved to congregate. 

Then there came a time another stroke, as you can under- 
stand when I forbade even their companionship. 

" You cruel man ! " smiled Margery ; " perhaps you will next 



1899-] A DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. 383 

deny me these." And her frail right hand paused from stroking 
its helpless fellow to caress the masses of blue violets, of 
which a fresh supply was every morning at her side, set before 
the marble figure that was the latest gift of her sister teachers, 
and represented Mary the Mother of the Lord. 

" No, I shall not banish your sweet friends, Margery, al- 
though you have never told the old man their story." 

" Because, dear doctor, it would only mean an added re- 
gret for you some time ; and yet a causeless one, if you could 
understand all." 

No more was said, but I thought I understood even then, 
and she did not think so. 

Was it not Margery that with the violets was offered, too, 
the love which might have clashed with your understanding of 
religious duty ? Not merely as a death-bed sacrifice ! 

It would just as surely have been so in the heyday of her 
young strength were its restoration possible, for, loyal to her 
friends of every creed loving and kind to me, whom she called 
her " dear old heretic " Margery Moreton would never have 
considered a union that might not, like her violets, be laid for 
blessing before the " Mother of the Lord." She would accept 
literally her church's verdict against marriage outside its fold. 

Nor was she one to have shirked or softened such explana- 
tion. Still, through golden autumn days and chilling winter 
ones, when the sick-room was full of radiance, or again when 
it was gray with the grayness of foreboding, the violets were 
in place all other bloom in the background. Ever since Mar- 
gery was a baby, her mother said, they had been her passion ; 
and the poor woman recalled with a pale smile early school- 
days when her wayward little daughter quarrelled with big 
boys who mocked her doll or teased her kitten, and would only 
accept as peace-offering the country violets which the offenders 
were accustomed to seek near and far. 

" There was one boy in particular, who got so many bad 
marks because of his country excursions I used to think I 
should interfere in his behalf," said Mrs. Moreton once ; but 
Margery, who always listened with attentive ears to her mother's 
reminiscences, interfered then. 

" Mamma dear, Dr. Hall is surely not interested in such 
ancient history "; and taking her mother's hand she pressed it 
to her lips, lest her interruption might wound. 

I think all my brethren should deny themselves the luxury 
of pet patients. With the selfishness of age I try to now, for 



384 A. DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. [June, 

my own old heart could not stand many such strains as it was 
to look my last on Margery. We were so thankful that the 
tender touch of death restored to the dear face all its well-re- 
membered comeliness. 

She never looked so lovely as in her white gown fashioned 
from material once purchased for the graduation day that had 
not come, and treasured unused for all those years, even as 
Mary had saved the simple wedding robe, to serve alas ! the 
same unforeseen purpose at last. 

Her golden brown head was laid, as in natural repose, on a 
plentiful pillow of her beloved violets, and some were in the 
still hands, around which twined a shining chain, familiar to me 
as Margery's constant companion her " Rosary " she called it, 
and many a time of late I had restored it to the feeble hold 
whence it slipped so easily. Just as often had Margery re- 
marked : " Now, for thanks I shall say one round for my dear 
old doctor, for I do want him to know Mother Mary." 

That farewell eve, Judith being ill, I called to select my 
offering, to the florist our town boasts but one ; the boy who 
assists or retards operations, as the case may be, called to the 
adjoining greenhouse, where his employer was busy, "that the 
doctor had come for his flowers." 

"They have gone long since," came the answer, not meant 
for me, "and there will be no disappointment for to-morrow, 
though they say in the city it was not easy to fill the pillow 
order." 

"Tell Pearson to send lots of lilies to Mrs. Moreton's, for 
Dr. and Miss Hall," I said to the boy ; and left without order- 
ing the blossoms I had intended, because I remembered just 
then some one who never encroached on a specialty of mine. 
Lilies, as I happened to recall, were surely appropriate for 
offering before that exquisite altar in Margery's church that I 
had seen by invitation of her kindly pastor, who has grown to 
be my very good friend, as he was ever a co-worker to make 
glad the heart of any physician. 

They were indeed in profusion, her favorite flowers, at 
altar and grave, and though each holiday-time finds me in the 
old cemetery for Mary too is laid near by, with material walls 
as well as the barriers of creed to separate my dear ones in 
death I have never missed the purple glow of violets from the 
little glassed shrine above Margery's grave. Within its shelter 
the hands of her heart-broken parents placed the familiar image 
of that other Mother, because the child had loved it so. 



1899-] A DOCTOR, A DIARY, AND A DIAGNOSIS. 385 

I wonder if all this explains my assistant's idiosyncrasy, or 
is it rather contradictory of the fact ? 

I know it does not explain to-day's marriage, and yet 
there are many men who have taken to their hearts, in lieu 
of the lost love, even as I my profession, the idols of ambi- 
tion and social preferment. 

Marriage with Lilian Borden means the latter for my suc- 
cessor, in the town where her family interests are paramount, 
and of the former Paul was never guiltless. 

Will it be mine now to tend for a little space another 
grave with Mary's, when the seasons of remembrance roll 
around ? for Margery's parents have been mercifully called to 
reunion with their only child. 

Then, for the limit of my dwindled years, the shrine shall 
not lack its tribute speaking not alone an old man's love for 
a brave memory, but his gratitude as well to that Mary (whom 
he has not come to know, perhaps, as Margery meant) for all 
that he has found her name to mean to troubled human hearts. 

Another knock! Only Bill, our colored coachman, to ask 
if he shall see me to the house. Judith's interference again! 

As he is evidently determined to wait, I must go, ending the 
day's record with my coachman's contribution of coincidence. 

" Horses all right for to-morrow, Bill?" 

" Yas suh, yas suh ! " 

"And how are the roads?" 

" Oh, clarin 1 finely, suh. They wuz pow'fu' bad dis mawnin* 
up cemet'ry way. I jes' gev Doctah Pau' up foh los', suh, 
'fore he got back to th' kerrege." 

Evidently I have not quite kept track of the practice, for 
I recall no patient up the cemetery way, just now. 




VOL. LXIX - 25 




386 CHRIST is THE NEED OF SOCIETY. [June, 

CHRIST IS THE NEED OF SOCIETY. 

BY REV. MICHAEL P. SMITH. 

STRIKING contrast may be made between the 
mission and the methods of St. John the Bap- 
tist, and those adopted and carried out by the 
Saviour himself. 

Under the leadings of grace St. John had 
betaken himself in his youth to the desert, where, shunning 
intercourse with men, he had matured into that marvellous 
sanctity which gives him a foremost place among God's elect. 
Even when his work was to be done, he chose for its field, 
not the busy throngs of men, the populous cities, but an abode 
far from human habitation, one of the fording places on the 
river Jordan, which caravans and travellers were wont to use 
coming and going to and from Jerusalem. He was a voice 
crying "in the wilderness" men were drawn to him; "they 
went forth to see him." Our Lord, however, began his pre- 
paration in solitude ; yet when the Spirit had been made mani- 
fest in him, he went among men, seeking them out ; he traversed 
the cities and towns of Galilee and Judea, he taught in syna- 
gogues and in the Temple ; he was entertained by publicans 
and sinners in a word, he recognized the existence of -human 
society, and he took every advantage of social intercourse to 
prosecute his mission, to leaven, instruct, and elevate men. 

MAN IS ESSENTIALLY SOCIAL. 

God has not only made man a social being, but he has also 
put his probation, his duties, a great part of his merit and his 
happiness, amid his fellows. In first giving life to the different 
orders of creatures he bade them " increase and multiply," and 
he expresses his approval of them fresh from his bounty " all 
things were very good." Human society is the aggregation of 
men, that moral entity of those who, differing in secondary 
interests, in habits of thought and ways of speech, in' occupa- 
tions, are yet held together in the bonds of a common nature, 
origin, destiny, by necessities, hopes, and fears. Society is the 
confluence of all the ideas and all the movements of man : he 
comes to life in its midst ; indeed he can hardly be said to live 






1899-] CHRIST is THE NEED OF SOCIETY. 387 

without it ; it nourishes and educates him, it communicates tc 
him its ideas, passions, prejudices ; to it he leaves, with his 
ashes and memory, the influence of his life. But though in 
theory, though in its widest acceptance society is world- 
embracing, we see at once it has many practical limitations. 
Without ideas in common, there is no unity of mind, no com- 
mon ground of interest or action, and thus while the bond of 
society is not, need not be political or religious, it must be and 
is mental. That is, it must be based on the same intellectual 
ideas and advanced by the same intellectual methods. This 
basis has often been threatened in the course of the ages ; it 
has shifted, it has been submerged here and there, but in 
general it has been found vigorous enough to withstand, to co- 
ordinate to itself these adverse or destroying influences. 

There are great outlying portions of humanity, not only 
fragmentary unsociable, but in revolt against the central forma- 
tion and commonwealth, which we rightly designate as human 
society the civilized world. Cardinal Newman by a happy 
figure, viewing society relatively to the whole of mankind, 
compares it to the impression of a seal upon wax, which, round- 
ing the soft material, presents something so definite to the eye 
and the imagination that we entirely overlook the jagged out- 
line, the unmeaning lumps. 

ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS AND CIVIC WELL BEING. 

In maintaining that Christ is the bond, the principle of the 
true unity and moral well-being of society, the remedy of its 
ills I mean, first and naturally, to state the universality of His 
Redemption, and that society ever needs him in the sweetness 
and power of his life, in the inspiring strength, the persuasive 
yet peremptory authority of his truth ; above all, in the be- 
stowing of his regenerating grace ; as he says, " Without me ye 
can do nothing," and St. Paul in stronger phrase declares that 
" There is no other name under heaven given to man by which 
he can be saved." 

I further mean, that society needs Christ in his living repre- 
sentative, the Church ; for she is his spouse, the faithful mother 
by grace of all who shall be saved ; she is the continuation of 
his work, the centre of his activity, the dwelling-place and 
medium of his spirit, the dispenser of his grace, the witness 
and teacher of his truth. 

Society is not only an excellent something which has grown 
up out of and with man's co-operation, a thing not to be dis- 



388 CHRIST is THE NEED OF SOCIETY. [June, 

turbed, marred, or broken up at pleasure, not restored at com- 
mand ; a something which bestows upon us the inheritance of 
the past and will conserve the same and other goods for the 
future; but more than that not confounding it with the church, 
which is divine society since Christ's coming has been breathed 
upon, interpenetrated with divine teaching, potentially re- 
deemed by Christ, so that in its constituent elements and des- 
tiny, if not really, it is contingently sacred, divine influences 
permeate it ; it knows, whether or not it accepts, primal Chris- 
tian truth, the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man. 

The purpose which animated Christ when he "went about 
doing good to all," that men might have life and have it more 
abundantly, that too is the very motive, the raison d'etre of 
his church, and she enters into and conduces to the political, 
industrial, educational, and ethical well-being of society. This 
she did in so marked a degree in the primitive church that she 
may be said to have directed and absorbed all its energies, for 
we read not only " were the disciples persevering together in 
the doctrine of the apostles, in prayer and the breaking of 
bread," but that they " had all things in common " that the 
benefactions of the wealthy were such as to require more time 
than the apostles could give, and hence came the setting apart 
of deacons for such temporal concerns. 

Almost equally close and harmonious was the relationship 
between the church and society during the period of Catholic 
unity called the Middle Ages, when the church lent herself to 
teaching, to encouraging arts and sciences, when she directed 
and sanctioned guilds, when churchmen directed and ruled the 
government of states and provinces. 

PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 

But, as the religious revolt of the sixteenth century is re- 
sponsible for the disastrous separation of church and state, so 
too is it for the division between men's social and religious 
life. Refusing Catholic unity, religion in many states became 
national, became identified with secular interests, in such wise, 
however, that the whole standard of life changed ; instead of 
directing and controlling society, she has been curtailed, thrust 
aside, and the vigilance needed to guard her doctrinal side, to 
repair its losses, has had the effect of impairing her usefulness 
as a social factor. 

Were I to ask, What is the present state of society? what 
the condition of its life? what the outlook? I should doubtless 



1899-] CHRIST is THE NEED OF SOCIETY. 389 

be answered by a discordant chorus in which the accents of 
anxiety and foreboding would predominate. Men judge from 
their own point of view naturally, and it would require a 
determined optimism to answer these questions both seriously 
and hopefully ; indeed, it is to be remarked that those who 
have given themselves to advanced ideas, as they are called, 
those who advocate the carrying out of these as a necessity, 
are the most pronounced prophets of woe. " Never," says one, 
" has so terrific a calamity befallen the race as that, as all who 
look may behold, advancing as a deluge, black with destruc- 
tion, resistless in might, uprooting our most cherished hopes, en- 
gulfing our most precious creeds, and burying our highest life 
in mindless desolation." 

Christians the most observant and hopeful, who study the 
problems, the evils of our times, are not without grave appre- 
hension that the foundations of society have been greatly 
weakened, in fact undermined, and that the whole fabric is 
nigh unto falling. And we Catholics, who feel most keenly 
and perhaps experience the evils of society, shaken as it has 
been by a century of revolutions we are sadly conscious that 
it has broken from its moorings, is afloat in a tempestuous sea. 
The Scriptural teachings often refer to the great apostasy of 
the last days yet we fain recall how once on the lake of Gene- 
sareth when Christ's little band were affrighted and tossed, for 
the wind was violent and the Master slept, that he answered 
their fears and entreaty, for he arose and abated the elements, 
and lo ! a great calm ensued. 

THREE EVILS THREATEN SOCIAL LIFE. 

The main errors of present society, from which come both 
its evils and its needs, are three : Rationalism, which tries to 
divorce faith and reason ; Socialism, which brings capital and 
labor into opposition; and Liberalism, which affirms and con- 
tinues the hostility of the state and the church. 

By Rationalism is meant that method and trend of thought 
which tries to solve the mysteries of life without the aid or 
intervention of Jesus Christ. The success of modern thought 
and discovery in the practical order has been wonderful, phe- 
nomenal. Men have penetrated into the workshop of Nature ; 
she has unlocked her treasures, poured forth an abundance of 
riches, and she dazzles us with promises of yet greater results, 
and living has in consequence become more easy, comfortable, 
prolonged. But what of human life itself, its mystery, its value, 



390 CHRIST is THE NEED OF SOCIETY. [June, 

its purpose? Using and misusing the helps and teachings of 
science, dogmatists and philosophers have arisen to explain life 
from their stand-point. First they have ridiculed and despised 
beliefs previously held sacred ; they have thrown off the mask, 
and in the light of day have assaulted and contemned revela- 
tion. They have striven not only to make physical science 
supreme, but make it scale the heights of the infinite ; to do 
away with mystery, to reach to a God whom they could see, 
feel, and reduce to a formula. They have failed ; they have 
made frequent promises, given many pledges, but withal they 
are bankrupt ; they have essayed in their self-confidence to 
reach to the All-Knowing, the All-Blessed, and the Ever-Living, 
and have found nothing ! Denying God, they shake their heads 
in an affectation of solemn wisdom and answer, " I know and 
can tell nothing." Meantime the horizon of life is overcast, 
men wander in doubt and despair. They now know that the 
useful is not paramount; that goodness, that sweetness and 
light, that morality, are not the necessary outcome of know- 
ledge ; that culture may hide some of the coarseness of vice, 
but not eliminate it ; that the vices of intelligence are more 
dangerous than those of violence because more seductive ; they 
have found out that nature, science, the hearts, the lives of 
men demand the restoration of God to His sovereignty. 

As in the older day philosophers and savants discussed and 
studied, reached out to but never attained truth were wise in 
their conceits while men were perishing ; while they worshipped, 
if at all, at the altar of the unknown, and made the need of 
Christ only the more manifest ; so in this day, when the world 
of intellect is dark and puzzled, there certainly is need of Him 
who enlighteneth every one that cometh into the world. And 
this explains what is otherwise, amid his labors, so strange in 
the conduct and the utterances of the Pope, as Head of the 
Church : the impetus, the insistence he has given to philosophi- 
cal studies, his striving to build up and restore the sacred 
edifice of Christian truth on its rational side, to bring every 
intelligence in captivity to highest truth, to lay every contri- 
bution of science where it belongs, upon Christ, the foundation- 
stone, to direct all science and little worlds of thought into 
their proper orbits about the central Sun of Truth. 

" Abeunt studia in mores" men's studies show in their lives 
says Francis Bacon, the father of the inductive method. As 
we turn to the world of practical business, of labor and com- 



1899-] CHRIST is THE NEED OF SOCIETY. 

petition, we find a condition of things more distressing than 
that which confronts us in the realm of thought and speculation. 

SOCIALISM RESTS ON A GIGANTIC INITIAL WRONG. 

Capital and labor seem to be in hopeless antagonism ; em- 
ployers are irritated and distrustful, workmen discontented and 
threatening ; there exists an extreme of opulence beyond the 
dreams of avarice, and a hopelessness of poverty beyond remedy ; 
and we are told that the only equalization possible is to come 
from Socialism, a statement all the more impressive from the 
fact that in most modern nations the working class have equal 
political rights with those against whom they appear to be 
opposed. 

Socialism must be known and calmly considered. Put in a 
moderate way, it is that, all and singular, the members of the 
body politic are and should be joint partners in a great co- 
operative state. This state, or a confederation of them, should 
look after the affairs of the individual ; should supplement, if 
need be, his efforts by the aggregate of wealth and influence ; 
it should transfer all the means of production, land and ships, 
machinery and workshops, from individual to state ownership ; 
that consequently labor should be organized, co-ordinated to 
the general welfare, and proportionate distribution should be 
made for the work done by each. 

Such, in a moderate way, are the doctrines of Socialism, 
which range from mild views of co-operation to the wildest 
theories of anarchism. 

As commonly presented, it rests upon a gigantic initial 
wrong and falsehood ; it has difficulties which appear insuper- 
able in theory and in practice which, however, do not dissuade 
multitudes from adopting it. For, how re-make human nature 
and rid it of its essential inequalities and its universal selfish- 
ness ; how substitute an adequate stimulus of endeavor beyond 
one's needs ; how take from man, now so fully wedded to 
liberty, his freedom ; make him the willing instrument of state 
sovereignty, a contented servant and an underling amid and 
under an all-embracing state officialism ? 

Whatever be the defects, the inequalities, the injustices of 
our present system, Socialism is as hopelessly impracticable as 
it is subversive of all human right. Human nature must be 
made other than we have known it for such a theory to suc- 
ceed ; nor is the recommendation which Socialism makes any 
greater inducement, since thus far it has allied itself too often 



392 CHRIST is THE NEED OF SOCIETY. [June, 

with materialism and atheism. It attaches more importance to 
condition than to character, it assumes that man's chief and 
only end is a happy life here. 

ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES INCREASE. 

But meantime the condition of affairs is becoming intoler- 
able ; some remedy must be found and speedily, since the an- 
tagonism between labor and capital, between tenant and pro- 
prietor, always uncomfortable, is often threatening, and in many 
instances, here in our own resourceful country, tragical. What- 
ever be the causes whether it be the exploitation of labor 
for the benefit of capital, or keener competition, the revolution 
produced by improved machinery is increasing in intensity, 
while the condition, the lives, the homes of too many of our 
poor are a disgrace to civilization, humanity, and religion. The 
wage-standard, if not in itself yet by enforced idleness, is ever 
nearing the starvation line, and 1 the earners and toilers tend 
more and more to dependence upon capital for the privilege of 
working, and even for the right to live. 

It will subserve no useful purpose, it will only hinder real 
good and delay remedy, to allow the emotional part of our 
nature to carry us to conclusions which may be opposed to 
facts and statistics. It is foolish to go about with eyes dimmed 
with pity, to exaggerate the miseries evident enough, to sensa- 
tionally spread abroad, and to forget that poverty should be 
considered and judged of as relative, not absolute. It is not 
wise to lose sight of the truth that a considerable part of the 
evils we see and hear of are due to voluntary idleness, to in- 
temperance, to improvidence ; we must not forget that ingrained 
and chronic disease yields but slowly and painfully to treatment, 
yet, making these allowances, there is a refusal of justice, an 
undervaluation of labor return, an inappeasable demand for 
better results, in the present system of competition. 

It must come but whence ? Our civilization is all too un- 
equal ; its robes are splendid with gorgeous patches and em- 
broidery, but ragged and frayed at its edges. 

SOCIALISM HAS NO GOSPEL. 

The two worlds of penury and profusion, particularly in our 
great cities, lie in trying as well as dangerous juxtaposition. 
Here is a district where every mansion is a palace, in the costli- 
ness of its appointments, in its treasures of art, taste, and dis- 
play. Hard by there is a street of the sovereign people, where 



1899-] CHRIST is THE NEED OF SOCIETY. 393 

no house is fit to be called a home, some not a fit abode for 
human beings, who, jostled together, reflecting and adding to 
each other's misery, breathe an atmosphere physically and 
morally like a pestilence. 

Science, then, has no gospel for the poor ; it can but point 
to mysteries and " inexorable laws," which have " no ear to 
hear, no heart to pity, no arm to save." 

Political economy has no gospel but the demonstration that 
the weak must go to the wall, that those who stumble and fall 
must expect to be remorselessly trodden on. Socialism has no 
gospel ; only false hopes based upon impossible theories, which, 
could they be carried out, would result in confusion worse con- 
founded. 

Is there, then, no gospel, no remedy which will help, which 
will create convictions and produce results, which will tend to 
eliminate despair on the one hand and unholy greed on the 
other ? 

LEO XIII. AND HIS ENCYCLICAL. 

Here again Christ, speaking through His Vicar, has come to 
the relief of society. In the epoch-making Encyclical " Rerum 
Novarum " Leo XIII., with a foresight, a directness of applica- 
tion, an urgency of appeal, preaches the gospel to and in be- 
half of the poor. 

After pointing out that evils have come largely by the de- 
struction of the time-honored guilds and the repudiation by the 
state and society of the church's influence, the Pope shows that 
the remedy cannot come from Socialism, because, in the first 
place, it takes away from the worker the right of acquiring, pos- 
sessing, and disposing of the fruits of his toil. Moreover, Social- 
ism is unjust. It contradicts the inherent, natural right of posses- 
sion. Man's rational nature bids him make provision for the 
future, both for himself and his family, and these rights are 
anterior and more valid than those of community. It is sub- 
versive of the established order, and in the end leads to slavery. 

In the positive part of the Encyclical he says that no solu- 
tion is possible without religion. The church, by its doc- 
trine, shows that there must be inequalities, which result in 
good, inasmuch as they afford practice for virtue in many ways. 
Life is essentially arduous in any case. There need be no hos- 
tility between rich and poor, because each needs the other, 
each has mutual duties ; as in the human body there are many 



394 CHRIST is THE NEED OF SOCIETY. [June, 

members each mutually assisting the other and all conspiring 
to the same end. 

Religion has for its minor purposes to teach that poverty 
and toil are honorable in Jesus Christ. It is very fundamental 
in the Christian teaching that the poor are brethren of the 
rich not their slaves. It is inhuman as well as unchristian to 
regard them as machines to overtax them, to force them to 
engage in degrading toil ; justice must be done by giving adequate 
wages. The anathema of Heaven is pronounced on defrauders. 
The rich are taught that life is transitory, riches are fleeting; 
and that there is a strict duty of giving. The wealthy are 
stewards only of their wealth ; they must, therefore, be generous 
in giving, for there will be an accounting at the last day. 

The church not only teaches, but applies these teachings in 
her own peculiar and forcible way. Christian morality conduces 
to prosperity. It draws God's blessing. It forbids lust of posses- 
sion of pleasure. It teaches frugality, economy, contentment. 

The Pope does not maintain that this conflict will be set- 
tled within the walls of the church all the forces of society 
must conspire and contribute to an effective solution. The 
pastors, bishops, and priests do their part by enforcement of 
Christian principles, by supplying enlightenment, inspiration, 
enthusiasm. 

The state does its part by good laws, justice, freedom of 
contract, proper hours of labor, adequate return for work given 
by arranging for the proper days of rest, especially the Lord's 
day. Discussion of these topics in this sense must result in 
good. Men will be interested in the establishment of private 
charities, but especially in the formation among workmen and 
employers of associations and institutions for mutual help. All 
these, acting on principle and guided by justice and religion, 
will conspire to the necessary alleviation of many of the social 
evils. 



net. 
play, r 



1 899.] 



"LEAD THOU ME ON" 



395 



LEAD THOU ME ON. 



(The Church's Pentecostal Hymn.) 



Vent, Sancte Spiritus, 
Et emitte ccelitus 
Lucis tuce radium. 



Consolator optime, 
Dulcis hospes animce, 
Dulce- refrigerium. 



As one who wanders under starless skies, 

Among the silent sylvan scenes he knew 

When night withdrew and clearer made the view, 

Confused and childlike stands with eager eyes, 

When lo, a flash of light illumes the way : 

One grateful glimpse; the pilgrim starts anew. 

So mortals halt in fear and doubt, and pray 

For grace to know the right and strength to do, 

And lo ! a light : a spirit spurs the will, 

And in their wake a still small voice is heard, 

" Here lies your path ; push forward to the goal." 

Life's pilgrim onward steps, strong in the word 

Which God has surely spoken to the soul, 

At last dawn's cheering rays the dark woods fill. 

REV. JAMES T. BROWN. 





396 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [June, 



REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS IN 
ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 

BY REV. C. A. WALWORTH. 

I. 

CONVERTS FROM ANGLICANISM IN THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH 
OTHER AND TO " HEREDITARY CATHOLICS." 

I 

'HE title of "Hereditary Catholics" is one given 
by the late Cardinal Manning to such Catholics 
as derive their introduction to the true church 
and the true faith through their immediate par- 
ents, and were baptized as Catholics in their 
infancy. It is better to use a term like this than to speak of 
born Catholics, since spiritual birth is given only by Baptism, 
which is the sacrament of regeneration. It is scarcely neces- 
sary to explain what is meant by converts from Anglicanism. 
This title speaks for itself. The great tide of conversion from 
the Protestant church of England during the last sixty years 
is the religious wonder of the present age. It is far more 
wonderful from the quality of the converts than from the 
number, though even the number is amazing. The great Uni- 
versity of Oxford has been the chief local centre. Men of the 
highest learning, men and women of the highest social position, 
clergymen in great numbers holding high positions and exert- 
ing great influence in the Anglican Church, have been the 
leaders in this great movement. But the most wonderful thing 
of all has been the deep spirituality, the revival of true inward 
piety, and the large renunciation of worldly prospects, which 
have accompanied this religious wave. 

All that we have said thus far only leads up to the special 
ground which we desire to occupy in this article. It is now a 
natural thing, and often a very necessary thing, to distin- 
guish the Catholics of England into two classes, as we have 
done in the title given above Converts from Anglicanism 
in their Relations to Each Other and to " Hereditary 
Catholics." 

A few converts led into the Faith by means of their con- 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 397 

tact with hereditary Catholics would have brought little or 
nothing new into the life of Catholic society in England. It 
would simply be absorbed into the life already prevailing. 
There would be no swamping of the soil, no flooding even of 
the surface. All of the new life would soon and easily be 
assimilated to the old. This is not what has happened during 
the progress of the Oxford movement. The accession of con- 
verts to the old faith has not been in all respects an absorp- 
tion into the Catholic life already prevailing. There has been 
something like a flood. The converts have embraced the old 
Faith as a matter of course. This has been a great leap for 
each one of them. Every true convert will remember with a 
grateful and exulting joy the day when he passed over this 
Rubicon and could claim for himself with truth the proud title 
of Catholic. But after all this momentous step was but the 
last step of a long march, and the experiences of his past life- 
time had not been made amongst Catholics. Catholics had not 
been his teachers and instructors. On the contrary, this whole 
movement towards Rome has originated in the Anglican body. 
Learned Anglicans honestly believing themselves to derive legiti- 
mately from the Church of the Fathers, and seeking to form 
their communion by a more thorough study of early Christian 
writers and saints, have found to their dismay that the faith 
and worship and religious ways of the Fathers were not Angli- 
can, as they had imagined, but far more suitable to Roman 
Catholics of the present day. In this way the Catholic Church 
in England, and throughout the English-speaking world, has 
been inundated by a flood of conversion which Catholics them- 
selves did little to originate. Thus English Catholicism, in 
matters not essential to Faith or to substantial union, has two 
very distinguishable currents of life, the one preserved in it by 
hereditary Catholics, and the other brought into it by recent 
conversions from Protestantism. This is a noticeable fact, and 
cannot be ignored by thoughtful minds. It is important that 
these two classes of the faithful, thus united in one fold, should 
study each other with a loving interest and learn to understand 
each other. 

Hereditary Catholics have a very great vantage ground, be- 
ing "to the manner born." Faith has come to them from the 
cradle easily and without a struggle. In those of them who 
really and truly love God, their belief wears a beautiful sim- 
plicity. Converts feel this at once, and admire it. They can- 
not, however, put it on at once and wear it well, without over- 



398 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [June, 

doing it. It is something which they have to learn, as militia 
officers learn after awhile to wear their uniforms naturally and 
unconsciously like a part of themselves. On the other hand, 
in some respects the vantage ground lies with converts. If 
Catholicity is with them something more studied and less in- 
stinctive, it is also, for that very reason, something more thor- 
oughly investigated. Converts have already prejudged the 
ground and judged it erroneously. They have been guided 
over the ground by blinded guides, and thus their judgments 
have been formed upon misstated facts. The truths which they 
have learned have been so warped in the course of their reli- 
gious education that the Faith which they have held, and on 
which they have lived, is a sort of pot-pourri. This disadvan- 
tage, however, becomes an advantage when, through the provi- 
dence and grace of God, their intellects and hearts have become 
disentangled from the previous confusion. This process is 
necessarily a slow one, but all the better for that. It leaves 
them well acquainted with all the ground over which they 
have fought their way. It makes them all the more capable of 
giving to themselves and to others a reason for the Faith that 
is in them. 

Our readers will see by what has been said that, in our 
opinion, it is a good thing for the church in any country to be 
composed partly of hereditary Catholics and partly of converts. 
The fusion gives life to a body of believers so constituted. 
The two classes act upon each other with mutual benefit, and 
they act upon non-Catholics with greater power. 

It falls within the writer's design to represent these two 
classes of Catholics not by abstract generalizing but by special 
types. It takes no long search to find such types in England. 
They meet us at the first look, standing out in bold relief. 
Foremost amongst English Catholics of the hereditary class 
stands forth, strongly outlined, the noble and familiar form of 
Dr. Wiseman, Cardinal and first Archbishop of Westminster. It 
belongs to the special providence of God that he was born in 
our day, and placed at the head of the English hierarchy to 
meet and welcome to the fold of Christ's Church England's 
typical convert, John Henry Newman. Wiseman was the in- 
fluential head and leader of a persecuted and down-trodden 
church at the moment of its resurrection, when it had found 
courage enough to establish a new hierarchy and give English 
names to its dioceses. 

Cardinal Vaughan, in addressing the clergy and laity of 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 399 

Westminster in 1892, thus describes what had been the state of 
the church in England during its day of proscription : 

" Marks of persecution were fresh upon her body, the smell 
of fire was still upon her clothing. Her organization was ab- 
normal and missionary, reduced to its lowest form, as though 
England had been China or Japan. After ten centuries of 
public praise her voice was low ; her divine services cut down 
to their bare essentials ; many of her distinctive devotions and 
practices were either forgotten or conducted in private, and, as 
it were, in silence and with closed doors. No kind of uniform, 
no outward mark of distinction in her ministers, was visible. 
The English Church was like a ship on an angry sea, close- 
reefed and battened down, exposing as little surface as possi- 
ble to the stiff gale that was still only lessening." 

It was in this state of degradation, humiliation, and obscurity 
when the writer, in the summer of 1845, first saw London and 
attended Catholic worship there. Yet this church, so humbled, 
so crippled, so emaciated, was the true Church of God. All the 
more powerful was she from her worldly weakness. All the 
richer was she from her poverty. The authority of God was 
lodged in her voice. The treasures of the sacraments were dis- 
pensed by her hands. It was at such a time as this, when just 
emerging, so to speak, from the darkness and dust of the cata- 
combs, that the church 'in England was destined to receive a 
crowd of converts from the very ranks of her oppressors. 
" Who are these that come flying like clouds, and as doves to 
their windows?." The Anglican converts come migrating to 
the church. They come like foundlings returning eagerly to a 
home from which they had been lured or stolen by gypsies 
when their minds were feeble. A kindly Providence has brought 
them within sight of their old home, and what they feared 
when misreported, once seen aright, is found to fill painful 
vacancies in their heart. Who like converts can feel the force 
of the beautiful couplet which says : 

" O Rome, thou city of the soul, 
The orphans of the heart do 
Cleave to thee ! " 

How important to Christ and to his holy kingdom that these 
converts to the ancient church should be welcomed with open 
arms when thus crowding homeward to the fold ! What a be- 
nignant providence of God it was that planted Cardinal Wise- 



400 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [June, 

man at the head of the hierarchy just at the right time to 
receive them ! 

Now let us take a look at this typical man, this banner- 
bearer of hereditary Catholics, this wise, great, pious, and genial 
soul, whose duty it was to welcome Newman and his disciples. 
He understood his duty and he did it royally. 

Dr. Wiseman united in his one person the most valuable 
and telling qualities of two eminent archbishops in our Ameri- 
can hierarchy. I refer to Archbishop Kenrick of Baltimore 
and Archbishop Hughes of New York. The accession of con- 
verts to the church was one of the delights of Archbishop 
Kenrick's life. He not only took part eagerly in receiving 
them when they were thrown in his way, but he loved to hear 
of their conversion. When circumstances made it unwise to 
communicate the intelligence of this nature which came to him, 
it was hard for him to keep the secret. He said to me once 
when visiting him in his study: "You will hear of something 
very soon which will make you very happy. It is the conver- 
sion to the church of a very distinguished Protestant clergy- 
man. I must not mention his name now, nor say anything to 
indicate who he is. You will hear of it, however, very soon." 
He threw his head back in his chair as he said this, and his 
whole face beamed with joy. Archbishop Hughes was more 
reserved in matters of this kind. He' was a man of sterner 
mould, and with far less sentiment than Dr. Kenrick. Lion- 
hearted himself at all times, his great special vocation was to 
teach confidence and courage to his brethren, who had lost 
heart during a long course of oppressive inequality. His keen 
intelligence, however, made him well aware of the magnitude 
of the Oxford Movement. He took good care, when he could, 
to place converts in positions where they could do the most 
good and utilize, outside of the church, the experience which 
they had gained in their former life, and their influence upon 
others still non-Catholic. 

In 1845, coming through London with McMaster and Hecker, 
we landed near the Vauxhall Gardens, where we stopped at a 
baker's, not far away. Next morning being Sunday, we looked 
for a place to say Mass. We found none in this quarter. No- 
body seemed to know of any, until at last a little room was dis- 
covered somewhere in the neighborhood with an altar, where 
we got what we wanted. 

In 1848, coming back to London, with other Redemptorists 
I arrived at Clapham. On entering the hall we. heard for the 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 401 

first time Father Petcherine preaching in the chapel there. His 
voice came through a door where we stood with our luggage 
in our hand. His preaching was so fine, and his English was 
so perfect, that it seemed to me wonderful, coming from a na- 
tive Russian. This was Father Petcherine, afterwards so well 
known in England and in Ireland. 

Well I remember my first meeting with Dr. Wiseman. On 
a Sunday after Christmas a Redemptorist mission began in St. 
George's Church, Southwark, at that time under the charge of 
Father Thomas. This church had risen on the Surrey side of 
the Thames. It stood in its glory in the very quarter where 
three years earlier I and my companions had searched with so 
much difficulty for an altar where we could worship. Father 
Petcherine was also preacher at the mission. His imaginative 
and magnetic sermons, chiefly on the great truths which deal 
most directly and forcibly with the conscience, were delivered 
in the evening. Sermons of a more instructive character were 
given by myself, mostly in the morning at 10 o'clock. The 
Very Reverend Father De Held, Provincial, with a relay of 
other Redemptorists, assisted at the confessionals. Dr. Wise- 
man, then coadjutor to Bishop Walsh, came to St. George's, 
as did his senior, to give countenance to our work. 

Never shall I forget the noble bearing and manners of 
Nicholas Wiseman. The presence of these two bishops was, of 
course, a great encouragement. But what remains most forci- 
bly impressed upon my memory is one of those lion-like quali- 
ties which go to make up this wonderful man. Father Thomas 
had obtained from him a special permission to have a midnight 
Mass on Christmas. It was given on the express understand- 
ing that there should be no throng, no public announcement, 
no price for admission, but only a few invitation cards sent 
out to satisfy the devotion of a few persons known to the pas- 
tor and who were very urgent for the privilege. Father Thomas, 
whose principal object was at all times to collect money, had 
abused this privilege in that way. This was to our dismay. 
The bishop came on account of this violation of his orders, and 
also to encourage our mission. Dr. Wiseman took occasion at 
dinner-time to take Father Thomas to task for this, and he did 
it publicly before a number of ecclesiastics assembled at the 
dinner-table. He did this calmly but by no means gently. 
He fixed his eyes on the offender in a way that was far more 
trying than any mere words could be. 

Father Thomas endeavored to evade the rebuke by a jocose 
VOL. LXIX. 26 



402 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [June, 

reply. This would not do. He was dealing with a man that 
was in earnest, and not accustomed to allow his authority to 
be trifled with. Rebuke followed rebuke, until the offender 
was reduced to helpless silence and a thorough confusion. 
During this scene Dr. Wiseman more than once appealed defer- 
entially to his senior bishop: "Am I right, my lord?" "You 
are perfectly right," was the quiet reply. These marks of 
deference to a still higher authority only served to make the 
authority of the speaker more telling. England's great bishop, 
Dr. Nicholas Wiseman (a hereditary Catholic), was at all times, 
and even in comparatively small matters, a great man. No one 
understood better the genial maxim of Horace, " Dulce cst dedpere 
in loco" No one, however, could lure him away from any pur- 
pose on which his mind was fixed. His presence was always a 
power. 

I never heard this remarkable man speak from the pulpit but 
once. He did not come to the services in order to preach. 
He addressed the people because he was there, and he said no 
more than the occasion demanded. 

II. 

WISEMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS. REDEMPTORISTS AT 
CLAPHAM. BISHOP ULLATHORNE. 

What interested me very much in Dr. Wiseman was his 
profound respect for religious orders, albeit himself a secular. 
At the time of my residence at the Redemptorist Convent at 
Clapham he was especially anxious to bring the pastors and 
confessors of the diocese to a correct and familiar knowledge 
of the moral theology of St. Alphonsus. For this purpose he 
engaged Father De Held, our Provincial, to assist at confer- 
ences where he himself presided. We Redemptorists were, of 
course, well pleased at the encouragement thus given to our 
missionaries, and to the practice followed by us in dealing 
with penitents. It was an especial pleasure to us that Father 
De Held should have been selected to initiate these explana- 
tions before a body of clergy so important and influential. 
There was an especial timeliness in the invitation. The loose 
practice taught by Father Faure was gaining ground amongst con- 
fessors in various quarters of the church, and the sooner it was 
changed in England the better for that reviving church. The 
characteristic doctrine of Father Faure's theology was that Sem- 
per credendum est poenitenti pro se vel contra se loquenti i. e., The 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 403 

testimony of the penitent, whether he speaks in his own favor 
or against himself, must be accepted by his confessor. The 
great mischief of this maxim is, that it must be made to apply to 
the question of the sincerity of the penitent's sorrow. Although 
still living with the habit of sin unbroken, although constantly 
falling back into the same vices which he has promised to 
abandon, the confessor must still take his word that this time 
he is truly sorry, and deal with him as a true penitent. Father 
De Held was well known amongst us as holding this doctrine 
in utter abhorrence, and they knew well that in any confer- 
ences of the clergy where a leading part should be assigned to 
him, it would not be long before this great error would be 
brought to the front. 

I cannot forbear introducing in this place an anecdote of 
.Father De Held, which will present him in a moment of ex- 
citement. 

It illustrates the grandeur of his bearing, and at the same 
time emphasizes his dislike of the peculiar error which attaches 
itself to the teaching of Father Faure. 

At some time in the early part of the year 1848 a meeting 
of professors, missionaries, and students was assembled in the 
Redemptorist house of studies at Wittem, or Wilre, in the 
province of Limbourg, Holland. An exercise was going on 
termed in that Order " An Academy of Missions." The ques- 
tion under discussion at this academy brought up the opinion 
of Father Faure. Only one man present favored it. He was, 
however, a man of high position, a rector of one of the houses 
of the Order, and being very enthusiastic in his opinions, likely 
to exert a great deal of influence. He maintained his ground 
with great tenacity, and the discussion became very lively. 
Never shall I forget its solemn termination. Father De Held 
rose like a lion roused from his lair. What excited him most 
was the imputation that the sentiments of the rector, above 
named, coincided with those of St. Liguori, the founder of our 
Order. After a few words of argument he lifted up his right 
hand towards heaven and declared : " Quantum distat terra de 
cazlo, tantum distat doctrina Patris Faure ab ilia sancti Patris 
nostri Alphonsi." Then, striking his clinched hand on the table 
with a force that made it rattle, he declared the discussion 
ended. 

This remembrance of mine does something more than bring 
to the front the grand figure of a noble Austrian missionary. 
It brings into still greater prominence the cardinal chosen, by 



404 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [June, 

God's providence, to introduce a better practice for the con- 
fessional than prevailed at that time in England. 

I do not propose to represent Nicholas Wiseman to the reader 
as a saint ; that is, as one heroically devoted in all things to a 
life of perfection. He was in many respects what many have 
called him, a man of the world. From his birth he was a Catho- 
lic, and thoroughly Catholic. His early training made him most 
thoroughly a Roman Catholic. The land of his love, to which 
his vocation especially called him, was England. He was, there- 
fore, most unquestionably English. He was a native of Spain, 
both his parents being citizens of that country. How much 
his manhood may have retained from the influences of Spain 
upon his childhood, is more than I can undertake to say ; but 
traces of the Celtic blood which flowed through his veins are 
more clearly discernible, and justify those who see in his life 
the marks of an Irishman. All this constitutes a singular 
make-up of a great man. No small constituent of his great- 
ness consists in the broadness of his character and the wonder- 
ful variety of his talents and attainments. One thing is certain, 
he always honored religious orders, although not a religious 
himself, and was always in perfect sympathy with them. Yet 
both he and other English bishops, sympathizing with him, 
found fault and made complaint that the religious orders in 
England were sometimes not willing to join in special labors, 
inaugurated by the bishop for the general benefit of the dio- 
cese. 

I have no personal reminiscence of this kind in which Dr. 
Wiseman is concerned ; but I remember very well an incident 
which shows how a zealous and strong-willed bishop may get 
to overlook the rights and necessities of a religious order, when 
it insists upon adhering to its own vocation. 

The Redemptorists had established themselves at Falmouth. 
This establishment had been effected, in a great measure, un- 
der the kindly solicitude and patronage of Dr. Wiseman. When 
I arrived in England, in the summer of 1848, Falmouth be- 
longed to the charge of Dr. William Ullathorne, Bishop of 
Cabasa, " in partibus infidelium" and Vicar-Apostolic of the 
Western District. Dr. Ullathorne was one of the most promi- 
nent and promising bishops of his day. Like Cardinal Wise- 
man, he has also been lauded as being friendly to the religious 
orders. It does not follow from this, however, that either was 
always in perfect harmony with the religious orders. I must 
be allowed ^introduce, by way of explanation, an interview, 



1899-] IN ENGLAND 'FIFTY YEARS AGO. 

the first, which I had . with Bishop Ullathorne. It occurred 
at Birmingham, and must have taken place some time in the 
year 1849. 

I was at that time a member of the Redemptorist Com- 
munity at Hanl.ey, in Worcestershire. I was sent by my supe- 
rior, Father Lans, to Birmingham, in order to guide to our 
convent a priest from Breda. He had corae to England in or- 
der to visit our house. Not understanding English, he had 
twice lost his way, being misdirected to Hanley, and twice 
sent back to Birmingham. The bishop would not allow him to 
venture a third time alone. He wrote to Father Lans accord- 
ingly, who sent me for him. 

On arriving at the bishop's house, I presented myself at 
once to the bishop in his study. According to the prevailing 
custom, I kneeled on one knee to kiss his ring and ask his 
benediction, and then stood up again. To my amazement the 
bishop said : 

" It is all very well, young gentleman, to kiss your bishop's 
ring, but is it not much better to obey your bishop ? " 

"My lord," said I, "have I ever disobeyed you?" 

" Well, no," he answered ; " not you, so far as I am aware, 
but your fathers have." 

" I do not know, my lord, to what you refer." 

"You must have heard," he said, "that you had a commu- 
nity at one time at Falmouth, in my district, and that it was 
abandoned without my consent." 

" I only know that it was abandoned because they had no 
means to live there and support a community of sisters." 

" I have more to say," persisted the bishop, " in reference 
to the obedience which the members of your Order are accus- 
tomed to show authority. This refers to the present state of 
things in your convent at Hanley ; and, also, to the sisters 
who have the charge of your school. I suppose I have some 
sort of jurisdiction over priests who are engaged in parish 
work in my diocese. I think, also, I ought to have some 
part to play in the management of the schools which are un- 
der the care of Religious Sisters. What have you to say to 
that ? " 

"Certainly, my lord, and perhaps this will explain that 
matter"; and I presented to him a letter which contained an 
invitation to visit our house and arrange matters to suit him- 
self. Then his manner changed and he smiled most kindly. 

" I think so, too, my lord," I said. 



4o6 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS. [June. 

The bishop looked curiously at me and said frankly: 

"Well, enough, enough. I have no fault to find with you 
and ought not to have received you as I did. Let us say no 
more about it." 

I saw him several times afterwards on his visits to Hanley. 
I must frankly confess that when he came he always found 
fault very roughly and unreasonably. His complaints were 
always of a general nature, which would apply equally well to- 
any religious order that was steadfastly disposed to adhere to 
its own vocatio-n. 

I know, not from personal observation but from other 
sources, that Cardinal Wiseman sometimes asked from religious 
orders more than they could conscientiously concede. They 
have sometimes asked for things that they could not conscien- 
tiously themselves accord. I do not know that Cardinal Wise- 
man ever exacted these concessions, or was rude or offensive in 
urging them. His respect for the religious life was manifestly 
sincere and deep. How could a man so moulded and so 
trained be otherwise ? 

Cardinal Wiseman must, I think, have had, more than any 
other man in England, a strong motive for pressing into his 
own peculiar work every aid that he could possibly and con- 
scientiously demand. God had placed him in the very heart of 
England in London itself. There human life throbbed with 
poverty, and much of that poor life was Catholic. That Catho- 
lic crowd of poor looked up to him for spiritual food. St. 
Alphonsus Liguori could well be contented with such a bishop, 
whose greatest work was to save souls that were most aban- 
doned ! 

The high position and force of character of Cardinal Wise- 
man made him very powerful in the Catholic body, and he 
would have been a very dangerous man to collide with had he 
been less gentle. We form our best conception of the infinite 
beauty of God, when we remember that 

"Our lives lean on a gentle arm 
That loves to save, though strong to slay." 

So in beholding human character, moral beauty never stands 
forth in stronger light than when we see a patient sweetness 
presiding in one who is vested with a great power to compel. 




BISHOP WATTERSON. 

BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY. 

IN the death of Bishop Watterson of Columbus, 
Ohio, the church in America and the cause of 
good citizenship generally have lost no ordinary 
man. He was a tower of strength in all noble 
works within his own diocese and State, but his 
influence and spirit reached far beyond these limits. This was 
strikingly shown in the extended notice taken of his death by 
the secular and religious press of the country, and even by 
many of the most influential bodies of non-Catholic clergymen. 
In his own episcopal city of Columbus the event came as a 




4 o8 BISHOP WATTERSON. [June, 

public calamity. There, his character and work had been mani- 
fested during nineteen years of service as a bishop and nobly 
did the people testify to his devotion to his duty, and to his 
manly, lovable character. 

To those who knew him well, who for many years had 
seen him engaged in the humblest as in the greatest duties, 
and been brought within the cheering influence of his per- 
sonality this devotion on the part of the people came as 
no surprise; for to the most extensive learning and culture 
he united a singular charm of presence, an easiness of access, a 
sparkle of conversation that rose in his public addresses into 
the most moving eloquence. A word or two regarding his 
career may show the breadth and scope of the man, the im- 
pulse of his work the sources whence he drew* his inspiration. 

He was born May 27, 1844, near Blairsville, Indiana County, 
Pa., of a family distinguished in many walks of life. His 
academic studies having been completed in St. Vincent's College, 
Pa., he entered the seminary of Mt. St. Mary's College at 
Emmitsburg, Md., and was ordained to the priesthood August 
8, 1868. Soon afterward he became a professor and member of 
the faculty of Mt. St. Mary's. In a short time he was elected 
vice-president, and when that old patriarch of "The Mountain," 
Dr. John McCloskey, resigned in 1877, Father Watterson be- 
came president. At this time Fordham College conferred upon 
him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. These years at " The 
Mountain" were the closing years of that galaxy of great men 
who had taken the trust from the founders and their immediate 
successors, and worthily sustained the reputation of "the mother 
of bishops" for religion and learning. Of such were Dr. John 
McCaffrey, Dr. John McCloskey, Dr. McMurdie, and Father 
John O'Brien, author of The History of the Mass. 

Father Watterson remained at the head of the college until 
1880, when he was called to the Bishopric of Columbus, to 
succeed the late Bishop Rosecrans. He was consecrated in the 
cathedral by Archbishop Elder, of Cincinnati, August 7, 1880, 
Bishops Tuigg of Pittsburg and McCloskey of Louisville acting 
as assistants. 

Then began his great work in the diocese assigned to him. 
That work speaks for itself in the many new churches, schools, 
convents, and charitable institutions that sprang up within his 
jurisdiction. Nor was his thought given to outwardly great 
works alone : the humblest of his flock never came in vain to 
him for comfort and assistance. 



1899-] BISHOP WATTERSON. 409 

Ever close to his heart was the cause of temperance. In 
truth, during his entire episcopacy he waged an unrelenting 
war against drunkenness and the abuse of the liquor traffic. 
So outspoken was he in this regard, from the very first day of his 
episcopacy, that he roused up a bitter opposition ; but this 
opposition only increased his efforts, until, by strict regulations 
uniformly enforced throughout his diocese, he moderated the 
evils of the saloon to such a degree as to receive the unstinted 
praise of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. In this warfare he 
made many material sacrifices ; but such sacrifices never gave 
him a moment's hesitation in his fight for the cause of sobriety 
and the safety of the home. 

Let these resolutions, passed upon his death by the Presby- 
terian Union of Columbus, speak for the esteem in which his 
non-Catholic fellow-citizens held him : 

" Having heard of the sudden, though not altogether unex- 
pected, death of the Right Rev. John A. Watterson, D.D., 
Bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Columbus, whom 
we recognize as a faithful minister of Christ, and a distinguished 
servant of God in his church, we share the sorrow which has 
thus come to this community and which is felt alike by all 
who seek the moral and religious welfare of this city. 

" We are glad to acknowledge his uniform courtesy in his 
intercourse with those not of his denomination. 

" We recognize the strength of his character, the purity of 
his life, and the unblemished reputation which he has main- 
tained in all the years of his residence among us. We heartily 
appreciate his ready co-operation in every effort for the sup- 
pression of vice and immorality ; his aid and counsel in the 
charitable work of the city ; his unfaltering support of the 
cause of temperance, and his patriotic service as an American 
citizen. 

"When such a man falls the whole community sustains a 
loss, and we desire to pay this tribute of our esteem to his 
memory. 

" Signed William E. Moore, D.D., LL.D. ; William Stuart 

Eagleson, A.M." 

Nor were the words " his patriotic service as an American citi- 
zen " mere empty phrases. Next to his God came his love for 
his native land evidenced not by words alone, but by living 
deeds. That this trait was recognized by those outside his 
spiritual direction is proof sufficient of its reality. 

Washington Gladden, the well-known writer on social sub- 



410 BISHOP WATTERSON. [June. 

jects, said on hearing of his death : " I have always looked 
upon him as one of the strongest, brightest, and most upright 
Christian men of my acquaintance." 

President Canfield, of the Ohio State University, said : " I 
knew Bishop Watterson personally and admired him greatly as 
a man. He was one of the purest types of American citizen- 
ship." 

The life of such a man is truly a benediction to a nation 
ay, to a race : for the record of such a soul becomes a standard 
of spiritual values a measure by which men involuntarily mea- 
sure themselves and feel inwardly constrained to meet. The 
life and passing to his reward of such a man for ever extends 
upon the earth the boundaries of the Kingdom of Light. 

We hail and greet him, not as one dead, but as a victor 
over time and death, for truly could the words of Tennyson 
be applied to him, as 

" One who reverenc'd his conscience as his king ; 
Whose glory was redressing human wrong ; 
Who spake no slander, nor listen'd to it ; 
How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise, 
With what sublime repression of himself, 

Not making his high place the lawless perch of wing'd ambi- 
tions, 

Nor a vantage ground for pleasure ; 

But thro' all, wearing the white flower of a blameless life, 
A prince indeed beyond all titles." 




MR. WILLIAMS is an Oxford man, a former 
demy of Magdalen, and on the first view one would 
think he was probably a person of attainments. 
Reading the little work * named in this notice does 
not disabuse you of this view, but somehow or 
other one is besides more or less favorably impressed by 
him and his ways. You get the notion that he is a prig as 
well as a man of some scholarship and ability. There is in this 
little book a decided and bold statement of important con- 
siderations too often lost sight of by Catholic writers, for which 
we thank him ; he has a serious sense of responsibility in un- 
dertaking this work and desires to acquit himself well in con- 
sequence ; but all the same you have the idea he wishes to 
put forth his wares well labelled, and thereby distinguished 
from similar goods supplied by non-convert Catholics. 

However, we give cordial praise to the manner in which he 
presents to view the intrinsic evil of heresy ; and we do this, 
not because there is anything new in the statement of a fact 
as familiar to St. Augustine and the other Fathers, to St. 
Thomas and the Schoolmen, to every mind which has learned 
the historical lesson of the result of the heretical spirit, as any 
other fact of consciousness, but because he presents it with 
consideration for the feelings of readers outside the church. 
We have no doubt but that the little book will be found use- 
ful to any intelligent and fair-minded man outside the church 
who desires to be satisfied as to his position with reference to 
God. In any case it ought to suggest some examination of 
the history of Revelation as told by the church and witnessed 
to in her own life. It is a fair question : Why should the 
study of God's dealings with mankind, as set forth in the 
Revelation of the Old and New Testament, and the continu- 
ous life of the Jewish and the Christian Church, be not as in- 

* Christian Argument. By J. Herbert Williams, M.A. London: Catholic Truth 
Society. 



4 i2 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June, 

teresting a study -as any other branch of anthropology. There 
are considerations at this point worthy of an enlightened mind. 

Is there anything peculiar to the Christian Revelation which 
marks it off from the communications put forward by the In- 
dian.or Mohammedan, the Chinese, the Persian, or the Greek, 
or by any other of the religious systems or revelations which 
have asserted authority from God? Has any other system or 
revelation claimed to be something original and integral in the 
human race ? But apart from that, could the human mind 
devise a scheme so much above anything that it has elsewhere 
historically conceived as this continuous revelation from Eden 
to the Lord Christ? That is to say: Does the Christian Reve- 
lation differ, not only in grade but in character, from all other 
accounts of revelation? These are great questions to any per- 
son outside the church, and Mr. Williams suggests them, if not 
quite so distinctly as they are marked down here, with suf- 
ficient clearness to put the reader on inquiry. 

Where we think his little book is extremely well done is 
where he discusses the proofs for the divinity of our Lord. 
Within a short compass the passages explicitly or implicitly 
declaring this doctrine are gathered together, collated, and 
compared with an ease and force which could not be sur- 
passed within the limits at his disposal. The declaration of 
the Nicene Creed goes out, "true God of true God," as the 
crystallized embodiment of all the texts, the inevitable, irre- 
sistible expression of all the references to the Divine Person 
who became flesh. We cannot praise this part of Mr. Williams' 
effort too highly; at the same time we cannot overlook his 
affected rendering of Deum Verum de Deo Vero Very God of 
very God. With very great respect for him, we distinctly deny 
that " very " is the translation of " verus " in the Creed. " Very " 
in English usage suggests identification of an individual in 
himself, rather than this plus his relation with others and with 
circumstance of time, place, and possession. 

Protestant Belief, by the same author and from the same 
publisher, is another small work. We think it a very fair 
herald of the one we have just noticed, but it in some degree 
lacks the strength and precision of the latter. Yet we do not 
mean that it is in any way destitute of force ; and clearly, from 
his antecedents, the writer would speak as one upon his native 
heath when talking of the belief of those among whom he was 
brought up. The explanation is, Mr. Williams was cautious, as 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 413 

a Catholic apologist must be, and therefore he gained in exact- 
ness in the later work ; he was strong in this too, because he 
was conscious of speaking with the authority of sixty or seventy 
centuries behind him to men beaten and pushed about and 
groping blindly, or to men sitting down in the awful calm of 
an Epicurean who has made up his mind that the careless gods 
are not careless, but that they are dead. 

The curious remark of the gentleman whose autobiography 
is the title* of this notice that the politician puts on airs and 
pretends he is moving the world, when he is only a puppet 
being pulled by a string may describe accurately enough what 
the man of affairs meant in the France of the seventeenth 
century, but surely it would not represent him now and would 
not be like him in the time of the Regent Orleans. He is 
now a clever person who deals in Panama shares and things 
on the Bourse ; he is as moral as a member of the present 
government of England who combines a directorship in Hooley 
companies with a high office in the public service. In the 
Orleans days Law led that able regent into speculations of which 
a lame duck might be ashamed ; and in the great country of 
the pharisees Hooley paid money to men for taking a chance 
of enriching themselves at the expense of more foolish people. 
It is a good thing to know, whatever may be said of the 
scandalous Orleans, that there are twenty-four men high in the 
public service of the British government who are directors of 
twice that number of limited liability companies. 

The time of the story is the administration of Mazarin, and 
we are introduced to the world of the day in a chapter en- 
titled "A Mysterious Assignation." It is a pity he should tell 
the reader so much as that the billet-doux is a decoy, a trap 
by which M. de Fontanges, the reckless, card-sharping, duel- 
fighting, penniless younger son of a good family in Picardy, is 
to be led into the assassination of a high functionary whose 
vigilance and ability stand in the way of a conspiracy against 
the cardinal. M. de Fontanges is a man of gallantry, and bad 
and' disreputable as he is, soiled as his experiences are, there 
is enough of the gentleman left to make him ready for any- 
thing to win the good opinion of a woman. On this survival 
of sentiment in the wreck of a career the fair plotter builds. 
He goes blindfold in both senses, physically and mentally, 
into the service, and only discovers the rank and power of the 

* The Silver Cross. By S. R. Keightley. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. 



TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June, 

person whom the lady wants removed because the companion 
he had taken to aid him recognized that individual. We think 
M. de Fontanges, who at the end of his biography writes the 
observation with which we opened this notice, is a clever, 
shrewd adventurer, and undervalues himself. He is a man of 
wit, or something very near to it, but the companion engaged 
in the removal of the high functionary is an extravagant and 
impossible Irishman such as is to be found only in English 
novels, one who certainly had no existence at the time of the 
tale. Louis XIV., who was a good judge of a gentleman, said 
his Irish officers were the most perfect gentlemen in Europe. 
So much, then, for Eugene O'Brien Viscomte de Barrymore, of 
this story. 

However, a real love passage evolves itself from the assigna- 
tion, and a pleasing one indeed. The issue of the conspiracy is 
startling owing to the Irishman's wild sense of humor, which 
leads him to attempt things no sane man would do, and for no 
better reason than the enjoyment of the jest. The jest is 
successful : nothing less than using a blank lettre de cachet signed 
by Mazarin, and found on the person to be removed out of 
the conspirators' way. It was intended for De Fontanges, but 
M. de Barrymore writes in the blank space the name of the 
man to be got rid of. The cardinal's trusted friend is sent 
to the prison, in the cardinal's carriage and by his war- 
rant. Rather a bold proceeding, .which earned at the min- 
ister's hands the rack as a preparation for the headsman. 
Both De Fontanges and De Barrymore himself were in a 
dilemma, out of which the Irishman's humor found an escape 
by sacrificing his friend. Yet he acted in this incredibly in- 
famous manner with good faith and through the spirit of loyal 
friendship. This idea is a little far-fetched, we shall not say 
idiotic, because the author shows very considerable talent 
throughout his work: the influence of prejudice, no doubt; 
which works in polite literature like preconceived theory in 
that German criticism which is anything but polite literature. 

The complications are considerable, but a clear style, easy 
and rapid narrative, do not permit them to become too involved. 
As the novel purports to be an autobiography, we are not afraid 
of M. de Fontanges' headsman, believing as we do that the work 
could hardly have been produced without a head of some kind. 

There is one very well-conceived character " Brown Eyes " 
deep in a political conspiracy, but a young lady chic as the 
Relative and confidante of Madame the Duchess de Chevreuse 



1899.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 415 

should be, pure-minded and romantic as such a confidante 
could hardly be expected to be. The author would have greatly 
interested us if he brought the duchess more prominently 
to the front. The materials are superabundant. Every one 
knows that that intriguing woman was never out of a con- 
spiracy, and no one could predict what conspiracy would be 
the next. The author may have been wise in making her 
seem rather an influence than an active conspirator, leaving the 
effect to the reader's faith. But as she was a somewhat vulgar- 
minded woman notwithstanding high rank and perfect manners, 
she could not have been an impersonal thing affecting her 
puppets like a passion. M. de Barrymore, then, was wrong in 
calling her scheme a crusade ; it was a poor plot. She was in 
the heart of her enterprises. We remember how she fooled an 
illegitimate grandson of Henry IV. into a conspiracy which 
landed him in the Bastile well for him it was " the little car- 
dinal " who held the helm. She played upon his ambition 
royal bastards in France had come to be very like the royal 
bastards in England whom Horace Walpole so pitilessly diag- 
noses. The author is right in making the duchess recognize 
the contrast between Mazarin and Richelieu ; but then every 
one realized it. That grandson of Henry IV. who appears 
in the story M. de Beaufort the author does not speak 
of the relationship, yet this was the spring of his motive in the 
conspiracy, if it be the one we mean and not an imaginary 
one, this grandson of Henry IV., we say, would have been 
given to the headsman by Richelieu ; Mazarin would only 
imprison him. This marks an obvious difference between the 
two ministers. Again, we infer from the book that the duchess 
had been conspiring all through the time of the former min- 
ister hardly correct ; the fact is, Richelieu kept her away 
from the court against the wishes of the king at times, against 
those of the queen always ; and her conspiracies then were 
mere stage business, disguises always penetrated, mysteries which 
could not be penetrated because they had nothing in them. 
The great cardinal was an influence to be feared. The tale is 
very well told though, and not unhealthy. 

This pamphlet,* which consists of two chapters, one entitled 
" The Kingdom of Italy," the other " The Sovereignty of 
Rome," is a handy and useful contribution to the literature on 

* The Kingdom of Italy and the Sovereignty of Rome. By William Poland, S.J., St. 
Louis University. St. Louis : B. Herder. 



416 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June, 

the temporal power of the pope. The first gives in a com- 
pendious form a resume of the leading facts which constitute 
the political history of Italy since the rise of Victor Emmanuel's 
power. The passages on the plebiscite and guarantees are 
effective, and those headed "spoliation and debt" will be in- 
structive to those who look with favor upon the Italian Revo- 
lution. Father Poland has given some extracts from English 
publications on the hunger-riots of the last few years, and the 
laws passed to quell similar outbreaks. The Saturday Review 
describes them as "tyrannical in principle," the Spectator says 
" These laws are as bad as any of our own penal laws." In the 
Roman correspondence of the London Times this passage ap- 
peared : " The church, from the pope down to the lowest 
ecclesiastic, is in the hands of the state without defence from 
the action of the law." In a number of this magazine an 
article mentioned particulars of the riots in Sicily and the 
main-land. Father Poland quotes from the Fortnightly Review of 
April, 1894, a statement to the effect that hundreds of brutal 
laws were passed from which there was no appeal, and that 
vast numbers in the flower of youth and prime of manhood 
were flung " into the hell of Italian prisons." There was noth- 
ing like this in the time of " old Bomba " or " Bomba the 
younger," as the detestable Italians and their English admirers 
called his majesty Ferdinand and his majesty Francis II. 
Surely there ought to be some nickname for the King of Pied- 
mont beside that of King of Italy. 

The chapter on the sovereignty of Rome is good reading. 
The question of the temporal power is stated clearly, and we 
should recommend its perusal to some "latter day" Catholics. 
It is a thorny crown. How many pope-kings have died in exile, 
how many have been flung into prison, assaulted, poisoned, or 
threatened with that form of death, how many have died 
broken-hearted ? John X. was strangled as though he were a 
sultan or a tzar, or some other semi-civilized ruler ; and almost 
all of them have been subjected to some outrage at the hands 
of the Romans, and all the time the same Romans were ready 
to agree to anything rather than that the pope should live else- 
where. We are pleased to find a Jesuit with sound principles 
on this question. Father Poland recognizes that the pope's 
right to a temporal sovereignty is divine, from which our own 
inference follows that he is entitled to the restoration of the 
usurped states because no prescription can arise against that 
right. We have pleasure in recommending this publication. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 417 

A selection from the Thoughts of Joubert,* translated 
by Katherine Lyttleton, with a preface by Mrs. Humphrey 
Ward, deserves more than the fugitive notice we can give 
it in this place. The value of the study is not in the thoughts 
themselves so much as in their revelation of an order of 
mental form wrought out of certain qualities by the action 
of changing and conflicting influences. The thoughts them- 
selves do not always possess depth, but those that are obvious 
and superficial charm by an unusual delicacy of form which 
makes their expression as fine as gossamer. He was an egoist 
concerned for others, and these seemingly hostile prepossessions 
are the basis of the character on which Diderot wrote the im- 
pulse for new and progressive ideas, and Chateaubriand the 
noble and intense calm which comes of veneration for the 
past. 

He reminds us of Falkland, but Falkland without restless- 
ness ; a man of convictions whose source lay in sympathy with 
defeat. He mused where Falkland fought, but in both a spirit 
of chivalry made them the courtiers of the unfortunate. Even 
when Chateaubriand made an epoch in literature, the love of 
the church and her influence did not move Frenchmen like a 
passion ; there was no flood of Crusade ideas, no war cries of 
God wills it ! in what Mrs. Ward implies was a reactionary 
spirit dominating France and undoing the Revolution. It was 
so far this spirit in literature only a graceful romanticism 
rising from the ruins of all things arid taking the place in 
society of those philosophical platitudes beyond the abyss 
which had produced so much disaster. France still remained 
the child of the Revolution, though it bowed to the Genius of 
Christianity. The beautiful embodiment of Chateaubriand's 
conception of the Church stood in society like a queen, and 
gentlemen bent to her, but without enthusiasm. Joubert had 
enthusiasm, but it was only of the intellect an intellect, too, of 
taste rather than of creative power. The later master's con- 
ception was fitted for his mind, and so the influence of the 
Genius of Christianity is seen in those later Thoughts. 

Mr. Craig dedicates his book, entitled Christian Persecutions,^ 
"to the cause of humanity and the overthrow of intolerance, 
bigotry, and ignorance." Brought up a Protestant full of pre- 

* Jouberfs Thoughts. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. 

t Christian Persecutions. By Asa W. Craig. Mukwonago, Wisconsin : The Burlington 
Publishing Co. 

VOL. LXIX. 27 



418 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June, 

judices against the church, he had the idea that she was re- 
sponsible for the mischiefs which afflicted the world since the 
time of her ascendency in Europe. It does not appear clear 
at what exact period her baleful control over man's intellect 
began to be exercised, but the notion was in his mind as an 
ordinary fact determining his opinion, just as one's confidence 
in the succession of day and night regulates the apportionment 
of his labors and the performance of other obligations. The 
vague and shadowy impression about the rise of this influence 
did not diminish the strength of his conviction of its reality ; 
and we owe much to the candor and charity which moved him 
to confess a view which puts him among those who take the 
opinions of others without question, even though they are on 
the face of them tainted with prejudice. To a logical mind the 
first question would occur: If the Catholic Church has been 
such a disastrous power in the moral and social world, where 
did she obtain the authority over the judgments and affections 
of men which made her that? This no Protestant has attempted 
to answer ; he evades it by saying that she was pure in doctrine 
and morals to the fourth century or the sixth ; and leaves you 
to infer that this settles the whole question of religious wars, 
persecutions for heresy, a closed Bible, and tyranny over the 
intellect. Fortunately for Mr. Craig, he was on terms of the 
closest friendship with Catholics excellent in all the relations 
of life, men of solid piety and business capacity. These could 
not be sincere Catholics if immoral and sanguinary principles 
meant sincere Catholicism ; if their belief was not sincere, they 
were hypocrites or fools, but neither of these alternatives 
could apply to able and intelligent men, pious and blameless 
in their lives, men abounding in the best fruits of Christian 
life. He thought he would study the problem for himself ; 
and with the result that not only prejudices were removed, 
but he discovered that the persecutions were against and not 
by the church, that they began in the first days of her life, 
and are in some form or other in full activity to-day. The 
late Lord Macaulay bore testimony to the eminent sanctity of 
many Catholics in terms of fine appreciation ; he spoke of them 
as one speaks of the highest exemplars of Christian virtue. 
That there are many men outside the church who recognize 
the holiness of individual Catholics to-day and in every age there 
can be no question. This is within the experience of private 
friendship and general reading both of Catholics and Protestants ; 
yet the impact of Protestant prejudice, or at least anti-Catho- 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 419 

lie prejudice, is a mass that presses on Catholics in England, 
America, and Germany in personal and public relations almost 
as much to-day as ever ; quite as if the old fears which were 
the vindication of disabling laws had not been removed with 
the laws they were thought to justify. 

There is one topic which, we think, can be regarded as only 
a persecution of the church in an indirect sense, namely, the 
views or negations of 1 Mr. Ingersoll. If these are in conflict 
with all belief in religion, we think the persecution of the 
church from that source is not likely to redound to her 
special disadvantage. The sanctions which are behind all 
morality are the guarantee to society for the observance of all 
laws, therefore Mr. Ingersoll's attacks on the foundations of 
morality are more directly an assault on the state than on the 
church. The prince does not wear the sword in vain ; we do 
not mean that the gentleman in question should be distinguished 
by a public prosecution, far from that, but we wish it to be 
understood that any danger from him is to society and not to 
that supreme influence and power by which society is made 
possible. Oh no ! we hope Mr. Ingersoll will live long and 
enjoy his liberty to the last ; and with this enjoyment that which 
must afford pleasure to a man of well-constituted mind in his 
last hour, the knowledge that he has done no harm. 

When Catholics turn their attention to dramatic literature 
and claim their share in that long-undervalued field for public 
influence, we may hope to reclaim those theatres now strug- 
gling between respectability and failure. Beautiful sentiments, 
characters, situations, built upon a solid conviction of Christian 
truth and expressed with the care and attention to detail that 
marks our classic plays, will not only outbid the colorless 
popular successes upon our stage, but will create an ever- 
increasing demand for the best drama. Our Catholic writers 
have too long neglected this opportunity, and the time is ripe 
for them to depict in dramatic literature the action of the 
Holy Ghost working through the human heart, uplifting, en- 
nobling, and beautifying it as no lesser influence can do. A 
promising augury has appeared in a little volume entitled The 
Old Patroon, and Other Plays* by George Stanislaus Connell, 
where literary excellence has not been overlooked in the desire 
to attain practical fitness for the stage. The title play repre- 

* The Old Patroon, and Other Plays. By George Stanislaus Connell. New York : 
William H. Young & Co. 



42p TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June, 

sents an old Dutch burgher of our pre-Revolutionary days 
who, remaining loyal to the love of his youth, wins her at last 
in a beautiful little love scene of quiet dignity. We feel in- 
stinctively as we survey his character that its strength comes, 
not from any modern sentimentality, but from his deep-rooted 
conviction of a future life and his firm belief that God, who 
had led him to love a woman, would, here or hereafter, unite 
their hearts. The other plays in the book, which were written 
especially for college students and contain only male characters, 
are entitled : " My Youngster's Love Affair," " The Guardian 
Angel," and " A Mild Monomaniac." Altogether, the volume 
offers a charming afternoon's reading. 

In the season when nature seems to hear a voice from 
heaven summoning her back to light and gladness, when every 
sound, from the first thunder, with its host of memories, to the 
daily morning songs of returning birds, appears a call to re- 
sume the crown of her neglected kingdom, the Queen of 
Heaven, Mary, our Source of Joy, should find new votaries 
and new-born ardor in the love of faithful hearts. And fore- 
most among those to sing her praises we naturally expect the 
good priest who, by daily imitation of her virtues and by free- 
dom from the world's distractions, breathes a purer atmosphere 
of spiritual insight and commands a mountain view of far- 
spread loveliness that dwellers in a valley never know. The 
tender piety that graces every thought in Father O'Neill's 
little book of verses,* bears out to perfection the Christian 
ideal of devotion to our Mother, unparalleled for beauty in all 
the most entrancing works of poetical conception. Whether 
his imagination pays her tribute as his Queen, crowned with 
the seven stars, or as the Immaculate One, the Miracle of our 
race, whom Wordsworth loved to call " our tainted nature's 
solitary boast," or as our Lady of Light, or as the gracious 
Lady of Lourdes, in every case the true religious spirit breath- 
ing through the lines emphasizes anew the truth that, after all, 
the much-disputed definition of poetry (prescinding from its 
expression) is nothing more or less than God's grace. Without 
this a great name will pass away with its wearer : with it an 
obscure servant of God becomes invested with a charm worthy 
of a Homer's portrayal. May the spirit of Father O'Neill's 
beautiful little book win for it the wide appreciation it de- 
serves ! 

* Between Whiles: A Collection of Verses. By Arthur Barry O'Neill, C.S.C. Chicago 
and New York : D. H. McBride & Co. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 421 

Two brochures* form part of the series called "Science 
and Religion, or Studies for the Present Time." This series 
covers a very wide range, theological, moral, scientific, and his- 
torical. While most of the writers are priests and theologians, 
laymen and scientists also have contributed. 

The first of the two pamphlets, Du Doute a la Foi, contains 
an accurate statement, such as may be found in every theo- 
logical work on the subject, of the nature of Faith, and of the 
praambula requisite for it, on the obligation to believe, and on 
the part which the will has therein. If this were all, any 
very special reason for its appearance might not be evident. 
But special value is given to the work by the large sympathy 
manifested therein for those who have not faith, by the way 
in which Father Tournebize shows the need in which man 
stands of faith in order to lead a moral life, and most of all 
by the chapter on the dispositions necessary for the acceptance 
of faith. 

Father Tournebize fully recognizes the reality of the diffi- 
culties which stand in the way of faith, and that these difficul- 
ties do not always spring from shameful causes. This recogni- 
tion gives the work its tone. It is not reproachful and objur- 
gatory, but calm, argumentative, enlightening. For any but 
educated readers it is, we fear, too condensed and succinct ; 
nor is it meant for those who are satisfied with their unbelief, 
but for those who are trying to find a way out ; and among 
these perhaps it is better fitted for those for whom, as in 
France, the Catholic Church is the living religious power, and 
who have already a good knowledge of its doctrines and spirit. 
There are, however, not a few in this country to whom the 
work will be useful. We would call particular attention to 
pages 45 and 46 as to a way in which the unbeliever may be 
led by steps to the full knowledge and possession of the truth. 
We will only add that the author is as benignant as it is pos- 
sible to be in regard to the position of heathen nations, and recog- 
nizes that the Holy Ghost is acting among them and adapting 
his action to the thousand circumstances of each individual, 
so that there is not one who may not be led to the truth. 

As to the second pamphlet, Les Peines cTOutre-Tombe, 
all that space allows us to say is, that it would be hard to find 
a more exact, moderate, and reliable statement of the doctrine 
of the church and of revelation, and of the opinions in op- 

* Du Doute a la Foi. Par le Pere Francois Tournebize. Opinions du Jour stir les Peines 
cPOutre-Tombe. Par le meme. Paris : Librairie Bloud et Barrel. 



422 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June, 

position to it held widely at the present time, as well as of the 
opinions held by theologians within the church. Properly to 
enter upon the matter would require an article. Father Tourne- 
bize's work is short indeed, but so complete as to be of very 
great value for any one who wishes to be put fully in posses- 
sion of the present state of the discussion. The arguments for 
the Catholic doctrine are stated with great force and clearness. 
Father Tournebize has a remarkable power of saying much in 

a few words. 



CATHOLICISM AND THE INTERIOR LIFE.* 

This book deserves the most attentive consideration and in 
many respects the highest praise. It is much more than an 
ordinary work of controversy, more profound, more sympathe- 
tic, more convincing; and if in some parts we cannot find our- 
selves in agreement, we recognize that the mistakes, if such 
they are, of the author are due to a zeal which appears at 
times to be lacking in those who have more fully realized the 
actual position. 

Above and beyond a power of lucid exposition which may 
be compared with that of Cardinal Newman, and a like sympa- 
thetic appreciation of his opponents' position, there are. here 
and there flashes of thought indicative of the insight of genius. 
The work is an examination of the relations of Catholicism to 
the deepest and truest life of the mind of man, an attempt to 
show that the life which the Catholic lives in submission to 
the doctrines imposed by the church tends to the development 
of that disinterested morality which forms part of the modern 
ideal. Pessimism is examined to show the value of life, as 
also the claims of modern science to give the worth to life of 
which unbelievers assert Catholicism deprives it. The inade- 
quacy of materialistic conceptions of life is shown in face of 
the Christian conception, and in the chapter which gives its 
name to the work, M. Sabatier's contention that the fixity of 
dogma prevents the growth of the religious life, and that its 
practical forms lead back to paganism, is refuted. In short, the 
object of the author is to show that, after all that modern 
philosophy and science can say, ths Catholic religion alone 
possesses the words of life. 

We cannot, however, give unqualified approval to the method 

* Le Catholicisms et la Vie de r Esprit. Par George L.-Fonsegrive. Paris: Librairie 
Victor Lecoffre. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 423 

of apologetics advocated in the first and second chapters, at- 
tractive at first though it may seem. A catechist finds his 
pupils imbued so deeply with Kant's philosophy that they are 
unable to feel the force of the arguments for the existence of 
God. M. Fonsegrive therefore proposes to leave them in their 
mistaken attitude, and to look for other ways of bringing the 
truth home to their minds. Without attempting to criticise 
the alternative ways suggested by the author, is it not a mis- 
take to think that a thoughtful mind can, with Kant, deny the 
power of the intellect to get at objective reality, and at the 
same time find it possible to be soundly Catholic? Would 
not, then, the catechist's right course have been so to have 
steeped himself in the grounds of objective philosophy as to 
have been able to vindicate the real cogency of St. Thomas's 
arguments? We cannot but think that every other course is 
unsatisfactory in the end, however expedient the endeavor to 
avoid the direct issue may for the time being appear. While 
it is true that we must take men as we find them, and should 
do all we can to help them, we must take care that, while 
hoping to bring them into union with ourselves, we do not 
sacrifice the truth for the sake of that union. We do not say 
that M. Fonsegrive's method would of itself lead to this bad 
result, but we fear that in the hands of the incompetent and 
short-sighted it might be so perverted. While, therefore, to 
the first and second chapters we cannot give unqualified ap- 
proval, with the rest more unqualified agreement may be ex- 
pressed. It is a work which deserves and demands the atten- 
tion of all who areMnterested'in the relation of modern thought 
to the church and her doctrine : a work that will do much 
good. 




THE " Holy Year " which has just been pro- 
claimed will have for its purpose not only the 
Yi^^-jr^ opening of the spiritual treasures of the church, 

that all may partake and partake abundantly, but it will 
be the affirmation of the triumph of Jesus Christ in this 
greatest of all centuries. 



Both the context and the significance of the Letter of the 
Holy Father on Americanism has by this time been pretty 
well threshed out, and one of the notable things of these days 
of ultra freedom of thought is to witness the wonderful una- 
nimity of assent that has been given to the words of the Holy 
Father. There has not been one dissenting voice, and it must 
be extremely comforting to him at the close of his pontificate 
to see the spirit of unity as well of adhesion to the Holy See 
that prevails throughout the church. 



A pontifical letter generally has a two-fold purpose. While 
it sets up danger-signals at the pitfalls, it also points out and 
clearly defines the road. On this point there will be read with 
a great deal of interest the luminous statement from Father 
Cuthbert, O.S.C., one of the leading essayists in England, 
which we have printed in this number under the caption 
"With the Thinkers." 



The flurry over the ordination of Dr. Briggs has passed, but 
the agitation over the inspiration of Holy Scripture will go on 
among religious non-Catholics, with the result that the number 
who will find the position of Protestantism, when it stakes 
everything on an infallible Bible, untenable will increase day by 
day. Next year we shall be gathering them into the true fold. 



The situation in Cuba is becoming complicated. A serious 
outbreak of any kind just now will inevitably result sooner or 
later in annexation. It is becoming a problem of considerable 
magnitude to get the remnants of the Cuban army off the field. 




COMMANDER JAMES DOUGLASS J. KELLEY, U.S.N. 

CATHOLIC OFFICERS IN THE ARMY AND THE 

NAVY. 



COMMANDER JAMES DOUGLASS J. KELLEY, U.S.N. 

The ability of Commander Kelley has received recognition by 
his appointment upon many important boards and commissions. 
Among others have been the Board of Inspectors of Foreign 
Ships, Board of Ships' Boats, Naval Inspector of Merchant 
Steamers, senior member of Board of Auxiliary Vessels for war 
purposes during the last war. How well he acquitted himself 
in this work is too well known to need any other reference 
than the record of the vessels selected by the board to aid 
the navy in their work. He was also a member of the court- 
martial that tried and convicted Chaplain Mclntyre for conduct 
detrimental to the service. 

It needs but a glance at the naval record given below to 
recognize that Commander Kelley, of the U. S. N., has been 
a very busy officer, and while it may cause wonder among 
those unacquainted with Mr. Kelley, to those who have seen 
the expeditious manner in which he transacts business routine 
and performs his many duties, it is no surprise that in such a 
full and busy life the commander has found time to contribute so 



426 CATHOLICS IN THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. [June, 

extensively to the literary world. In 1881 he was prize essayist 
and gold medalist at the United States Naval Institute. He is 
the author of "The Question of Ships " (i2mo), " American 
Yachts" (4to), "A Desperate Chance," "Typical Yachts," 
" Armored Vessels," " Monthly Pilot-Chart," " Proceedings of 
Courts-Martial and Boards," " The Story of Coast Defence," 
"American Men of War," etc. 

James Douglass Jerold Kelley was born in New York City 
on December 25, 1847, was educated in the New York private 
and public schools, and at Seton Hall College from 1858 to 1862. 
He was appointed at large by President Lincoln, and entered 
the U. S. Naval Academy October 5, 1864, from which he 
graduated in 1868. 

His first assignment was with the European squadron, where 
during the year he did duty in turn on the Ticonderoga, the 
flagship Franklin, the Richmond, and the Girard. Promoted to 
ensign in 1869, he was assigned to equipment duty at the 
Navy-yard in New York, and in 1870 he was on signal .duty at 
Fort Whipple, Virginia. Having qualified as signal officer, he 
was ordered as such to the Pacific station and had charge of a 
party in the Darien survey. Promoted to master in 1872 and 
to lieutenant in 1873, he was assigned to the Frolic, the port- 
admiral's ship at New York, which brought from the ^north 
the survivors of the Polaris arctic exploration ship. After a 
short service on torpedo duty at Newport he made a cruise on 
the Congress to the coast of Africa, was invalided home, and 
after duty on the Minnesota was made executive officer of the 
nautical school-ship St. Marys. In 1879 ^ e was assigned to 
special duty on the Great Lakes, and the following year ap- 
pointed to the Hydrographic Office. In 1881 his assignments 
were, respectively, the Nipsic to the West Indies, ordnance 
duty, and command of the experimental battery at Annapolis- 
From Annapolis he was assigned as secretary to the Rear Ad- 
miral on the Despatch, the President's yacht, and from 1882 to 
1893 he was respectively assigned to torpedo duty, Judge Ad- 
vocate General's office, South Atlantic station, North Atlantic 
station, receiving-ship St. Louis. 

He was promoted to lieutenant-commander June, 1893, and 
during the years from 1893-1897 was assigned to the Cincinnati, 
Texas, Richmond, and again to the Texas, of the North Atlan- 
tic squadron. 

In 1898 he was assigned as aid to the commandant at Navy- 
yard, New York, and was promoted to commander in March, 1899. 



1899-] WHAT THE THINKERS SAY. 427 

WHAT THE THINKERS SAY. 



CATHOLICISM AND NATIONAL CHARACTER. 

(Father Cuthbert, O.S.F.C., in the Weekly Register.} 

" ROME has spoken, the cause is finished.", With equal truth might it be 
said, " Rome has spoken, the cause is begun." For the judgments of the Holy 
See have usually this characteristic, that whilst defining or guarding against 
error, they point to the way of growing truth ; and what before was a vague, 
hesitating- movement now becomes a definite advance. 

Rome has ever been life-giving in its judicial utterances, at least in that 
higher sphere of religious politics which concern the inner life of the Church. 
In its dealings with secular governments, in what might be called its foreign 
policy, history has not always witnessed to the wisdom of Papal policy. Eng- 
lishmen will never be found to approve, for example, of the action of those 
pre-Reformation Popes who flooded English benefices with Italian clerics, 
much to the disgust of the nation. Neither does the policy of St. Pius V. in 
regard to Elizabeth seem to have been based on the soundest statesmanship. 
But, in that higher sphere which concerns the guardianship of the Faith and 
of the moral life of Christendom, Rome has never failed to enlighten and 
strengthen whenever she has intervened. 

In the Letter to the Americans, the Holy Father has dealt with a vital 
question concerning the future of the Church, especially in English-speaking 
countries the question, broadly speaking, as to how far Catholicism may 
identify itself with national life. It may be taken as an axiom that the Church 
cannot convert the nations without absorbing into itself whatever is good in 
the character and manner of life of the nations. For all good comes from God, 
but is manifested in various ways, amongst various peoples : every nation has 
some distinctive character or moral quality, which is a revelation in the natural 
order of the very life of God Himself. No nation possesses all the moral 
qualities in an eminent degree, but every nation in the best days of its power 
manifests some particular moral quality in a heroic degree. The wonderful 
power of self-sacrifice, inherent in the French people, is balanced among the 
Anglo-Saxons by a deep sense of individual responsibility. Our English love 
of liberty, again, is met, if we are truly informed, by a genuine spirit of 
fraternity amongst the Slavs. Who can say how much the Catholic Church 
owes to the simple joyousness in the beauties of nature so deeply ingrained in 
the Southern nations? Now, the Church, as the unifying factor amongst the 
nations, must absorb into itself all these various national qualities, and must ex- 
clude none; or, to put it in another way, the Church must include all nations, 
not merely as geographical extensions, but as moral entities: that is to say, the 
Church must include in the economy of its social life a capacity to admit into 
itself the national habits and characteristics of every nation under the sun, in 
so far as these habits and characteristics are not opposed to the teaching of 
Christ. For we repeat, in such habits and characteristics of nations, as also, in- 
deed, of individuals, the infinite life of God is manifested, as in a panorama of 
natural revelation. Wherever, then, the Church is planted, it must identify it- 
self with whatever is good in the national life and exclude nothing. But here 
comes the difficulty. In identifying itself with the national life the Church 



428 WHAT THE THINKERS SAY. [June, 

may never surrender that universal character which she has as the guardian of 
the one Divine revelation regarding faith or morals ; neither can she allow the 
essential unity of the Church as the divinely ordained kingdom of God on earth 
to be obscured by any exclusive nationalism. The Church must identify itself 
with all the nations, but in subordination to its own essential and visible unity. 

To maintain this essential unity whilst identifying itself with all the nations 
is the never-sleeping problem which confronts the Papacy: a problem which 
at the present moment is making itself acutely felt, in face of the wonderful 
advance of Catholicism in English-speaking countries. 

The Catholics of English-speaking nations feel that they have to plant 
the good seed of the Faith in native soil ; that they must identify Catholic life 
with the life of the nation. They feel that hitherto they have been regarded, 
and indeed have regarded themselves, too much as distinct from the nation at 
large; that they have too often adopted manners, and customs, and modes of 
thought alien to their own national character, opposed to the spirit of their 
own people. These things have given to Catholicism a foreign aspect ; and the 
need of altering this state of things has for some time past been keenly felt 
among all ranks of the community. Now it is obvious that in this endeavor to 
blend national life with Catholicism there are various dangers to be avoided. 
An exclusive nationalism which would divide Catholicism into unsympathetic 
units and destroy practically, if not in theory, the solidarity of the Church, 
is ever to be guarded against. But English-speaking Catholics are not 
likely to listen for a moment to any argument that tends to destroy the Im- 
perial unity of Catholicism. The history of Anglicanism in our own country, 
and that of Gallicanism across the Channel, are effective danger-signals against 
any such policy. It is not the destruction of this Imperial unity, but its con- 
solidation that we seek. And we are convinced that the blending of Catholi- 
cism with the national life of the English-speaking peoples is one of the best 
guarantees that the unity of the Church will be strengthened and increased in 
the near future. There is much in common between the political temper of 
the English-speaking race and that of Catholicism. Both found their policy 
upon unwritten constitutions, both jealously guard the rights of the individual 
in the commonwealth, both inspire intense loyalty towards those in authority. 
With such common attributes more intimate than those which bind together 
the Church and any other race English national life should enter easily into 
harmonious relationship with the life of Catholicism. 

The difficulties arise, not from the intrinsic principles of Catholicism on the 
one hand, nor even from the intrinsic principles of English character on the 
other; but from this fact chiefly, that the English race is deeply antagonistic to 
anything it cannot blend or harmonize with its own character and aspiration ; 
and for a long time past, more especially since the Catholic revival, Catholicism 
has come to the English people clothed in a strange national garb, French or 
Italian. I do not say it could have been otherwise under the circumstances : 
I only record the fact. In the enthusiasm for the Catholic spirit found in the 
Latin countries, much of the nationalism of these countries has been imported 
into our own life, putting us at times unnecessarily in antagonism with the 
lite of our own people. Religious communities, for example, bring with them 
the system and customs of other lands, and insist upon keeping to those cus- 
toms even in the schools in which our youth is educated. The text-books in 
our seminaries have been imported from abroad, and bear the impress of the 
intellectual character of the nation they come from. Our piety has been fed 



1899-] WHAT THE THINKERS SAY. 429 

almost exclusively upon books "translated from the French" or "founded 
upon the Italian." These things, of course, had to be in the beginning, when 
Catholics were but as a scattered and homeless race, but these things must not 
be in the future: Catholicism must be rooted in the soil, it must ally itself in 
England with all that is good in the English national character and habits of 
mind, and in the outward life of the English people. 

When St. Gregory sent St. Augustine to convert the Anglo-Saxons, he 
bade the Apostle not to destroy the national customs, but to consecrate them, 
and use them for religious purposes. It would have been well if all other 
missionaries had kept this precept in view when they set forth to reconvert 
England to the Faith. Some of them have, indeed, done so, and have thus 
begun the process of naturalizing the Church amongst our countrymen. 
Thus the Fathers of the Society of Jesus have done pioneer work with their 
text-books of philosophy. The English Benedictines have ever been a stand- 
ing memorial of the blending of English character with religious life. 
Amongst my own religious brethren, the Guild of St. Anthony, for alleviating 
the hunger of the poor, is an attempt to nationalize practical Catholic devotion. 
The institution of Catholic centres at the universities was still more eminently 
an advance in the right direction. Most noteworthy of all, however, has been 
the effort made by Cardinal Manning and others to deal with that most press- 
ing of our national problems, the condition of the working-class. Indeed, the 
last few years have seen the beginning of strenuous endeavors thus to plant 
Catholicism in the very soil of English character, and the effect is already be- 
coming manifest in the growing respect with which Catholicism is regarded by 
the country at large, and in the lessenin'g of the popular prejudice that to be a 
Catholic you must cease to be an Englishman. But the work thus begun needs 
to be still more vigorously continued. There are yet amongst us many to 
whom Catholicism seems to include the negation of national character, at least 
in so far as it is English. To men of this way of thinking, the raising of the 
national Cathedral of Westminster the fit symbol of Catholicism moulded by 
English minds and hands is little less than a blasphemy. They would prefer 
that we looked towards Notre Dame of Paris, or the Duomo of Florence, and 
worshipped at a distance. So long as there are Catholics amongst us who view 
with distrust our own national character, Catholicism will never gain its due 
position amongst the English people. Fortunately, they are becoming less in 
number year by year, yet they are capable of doing much mischief to the 
Church whilst they remain. In all these matters the Letter of the Pope to the 
Americans has laid down the rule to be followed. In faith there must be un- 
deviating unity ; in discipline there must be one source of authority, the Holy 
See, which alone has the ultimate right to determine the opportune moment for 
the introduction of new laws or the modification of old ones. In matters of 
national custom and habit, which are not opposed to the laws of the Church, 
the Holy See commends a loyal acceptance. Above all, the Holy See would 
have us bend our energies to the solving of those actual religious and social 
problems that confront us amongst our own people and at the present time. 

With these principles to guide us, English Catholics need not fear to go 
forward iri the good work of blending Catholicism with their national character 
and interests, thus solving in their own persons the much vexed question of 
Church and State. Only when we do this shall we be in a position to demand 
that general acceptance by the English people of Catholic unity for which we 
all hope and pray. Wa must brin^ Catholicism home to the nation before 
the nation will accept Catholicism. 



430 THE COLUMBIAN READING -UNION. [June, 



THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 

TINDER the patronage of the Right Rev. Charles E. McDonnell, D.D., 
U the Metropolitan Truth Society was recently organized in the borough of 
Brooklyn, New York City. Its objects are : 

1. To assist in the dissemination of Catholic truth. 

2. To correct erroneous and misleading statements in reference to Catholic 
doctrine and morals, and to refute calumnies against the Catholic religion. 

3. To secure the publication of articles promoting a knowledge of Catholic 
affairs, such as news of Catholic colleges, institutions, and societies, extracts 
from Catholic magazines and periodicals, synopses of Catholic sermons and 
lectures, and translations of interesting articles in foreign Catholic publications. 

4. To stimulate a desire for higher education among the Catholic laity, and 
the circulation and reading of standard Catholic literature. 

The society is made up of an executive board and corresponding and asso- 
ciate members, all of whom are pledged to promote these objects. The work 
of the society is directed by an executive board under the guidance of the 
society's officers, assisted by committees appointed by the president, the Rev. 
William F. McGinnis, D.D. The main office is at 225 Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn, 
N. Y. 

The corresponding members are Catholic journalists in sympathy with 
the society's objects. Their duty is to forward to the society all serious hostile 
comment on the Catholic Church, and to do all in their power te secure the in- 
sertion in the columns of their own papers of matter sent out by the society. 

The associate members are practical Catholics men and women who 
agree to advance the aims of the society by all means in their power ; by as- 
sisting it financially, and by contributing, when called upon, such original arti- 
cles, refutations, and translations from foreign publications as, in the opinion of 
the executive board, would be available for publication. The associates are 
recognized as most valuable aetive workers, and the executive board will be 
glad to receive suggestions from them, and to be kept informed by them of any 
movement or line of work which, in their opinion, might be worthy of the 
society's attention. 

While the society has not imposed any obligatory dues, all members are 
expected to send to the treasurer, at their convenience, a subscription of not 

less than five dollars per annum. 

* * * 

Right Rev. Monsignor Loughlin, D.D., of Philadelphia, was the recipient 
of distinguished honors on the occasion of his silver jubilee. The Alumni As- 
sociation of the College of the Propaganda attended the celebration, together 
with prominent representatives of the clergy from many dioceses of the United 
States. The reception in Horticultural Hall, given by the Catholic Reading 
Circles, was a noteworthy event for the large attendance of the members, an 
elaborate musical programme, and several notable addresses. 

The chairman of the reception was Rev. Walter P. Gough. On the stage, 
besides the jubilarian, were Archbishop Ryan ; Bishop Moore, of St. Augustine ; 
Bishop Shanley, of Fargo, N. D.; Bishop Howley, of St. John's, Newfoundland, 
and a number of other clergymen. In the audience were Bishop-elect Shana- 
han, Vicar-General Koch, administrator of Harrisburg, and a number of local 
and visiting priests. 



1899-] THE COLUMBIAN READING* UNI^N. 431 

Rev. Walter P. Gough made the opening address, in which he referred to 
the happy event in the life of the director of the movement in Philadelphia. His 
silver jubilee interests not only the people and priests of this city, but also our 
Holy Father himself, who in recognition of his talents and services to Holy 
Church has raised him to the rank of a domestic prelate. It might be asked: 
What has he done for the Reading Circles? But it would be better to ask 
what has he not done ? He has given his time, his talents, and his energy un- 
sparingly. 

Miss Kate C. McMenamin, president of the Union, made an address. The 
Reading Circles were there, she said, full of joy and gladness to offer their con- 
gratulations. Referring to his new dignity, she said : " Clothed in royal gar- 
ments, what have we to offer ? We have fond remembrances of a cottage on 
the banks of Lake Champlain which is a monument of his perseverance. May 
the silver chains of the present be linked with the golden ones of the future ! 
Right Rev. Monsignor, we gladly welcome you to the vacant chair of our late 
spiritual director, the Rev. James F. Loughlin, D.D." 

Dr. Loughlin replied in his usual happy vein. He said in substance that he 
had heard that it was the dress that made the man, but he never believed it until 
now. After the annual sessions they had usually dispensed ice-cream ; now 
they were giving taffy, but after the reception they would no doubt resume 
operations at the old stand. " The work of the Reading Circles," he continued, 
"has been done by yourselves. I had only to spur you on. The ladies took up 
the work, not with t the wild enthusiasm of New York (looking at a group of 
New York priests), but with the quiet conservatism of the Quaker City. We 
don't all keep at it. Some of us graduate. The young ladies either go to the 
convent or get married. So with me. A younger set of men, better qualified, 
are stepping into my place. There are circles I hardly ever see, except at these 
rallies, they are so well taken care of by their own spiritual directors. They 
relieve me and at the same time deprive me of a pleasure, except when I get a 
special invitation, which I sometimes never get, and sometimes when I get, cannot 
accept. The Reading Circle has become a feature of religious life. Some men 
think the ladies are not much good. Keep quiet in the church, said St. Paul; go 
home and ask your husbands about religion. You young ladies would have to 
go home and ask your brothers. Now the lady of the family has a corner in 
religion and the men have to acknowledge this. 

" A couple of years ago I met a very new woman. She had outgrown all 
religious superstitions and even the Lord Himself. She asked me about a certain 
authoress, and I said I had no use for any woman with no religion. She thought 
that rather personal. She thought ladies had no more use for religion than 
men. But she has. It is the duty of the mother to teach religion. The Holy 
Father himself cannot accomplish as much as a mother. The women must 
therefore be thoroughly educated. Not only in school, but after it. Not only as 
girls, but as women. All have received a good school education, but they have 
been educated as girls. They are now in the world and see things in a different 
light. Difficult questions will be put to you which must be answered. If no 
other good comes from the Reading Circle Union, it has brought about a closer 
union between the flock and the shepherd. We were not in existence two years 
(as Reading Circles) when priests complained that the young ladies were poking 
questions at them. You poked a great many at me. The archbishop will ac- 
knowledge that I spent more time on you than on him. You kept me burning 
the midnight oil. But it did me lots of good. I have all that information on the 
end of my tongue and there are very few questions left. 

" Another good of the Reading Circle Union is that you meet each other. 
I am proud of that. You meet each other and find those you meet pretty good. 



432 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [June, 1899.] 

The trouble had been that your circle of friendship had been so restricted. 
There was a prophecy that the movement would drop through, that not a young- 
lady cared a straw for more than five or six other young ladies. In order to be 
powerful you must have an organization. The circle is powerful in the parish, 
the union is powerful in the city." The monsignor concluded with an exhorta- 
tion to continued interest. 

m # * 

The Catholic Summer-School, which in its early days had Monsignor 
Loughlin as a most energetic president, was represented by Very Rev. James P. 
Kiernan, V.G., of Rochester; Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, of Altoona, Pa.; Rev. 
Thomas McMillan, C.S.P., of the Paulist Fathers, New York City. On behalf 
of the Summer-School trustees Very Rev. James P. Kiernan made an address, 
saying in part that the Reading Circle and Summer-School movements are both 
educational. " 1 don't know why I should be called on unless because the cot- 
tage of Rochester, a little town of Northwestern New York, is a close neighbor 
of the Philadelphia cottage. We can sit on our porch and converse with those 
of Philadelphia. J am sure you will appreciate a few words from the president 
of the Summer-School, Rev. M. J. Lavelle." Here Father Kiernan read a letter 
from Father Lavelle, acknowledging the receipt of an invitation to speak on this 
occasion and paying tribute to " the indefatigable, zealous, and illustrious 
spiritual director of the Philadelphia Union." 

After reading the letter Father Kiernan uncovered a handsome solid silver 
pitcher, the gift of the trustees of the Summer-School. 

Bishop Shanley made a witty address. " 1 dislike to appear before the 
ladies of the Reading Circles," he said. " I am a Western man, a man of plain 
speech, and call a spade a spade, a doctor a doctor, and a monsignor a mon- 
signor. Father Lavelle left one adjective for me the irresistible Dr. Loughlin. 
If you never more see me you know the reason why. The reason you see me 
now is because of the deep affection I have for the man you honor. I am glad 
to know the impression he 'has made on the young people. I am as proud of 
this occasion as Dr. Loughlin himself, and he is as proud as a peacock." 

Father Gough suggested that the occasion would be incomplete without 
some expression from Archbishop Ryan. The archbishop said that the scene 
was pleasing as a manifestation of gratitude to the leader of the Reading Circles 
to the one who had done so much to cultivate a taste for literature among the 
young ladies of this city. '' I scarcely hoped the movement would be a success," 
said his grace, " but the ladies came to love the work and take a deep interest 
in it. The movement is doing a great service to the church. This is a reading 
age. You have got to meet those outside the church and talk with them on 
various questions. A great deal of good oan be done by the educated laity 
more than by the bishops and priests. If subjects of interest and importance 
come up for consideration and if you Catholic young ladies cannot give the an- 
swers, prejudices will be confirmed." 

Here the archbishop made allusion to the work they had given their leader 
work that had trespassed on the time required for his duties as chancellor. 
" But he was doing good for the church," continued the archbishop, " and I was 
willing to answer an application for a dispensation now and then. You should 
feel grateful not only for what you have learned, but because you have acquired 
a taste for study." 

He then spoke of the fearlessness with which the true Calholic can approach 
all scientific questions without danger to the faith, and he exhorted them so to 
study as to be able to defend their faith and those of their sex who have been 

calumniated, such as Mary, Queen of Scots, and Joan of Arc. 

* * * 

Arrangements are now under way for a grand excursion party, starting on 
July 8. from New York City to Lake Champlain, to attend the opening week of 
the Charriplaiji Summer-School. As the number of tickets will be limited, an 
earlv application should be sent for circulars of information before June 20 to D. 
J. O'Conor, Manager, 123 East Fiftieth Street, New York City. Reduced rates 
are guaranteed which cannot be secured at any other time. 

Applications for copies of the Summer-School prospectus should also be sent 
to the same address. M. C. M. 




1 




THE 

CATHOLIC WORLD. 

VOL. LXIX. JULY, 1899. No. 412. 

CARDINALS WHO MAY BE THE NEXT POPE. 

HAT is particularly characteristic of Leo 
XIII. is his strength of will as well as 
C\his remarkable tenacity of life despite 
his age and feebleness of body. In 
his physical nature he seems not to be 
subject to the ordinary laws of life and 
death. Notwithstanding the prophesies 
of his death, his days may still mount up into years. He 
has been a Pope of light and leading, and when his work is 
accomplished and not before will he be gathered unto his 
fathers. 

Oracles and prophets the world over are set thinking and 
guessing concerning the new Pope every time the illness of the 
existing Pope is rumored abroad. The Pope himself could hardly 
be displeased thereat. As a matter of fact, Leo XIII. frequently 
jests with the cardinals whose chances of Papal honors are mat- 
ters of public debate, over their prospects of succeeding him. He 
knows full well that similar discussion by the public implies no 
desire to see him supplanted, but is merely an unintentional re- 
minder of the brevity and precariousness of human existence. 
Besides, in Italy at least, it is very generally held that the Car- 
dinals who are popularly regarded as Papabili, or as having un- 
usual likelihood of reaching the Pontifical throne, invariably die 
off before the Pope they are supposed to succeed. And strangely 
enough, in recent years Cardinals Galimberti, Sanfelice, Ruffo 
Scilla, and other able and vigorous men who were regarded as 
having very much better chances than any member of the 
Sacred College now alive, all died off very prematurely and 
unexpectedly. 

Copyright. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE 

STATE OF NEW YORK. 1899. 
VOL. LXIX. 28 



4.34 CARDINALS WHO MA Y BE THE NEXT POPE. [July, 

As a word of preamble to the consideration of individual 
aptitudes and claims, it may be stated that, in forming con- 
jectures regarding a Conclave, an important matter is supposed 
to be the policy of the various members of the Sacred College 
with regard to the attitude that should be adopted by the 
Church towards the State in Italy. It is believed that when, 
according to custom, they shall have been walled up by the 
stone-masons in that part of the Vatican where their delibera- 
tions are to be held, the Cardinals will divide themselves into 
two main groups, according as they desire conciliation with 
the Italian government, or wish a continuance of hostilities 
towards it as the despoiler of the temporal power of the Holy 
See. 

Should both these groups be strong, as the rules require 
that the person named to the Pontifical throne must have a 
two-thirds majority of all votes cast, it might happen that the 
candidate of neither group would be elected. The suffrages 
would then inevitably converge on some one whose connection 
with a group was not explicit or definite. 

CARDINAL RAMPOLLA. 

By far the most conspicuous figure among the present 
members of the Sacred College is the Pontifical Secretary of 
State, Cardinal Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro. He belongs 
to the Sicilian nobility, and was born at Polizzi on the i/th 
of August, 1843. 

After making his studies in the Capranica College, Rome, 
he entered the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics. This famous 
institution, which is situated on the piazza of the Minerva, has 
long been regarded as the school for ecclesiastical diplomats. 
Monseigneur Rampolla remained here, fulfilling in the mean- 
time several minor functions at the Vatican, until 18/5, when 
he was sent as auditor of the nunciature to Spain. Two years 
later he was named Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of 
the Propaganda for Affairs of Oriental Rite, and later on he 
occupied the position of Secretary of the Sacred Congregation 
of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. 

In 1882 he was consecrated titular Archbishop of Heraclea 
and named Apostolic Nuncio to Spain. Here he had occasion 
to display his rare diplomatic qualities, and won general esteem 
and consideration. His promotion afterwards to the cardinal- 
itial purple was recognized by all as a well-deserved recom- 
pense. This high honor was conferred upon him in the con- 



1899-] CARDINALS WHO MAY BE THE NEXT POPE. 435 




CARDINAL RAMPOLLA. 

sistory of the I4th of March, 1887, and on the 26th of May he 
was named to the title of St. Cecilia. Not very long after- 
wards Leo XIII. entrusted him with the very important func- 
tion of Pontifical Secretary of State. Since then Cardinal 
Rampolla has received the further charges of Administrator of 
the property of the Holy See, and of Archpriest of the Patri- 
archal Basilica of St. Peter. 

His residence is in the Vatican Palace. This eminent eccle- 
siastic has already acquired for himself a world-wide reputation, 
and has the merit of being recognized as an able and conscien- 
tious lieutenant of Leo XIII. in all the latter's views and 
undertakings. In Italy Cardinal Rampolla is considered the 



436 CARDINALS WHO MA Y BE THE NEXT POPE. [July, 

leader of that policy of non-compromise towards the Italian 
State which has been brought out into much greater relief at 
the Vatican since his assumption of office. Cardinal Rampolla 
is also believed to be politically favorable to France and averse 
to the Triple Alliance. 

Personally he is a man of magnificent physique. He stands 
over six feet high, is built in proportion, and has a face with 
strong, clear-cut features of a most expressive character, which 
nevertheless he holds in such perpetual restraint that under 
ordinary circumstances an air of apathy and indifference to the 
things of the world seems to be the result. Much sensational 
journalism has been written about Cardinal Rampolla, to the 
effect, and it has frequently been averred, that his is a " bold 
nature, brooking no opposition and implacable in hatred." 
Such statements are pure imaginings. Cardinal Rampolla 
above all things is a diplomat and one of the ablest on the 
face of the earth. As such it can be understood that, what- 
ever his inward sentiments may be, he at no time loses control 
of himself so far as to manifest them. 

CARDINAL LUCIDO MARIA PAROCCHI. 

One of the most conspicuous of those who are called Car- 
dinals di Curia that is, who have their residence in Rome and 
form part of the administration is Lucido Maria Parocchi, 
Vicar-General of Leo XIII. for the Diocese of Rome, and known 
as the " Cardinal Vicar." Cardinal Parocchi is sixty-six years 
of age and his life has been filled with stirring and important 
events. 

A native of Mantua, after going through his ecclesiastical 
studies in that city, he was appointed professor of theology in 
the local seminary. When the Revolutionary party obtained 
power in the North of Italy, Monseigneur Parocchi was one of 
the ecclesiastics who vigorously resisted their attempt to obtain 
control over the diocesan college. For this he was forced to 
leave his native city and betake himself to Rome. Here Pius 
IX., always generous towards those who upheld his cause, con- 
ferred many important functions on the young Mantuan. 
Finally, in 1877, he created him Cardinal. Leo XIII. named 
him as Vicar-General, and recently has appointed him to the 
very important function of Secretary of the Sacred Congrega- 
tion of the Inquisition. 

Cardinal Parocchi's name has recently been kept prominently 
before the world from the fact that journalists and speculators 



1899.] CARDINALS WHO MAY BE THE NEXT POPE. 



437 




CARDINAL PAROCCHI. 

in general name him as the prelate having most probability of 
being elected to succeed Leo XIII. Cardinal Parocchi has had 
his hand in politics, and it is well known that he is a con- 
spicuous friend of France and an adversary, to a greater or less 
extent, of the Triple Alliance. He is in the same line of ideas 
with Cardinal Rampolla, the Pontifical Secretary of State. 
The latter is chief representative of the policy of non-compromise 
towards the Italian government and of vigorous assertion of 
the claims of the Pope for the restoration of temporal power. 
But precisely because he is Secretary of State he has little or 
no chance of being named to the Papacy. The existing Secre- 



438 CARDINALS WHO MA Y BE THE NEXT POPE. [July, 

tary of State is traditionally regarded as non-papabile ; his 
function involving political and diplomatic action of a very im- 
portant kind, he almost inevitably gives umbrage to one or 
more nations when upholding the rights of others, or while 
merely vindicating the cause of religion. Cardinal Rampolla is 
regarded as an excellent candidate for the Papal throne in a 
second Conclave from now, but not in the first. The Secretary 
of State being out of the way, Cardinal Parocchi is the most 
conspicuous member of the same group. It is known that he 
would have the support of France, Russia, Spain, and Belgium, 
and that his chances of election would a priori be most dis- 
tinctly good. Recently, however, Cardinal Parocchi has been 
somewhat indisposed. The sedentary life made necessary by 
the perpetual grind of official duties has lately brought on an 
exaggerated corpulency. His Eminence suffers at times from 
asthma, and. though he still works with all his former vigor, his 
physicians maintain that he must shortly desist or that the 
strain may very soon overcome him. 

CARDINALS SERAFINO AND VINCENZO VANNUTELLI. 

It is a rule of the Church that two brothers shall not simul- 
taneously be Cardinal. Exceptions are sometimes made, and 
this has been the case in favor of the brothers Vannutelli- who 
are at present members of the Sacred College. 

Both have figured prominently as Papal nuncios and Ponti- 
fical representatives at important functions in various countries 
of Europe. What gives them their prominence among the 
papabili is the fact that the brothers Vannutelli are the most 
prominent members of that group within the Sacred College of 
Cardinals which has as its policy the conclusion of peace, or 
at least the arrangement of a modus vivendi, with the Italian 
State, as a means of furthering the interests of religion. The 
adherents of this group are called the Concilionisti (reconcilia- 
tionists). The Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy 
would naturally hail the arrival to power of a member of this 
group, and is consequently in favor of the candidature of one 
or other of the brothers in question for the Pontifical throne. 
England has manifested similar sentiments, and many draw like 
conclusions regarding the sentiments of the United States 
government in the matter from the fact that General Draper, 
the American ambassador in Rome, is a close friend of both 
prelates, has had them to dinner in the Piombino Palace, and 
frequently dines with them at the table of common friends. 



1899-] CARDINALS WHO MAY BE THE NEXT POPE. 



439 




CARDINAL SERAFINO VANNUTELLI. 

Both these remarkable men, nobile par fratrum, are of superb 
physical proportions, and each still seems absolutely in the 
flower of his manhood. This semblance of perennial youth, by 
the way, is a characteristic of quite a number of the present 
members of the Sacred College Cardinal Rampolla, for instance, 
having all the appearance of a man who has barely attained 
his fortieth year, although he will never again see fifty-five. 
Cardinal Serafino Vannutelli was born at Genazzano, in the 
diocese of Palestrina, on November 26, 1834. His period of 
administration of the Apostolic Nunciature in Vienna will long 
be remembered in the annals of Pontifical diplomacy for his 
brilliant success in a period of exceptional crisis for the Austro- 
Hungarian Empire. He was created Cardinal in 1887, and is 



44Q CARDINALS WHO MAY BE THE NEXT POPE. [July, 

one of the six Cardinal Bishops, holding the suburban see of 
Frascati. Leo XIII. appointed him Prefect of the Sacred Con- 
gregation of Bishops and Regulars. Cardinal Serafino is named 
more frequently as the candidate of the Concilionista group, 
although with the lapse of time it is considered probable that 
his brother, who is two years younger, will take his place in 
this respect. 

Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli distinguished himself as Nuncio 
to Spain, and afterwards as Papal envoy to Queen Victoria's 
Jubilee in London, and again as Pontifical ambassador to the 
coronation ceremonies at Moscow for the Czar Nicholas II. a 
couple of years ago. He has been a Cardinal for nine years. 




CARDINAL VINCENZO VANNUTELLI. 



1899-] CARDINALS WHO MAY BE THE NEXT POPE. 



441 



CARDINAL GOTTI. 

Cardinal Girolamo (Jerome) Maria Gotti was born at Genoa, 
March 29, 1834. In his early youth he joined the Discalced 
Carmelite Order, and after concluding his studies with brilliant 
success was ordained priest and transferred to the mother- 
house of that order at Santa Maria della ScaJa, Rome, to take 




CARDINAL GOTTI. 

up certain administrative functions there. Little by little he 
rose in the order from one charge to another until he became 
superior of the head-house of the society, and finally, at a rela- 
tively early age, Superior-General of the Order. 

This was his position when a period of serious distress broke 
out in Brazil. The Republic succeeded to the government of 



442 CARDINALS WHO MA Y BE THE NEXT POPE. [July, 

Dom Pedro, and the interests of the Holy See in the South 
American republic were placed in serious straits. The Sov- 
ereign Pontiff, looking around for a qualified diplomat, took 
Father Gotti from his religious cell and sent him to Rio Janeiro 
as internuncio. The position was a difficult one, as the re- 
publicans thought that the Holy See was their bitter enemy. 
Father Gotti, however, triumphed over all obstacles, and with- 
in a few years time had succeeded in vindicating the rights of 
the Catholic Church in Brazil, and in bringing about such a 
satisfactory condition of affairs that the Brazilian government 
sent a permanent plenipotentiary minister to Rome as its accre- 
dited representative at the Vatican. 

In Brazil Father Gotti did not restrict his work solely to 
diplomatic concerns. He went among the people, performing 
civilizing and philanthropic works, and on more than one 
occasion was mainly instrumental in quelling incipient revolts. 
His return to Italy was made the occasion of a public ovation. 
The Italian government no less than the ecclesiastical authori- 
ties welcomed him as one who had performed great deeds in 
the interests of his mother country. 

Cardinal Gotti is characteristically modest. It is a well-known 
fact that Leo XIII. more than once of late alluded to Cardinal 
Gotti as " My successor." But, although no false humility 
would prevent him from taking up the burden if imposed on 
his shoulders, he is very far from considering himself a fitting 
subject for Papal honors. On my attempting to broach the 
subject to him he said : " To discuss a similar topic would be 
to admit its likelihood or desirability, and that I certainly can- 
not and do not wish to do." 

Cardinal Gotti has his residence in a palace overlooking the 
Trajan Forum. He is rather small in stature, of kindly fea- 
tures and exquisite affability. He is still endowed with all the 
energies of youth and conversant with every subject under the 
sun. All the best qualities of the scholar, the diplomat, and 
the saint enter into his composition. Into Italian politics he 
has never thrust himself, and this fact, joined with his intrinsic 
qualities, makes him be regarded by many of the most quali- 
fied judges as the Cardinal very likely to succeed Leo XIII. 
on the Pontifical throne. He represents neither the Concilia- 
tionist party nor the Intransigeants. He is not one of any 
group, but he is regarded as the outsider, or the " dark horse," 
who has many probabilities of winning. 






1899-] CARDINALS WHO MA y BE TJJE NEXT POPE. 



443 



CARDINAL JACOBINI, 

The great " Schism of the West " showed in an appalling 
manner what the popular demand for a Pope of Roman origin 
might lead to. There is no evidence at the present day of the 
existence of an agitation in this direction capable of leading to 
extremes, but still in the city of Rome itself a certain popular 




CARDINAL JACOBINI. 

eagerness for a Pope of Roman origin is very distinctly discern- 
ible. Since the death of Cardinal Bianchi, Cardinal Domenico 
Maria Jacobini is the only member of the Sacred College who 
is a Romano di Roma (Roman of Rome), as they phrase it. 

He was born in the Eternal City sixty-two years ago, and 
is a man of the most brilliant parts. As a young ecclesiastic 



444 CARDINALS WHO MAY BE THE NEXT POPE. [July, 

in Rome, Monseigneur Jacobini resolved to dedicate himself to 
the service of the workingmen. In the face of obstacles of 
every kind, he began by founding artisans' clubs, afterwards or- 
ganized laborers' libraries, and later on established savings-banks 
and loan-fund institutions in various parts of the city. It is 
safe to say that the popularity which Monseigneur Jacobini ac- 
quired with the public of Rome has rarely been equalled, and 
possibly never surpassed, by any ecclesiastical personage. Did 
the election of the next Pope lie in the hands of the people 
of Rome, there is no doubt that Cardinal Jacobini, if he 
were still in existence, would mount the Papal throne on the 
demise of Leo XIII. 

Unfortunately Cardinal Jacobini's health is not all that could 
be desired. For several years back he has been suffering from 
a mitigated form of diabetes. Partly in the hope that the 
change would profit his health, Leo XIII. five years ago sent 
him to Lisbon as Apostolic Nuncio. In 1896 he recalled him 
and elevated him to the purple. Cardinal Jacobini is one of 
those strong men whom the Church has always in reserve, but, 
as has been stated, the doubt that the malady from which he 
suffers may be of an incurable character, cannot but militate 
against his chances of being called on to assume the supreme 
administration of the Church. 

CARDINAL SARTO. 

Venice is the only city in Italy which has a Patriarch as its 
hierarchical head. Its patriarch at present is Cardinal Giuseppe 
Sarto. 

This ecclesiastic is not much known to the world at large, 
and yet few members of the Sacred College are gifted with 
greater parts. For a long time in the past it has been ob- 
served that the personage selected by the Cardinals in Conclave 
to fill the Chair of Peter is not one whose name is surrounded 
with much notoriety, or who has been the centre of big bat- 
tles, or has taken active part for or against the government. 
For over a quarter of a century Joachim Pecci had prepared 
himself for the Papacy hidden away in a mountainous district 
in Tuscany. Giovanni Mastai Ferretti in 1846 was the young- 
est member of the Sacred College and the last one that, a priori, 
would seem destined for the Papacy in the Conclave of that 
year. And yet he was the Cardinal chosen. A similar air of 
worldly unobtrusiveness surrounded Gregory XVI. and his im- 
mediate predecessors. And on the principle that it may be so 



1899-] CARDINALS WHO MAY BE THE NEXT POPE. 



445 




CARDINAL SARTO. 

in the next Conclave, many persons consider the chances of 
the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice as very strong. 

No one knows if Giuseppe Sarto is a Concilionista or an In- 
transigente, but they do know that if there is sickness or suffering 
in Venice he is there in the midst of his flock, ministering to 
them with his own hands. And they do know, too, that he is 
a man of great learning, for he preaches great sermons and 
has written important books on virtue and morality, and they 
know that when Cardinal Sarto enters into an undertaking, 
whether it be the building of a church or the waging of a 
fight with the purse-proud, he will never desist till his enter- 
prise is crowned with success. He is a native of the North of 



446 CARDINALS wno MA Y BE THE NEXT POPE. [July, 

Italy, was born at Riese, in the Diocese of Treviso, in June, 
1835. He was created Cardinal in June, 1893, and has as his 
titular church in Rome San Bernardo alle Terme. 

CARDINAL SVAMPA. 

There is a robustness and frankness and a genial humor all 
their own about the clergy of the North of Italy, and no more 




HHHHHI 



CARDINAL SVAMPA. 

typical ecclesiastic exists in that region than Cardinal Domenico 
Svampa, Archbishop of Bologna. 

In his own diocese every one regards him as the coming 
Pope. Throughout the rest of Italy the same conviction ob- 
tains with a majority of the populace, and the strange reason of 
this conviction is probably known to most of the interested. 



1899-] CARDINALS WHO MA Y BE THE NEXT POPE. 447 

Cardinal Svampa may be, as his name is a good Italian word 
meaning a brand or burning fire, the Ignis ardens of the 
prophecy of St. Malachy. 

Cardinal Svampa is one of the " young " Cardinals. He was 
born at Montegranaro, in the Archdiocese of Fermo, June 
13, 1851. Leo XIII. elevated him to the cardinalate in May, 
1894. 

It may be stated, however, that even in face of the promis- 
ing outlook by the Malachian prophecies, Cardinal Svampa is 
not oversanguine of his prospects of the Papacy. He jests 
freely on the subject himself, and to the present writer he re- 
marked : " It would be all very well if it did not happen that 
there are two other cardinals alive to whom the prophecy ap- 
plies no less clearly than it does to me." 

CARDINAL DI PIETRO. 

Angelo di Pietro, now a Prince of the Church, was born in 
the charming village of Vivaro, among the Sabine Hills. But 
dire poverty was the lot of his parents, and many a day the 
child, as the Cardinal now relates, travelled long miles to school 
and returned in the afternoon to break bread for the first time 
in the day. The parish priest of Vivaro early perceived that 
young Di Pietro was endowed with mental and moral qualities 
of a high order, and he accordingly had him received as a 
prospective ecclesiastic in the diocesan seminary at Tivoli. It 
was at this time that an incident occurred which, relatively 
trivial in itself, from some of its attendant circumstances made 
a lasting impression on all who witnessed it. 

Young Di Pietro, in company with a multitude of other 
lads, was one afternoon leaving the seminary when an elderly 
woman, reputed throughout the neighborhood as a person of 
genuine sanctity, passed along. Surveying the boys with a 
glance, she singled out Di Pietro, although he was previously 
unknown to her, and stooping down kissed the hem of the sou- 
tane which he wore. " I have kissed the garment of a future 
pope," she said in explanation. " You will be ordained priest, 
will become a canon of the cathedral of Tivoli, will fight the 
cholera, will be called to Rome and made prefect of the Coun- 
cil, and will ultimately become Pope." No one heeded these 
phrases of the pious old woman in a less degree than Di Pie- 
tro himself. His extreme modesty and simplicity rejected them 
as words spoken in a hallucination, and when he grew up his 
one aim was to fulfil in a quiet and unostentatious manner the 



448 CARDINALS WHO MAY BE THE NEXT POPE. [July, 




CARDINAL DI PIETRO. 

duties of an humble country priest. And yet strangely enough 
the woman's prophecy came true in a large measure. Angelo 
di Pietro was a conspicuous and noble figure during the cholera 
epidemic twelve years ago, was called to Rome in 1893, created 
Cardinal and named Prefect of the Sacred Congregation. 

Is the plenitude of the prophecy to be fulfilled, and will 
Cardinal di Pietro be placed on the Papal throne ? Many who 
have followed his career believe so, despite the fact that he is 
now in his seventy-second year. 





ortBits arcs 

COWfRS 07 BRIiOtS. 



BY MADDER BROWNE. 

O much has been written lately about the belfries 
of Belgium, especially those of Bruges and 
Antwerp, that it seems strange no one has given 
a thought to certain other objects of interest, no 
less beautiful, if somewhat less conspicuous 
the ancient gables and " tourelles " which are peculiar to Flan- 
ders, and are seen perhaps to their best advantage in Bruges. 
No one who is at all acquainted with the pictures of the 
old Flemish painters can have failed to notice the quaint forms 
of architecture which are depicted in them, the overhanging 
balconies, the indented gables, and the little towers attached 
" applique"es " is the best word to the angles of the buildings. 
These are not due to the fancy of the artist run riot, but were 
component parts of the every-day scene which met his eye. 
And the proof of this, if indeed proof were needed, lies in the 
fact that in the old-world Flemish cities their counterparts are to 
be met with at every turn to this day. What histories these 
bricks and stones could tell, if they had tongues to speak ! 
What strange forgotten legends of the past ! What secrets of 
blood and passion ! 

It may be taken, I suppose, for an axiom, that an art bears 
upon its face the impress of the spirit of the people among 
whom it flourishes. Thus, the architecture of Bruges ex- 
hibits a character quite unique, which is found wanting or 
if it appears at all, in a much lesser degree in other towns of 
Flanders. Take Ghent as an example of this. In that town 
the ancient buildings present a remarkably sombre and severe 
aspect. There is an almost entire absence of detail and orna- 
mentation. The sullen spirit of the people is reflected in the 
designs of their houses. 
VOL. LXIX. 29 




45o GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. [July, 

Far otherwise at Bruges. Here one finds a 
delicacy of imagination, of artistic elegance, al- ^lsir 9 * 

most of poetry, which shows itself in the most 
insignificant details, and which goes far to justify 
the proud title which the city claims, of being 
the Venice of the North. 

In Bruges, during the middle ages, the build- 
er's art attained a richness and grace altogether 
unknown elsewhere ; and about the year 1480 be- 
gan to assume a distinct character which differed 
in a marked manner from that exhibited in other places. This 
may be seen in the buildings bearing dates previous to 1640. 

According to the traditions of the place, and according to 
the rules cf the corporation, an apprentice, before receiving his 
diploma as a master workman, was obliged to submit certain 
designs, and execute certain works specified by his particular 
guild. And until these designs and their technical execution 
reached a special stage of proficiency, the apprentice remained 
an apprentice, and was debarred from employment, save as the 
unskilled journeyman of others. To this may be attributed the 
numerous exquisite specimens of the carver's art which are to 
be found in the oddest and most unexpected corners at the 
present time. 

To these wise measures are, doubtless, owing the richly 
carved chimney-pieces found scattered throughout the town ; 
the most important of which are preserved in some special 
place or museum the Archaeological Society, for example, pos- 
sesses many of them. 

The first thing that strikes the stranger on his arrival is the 
contour of the facades, the. straight outline of the steep gable 
being broken up into little steps, or indented. 

Not fifty yards from the Pont de 1'ane aveugle the Bridge 
of the blind donkey ! (where do all the 
funny names of street and bridge, that one 
meets at every turn, come from ? What 
legends have supplied them ? The bridge 
of the blind donkey ! There is something 
pathetic in the name) is the entrance to 
the underground canal of the Reie, in 
connection with which a weird story is told 
of something that happened not very long 
ago. 
AN OCTAGON TOWER. It seems that a young- English painter 




1899-] GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. 451 




THE STEEP GABLE BEING BROKEN UP INTO LITTLE STEPS. 

lost his watch in Brussels. The evidence pointed so strongly 
to a certain man as the thief that even a Belgian court was 
forced to convict an extremely rare occurrence when the com- 
plainant is of another nationality and he was sentenced to 
some trivial term of imprisonment. 

In the following year the young Englishman was in Bruges, 
and by the merest chance hired this same man who was a 
handsome fellow in his way to carry his traps and act as 
model when required. 

The man had, of course, recognized his employer from the 
first, and had sought to be employed as handy man. 

One day when the painter, having pitched his easel on the 
Quai du Rosaire, was busy sketching the low tunnel entrance 
to this underground river, the man spoke out of his experience : 

" If monsieur would like to make a picture of a view the 
most wonderful in the town, I will take him to the spot ah, 
it is superb unique ! " 

It took the painter's fancy and an arrangement was made 
for the next day. 

Now, the entrance to the tunnel was guarded by two iron 



452 



GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. [July, 



grilles about twelve feet apart, and having a narrow parapet 
of stone between them, just visible above water when the sluices 
were closed. 

At the hour appointed the painter was conducted by his 
guide to an old house in a small court off the Rue Breyedel. 
This they entered, and descending to the cellars, found them- 
selves on the edge of the subterranean Reie. A small, flat- 
bottomed boat was attached to a ring in the wall, and entering 
this, the painter soon found himself approaching the end of 
the tunnel which he had seen from the Quai du Rosaire. 

The handy man, drawing a great key from his pocket, un- 
locked and raised the inner grille ; then pushing the boat into 
the space between the two, said quietly : 

"If monsieur will step on to the parapet, he will get the 
best view possible." 
Monsieur did so. 

And then the hitherto obsequious handy man became sud- 
denly the triumphant villain. 

He pushed the boat back and reclosed the inner grille, 

leaving the unhappy painter 
a prisoner between the two 
gates, with the black, slug- 
gish water flowing at his 
feet. 

The painter at first took 
this for an ill-timed joke. 
But when the handy man 
explained through the clos- 
ed bars, with devilish laugh- 
ter, how he had planned 
this revenge in return for 
the punishment he had un- 
dergone, a sweat of fear 
came upon him and he 
screamed for help ; but all 
in vain, for a quick rush of 
many waters drowned his 
cry, and none could hear 
him except the handy man 
..--^--'-^-r^ in his boat. 
"THE HALLES." He> the handy man, had 

timed his plot well. He knew perfectly the hour at which the 
sluices were raised each day to flush the underground passage. 




1899-] GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. 453 

So, having arranged everything to his satisfaction, he quietly 
sat in his boat and watched his victim drown. Happily he did 
not escape the punishment due to his crime. For the madness 
that was latent in him burst forth at the success of his evil 
scheme, and he told of it himself. So, notwithstanding every 
effort of the Belgian court to find " extenuating circumstances," 
he met his just punishment. 

There is another octagon tower of fine proportions, orna- 
menting the building of the Academic des Beaux Arts. A 
curious old stone bear stands in a niche at one corner of this 




"THE TITLE OF THE VENICE OF THE NORTH." 

old house. He was the emblem of the " Society of the lists 
of the White Bear," and is pointed out to strangers as 
the oldest citizen of Bruges. " Beertje van de Logic " is his 
name. 

Turning into the Rue Espagnol, a street which " Beertje " 
from his pose and position seems to have a special care for, 
we find ourselves transported into the land of ghosts. They 
say there is hardly a house in Bruges not haunted by the 
ghostly actors in some bygone tragedy. But assuredly in this 
Spanish street we find the headquarters of the fraternity. Bat- 



454 GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. [July, 

tered, smoke-grimed, desolate are the houses on it, with rust- 
bitten window gratings and worm-eaten doors falling away 
from their hinges! Their appearance alone would be sufficient 
authority for a whole volume of weird legends. The story goes 
(false, though) that here was the seat of the Spanish Inquisi- 
tion, and that in the dungeons below untold horrors were per- 
petrated. There is, however, no foundation for this assertion. 
It probably originated from the stone slab on the facade of 
one of the houses, which bears the lugubrious inscription " Te- 
wart huus: La maison noire: La casa negra." It is known 
now to have been used principally as a depot for Spanish mer- 
chandise, and was, in all probability, used as a prison as well. 
There are persons now living in Bruges who most positively as- 
sert that, not once but many times, they have seen a ghostly 
priest, in mediaeval Spanish costume, standing at the corner of 
the building reading his breviary ; who, on being addressed, 
grins and disappears. 

Further on in the same street is another house beloved of 
the Psychological Society. Here, on certain nights, a whole 
tragedy is performed in one act. Unhappily, it is not every 
one who is favored with a view of the performance. It is only 
the adepts who are permitted to occupy the front seats, so to 
speak. 

Two hundred years ago the house, together with its neigh- 
bors on each side, formed a single block, occupied by a commu- 
nity of nuns. An underground passage leads from the cellars 
to the Halles, communicating also with a building which in 
old days was used as a monastery. These data being given, 
what more natural than to found a romance of guilty love be- 
tween monk and nun. 

A few years ago the spot was visited by some members of 
the abDve-named society, headed by a celebrated medium ; and 
the story they published of their experiences was, to say the 
least, startling. 

The stance, of course, opened with the usual manifestations, 
which appear to be a sort of stock in trade: such as blasts of 
cold air, rampageous knockings, and other mysterious sounds. 
Then the medium announced to the company that, "by the 
pricking of his thumbs, something evil this way comes," or, in 
other words, that the fun was about to begin. 

The first genuine, solid bit of fun was the knocking of the 
unhappy medium down-stairs, or, as he put it in his report, "I 
was at the top of the stairs endeavoring to force myself against 



1899-] GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. 455 

the impalpable resistance, when I felt myself lifted by invisible 
arms and borne to the bottom of the flight, etc., etc." 

Up to this nothing ghostly had been seen by anybody. 
Cold currents of air had been felt and the lights had burned 
dimly, after the ap- 
proved fashion. But 
when the medium 
had thrice been 
borne to the bottom 
o f the stairs the 
spirits began to 
gather their forces 
and to materialize 
themselves. The 
medium grew livid 
and damp with beads 
of sweat; the lights 
burned dimmer and 
the air grew colder. 
And then out of the 
darkness crept a 
form, unsubstantial 
and shadowy, but un- 
mistakably a nun. 
She bore herself as 

one broken with grief, yet overmastered by a consuming pas- 
sion of love or hate ; and appeared to watch with a mixture of 
longing and loathing the efttrance, now bricked up, to the un- 
derground passage. 

All this time the audience looked on with accumulating 
horror from the background. The medium himself appeared 
to be in a sort of trance, and had seated himself in a chair at 
the bottom of the staircase. 

Almost immediately another figure, this time a monk, ap- 
peared on the scene. No one saw it come. Only it was there. 
On its arrival the nun seemed to take a more bodily shape 
and the drama began to move rapidly to a conclusion. There 
was argument and entreaty on the part of the monk, and prayers 
and wringing of hands on the part of the nun. After awhile 
the monk seemed to lose his patience, and his victim fell on 
her knees with outstretched hands and bitter sobbings. 

Suddenly, when the feelings of the spectators were wound 
up to the highest pitch, a piercing shriek ran through the 





BEAUTIFUL AND QUAINT 
OLD FA9ADE." 



GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. [July, 

house, as the monk, drawing a dagger from his bosom, plunged 
it into his companion's breast and fled, leaving her prone on 
f the floor with the life-blood welling from the wound and 
spreading in a pool about her. 

That was virtually the end of the mat- 
ter. For there was a resumption of the cold 
draughts and the ghostly rustlings as of un- 
seen beings moving about ; and all at once 
every one looked in his neighbor's face, for 
there was nothing to be seen : only the little 
vestibule and the ordinary, and rather mean- 
looking, staircase with its worn drugget and 
the apparently lifeless form of the unhappy 
medium. 

They say that all this takes place regularly on the night of 
Maundy Thursday. And those whose spiritual eyes are gifted 
with the power to see may follow, step by step, this story of a 
bygone tragedy. The people who occupy the house pay little 
heed to the ghostly tenants in fact, ignore them altogether. 
Whether this unneighborly lack of sympathy is taken to heart 
by the ghosts, is hard to say. Anyway, they do not resent it 
openly, for the household is never disturbed by any unpleasant 
manifestations, and goes about its business unmolested. 
Enough, however, of ghosts ! 

Not very far from this street of "Shades" indeed, just 
round the corner is a very beautiful and quaint old fa$ade in 
stone, built in the year 1477 an( * restored in 1878. It was here 
that the " Great Tonlieu," or bureau for the collection of taxes, 
was held. The ancient family of De Ghistelles held this tonlieu 
in fief, and collected the imposts upon all merchandise coming 
from abroad. From the De Ghistelles this right passed to the 
Sires de Luxembourg, and it was Pierre de Luxembourg who 
built the premises which still exist. The cellars of the tonlieu 
have been used as a public weighing-place since. 1641 ; and for 
this reason the building was called " Sint Jans Weeghuus," i. e., 
the weighing-place of St. Jean. In 1837 the property was sold, 
with the exception of the rez-de chausste, and became a private 
house, until it was repurchased by the municipality in 18/6. 
It is now used for the public library, and contains some valuable 
books which are at the disposal of any one who wishes to make 
reference to them. 

The beautiful facades adjoining were restored in 1878 on 
the occasion of the inauguration of the statue of Jean van 



1899-] GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. 457 

Eyck that of the bakery is especially noticed as an example 
of the latest type of what may be called the Bruges style. I 
call it the Bruges style, as opposed to that other nondescript 
style which at one time threatened to oust from public favor 
the efforts of the national genius. 

It seems, according to M. Weale, that in the sixteenth 




"THE LAKE ITSELF WAS USED AS A DOCK." 

century the influence of the movement in favor of the Renais- 
sance captivated a small band of Belgian artists who returning 
from Italy, whither they had gone for the purpose of perfect- 
ing their art, brought back with them a devotion for the 
antique which they had developed whilst prosecuting their 
studies in the South. 

Naturally, they established themselves in the large towns, 
and this explains a fact which has often been commented upon, 
namely, that nearly all the churches scattered throughout the 
country parts which were built or restored in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries have preserved, almost without exception, 
the characteristics of the moyen age architecture. In the town 
it was otherwise, for it was not without a struggle that pagan 
art won the preference. 

This strife between the two schools is clearly marked. On 



458 GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. [July, 

the one part, the partisans of what might be called artistic 
reform endeavored to push to the front the ideas they had 
learned during the period of their southern travels; whilst, on 
the other, the defenders of the national art essayed to stem 
the tide of favor which quickly attached itself to the innova- 
tions of the new school. 

Thus, while, in Bruges, Lancelot Blondeel devoted his pen- 
cil to the inspiration of the Italian Renaissance, other artists, 
notably of the school of Claessins, adhered faithfully to 
the ancient traditions of Flemish art. So, it is not fair to 
affirm, as has been often done, that the style of the Renais- 
sance found no favor in Flanders until long after it had ob- 
tained a footing in other countries. And as proof of this, one 
need only point to the old " Greffe " as an example of pure 
Renaissance built in 1535-37 by Chretien Sixdeniers, after the 
designs of Jean Wallot. 

Unfortunately this fine fa$ade has suffered much from the 
climate, and still more at the hands of the mob, during the 
many revolutions which have taken place. It was restored, 
however, in 1881, by M. Louis Delacenserie, who has com- 
pleted his work with a considerable amount of intelligence, 
even to the decoration of certain ornaments which had origin- 
ally been polychromed by Jean Zutterman in 1537, and 
upon which but few traces of color were left to serve as 
guide. 

I have already spoken of some octagon towers, but before 
taking leave of the subject I must make mention of one tower, 
although not octagon, which forms the most striking feature 
of one of the best and most pleasing views of the town that 
can be obtained. I refer, of course, to the tower which stands 
by the Minnewater, like a sentinel watching over the safety of 
the city. 

This Minnewater is nothing but a basin but a most pic- 
turesque one hollowed out of the bed of the Reie ; having 
been enlarged in 1330 at the time when the canal from Ghent 
to Ostende was made. The name " Minnewater " has often 
been a puzzle to visitors ; not a few of them connecting it with 
" Minnehaha," the "laughing water" of Longfellow's poem 
" Hiawatha." But, according to Guido Gezelle, it is nothing 
more or less than a contraction of " Middenewater," or 
" middle water," just as " Minnacht " is a contraction of " Mid- 
nacht." The lake itself was used as a dock for commercial 
purposes until the canal called the " Coupure " was cut; since 



1899.] GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. 459 

then it has been left to the -passing of the years to beautify it, 
as nature only can. 

Originally, a long wooden bridge crossed the entrance to 
the lake, and so late even as the end of the sixteenth century 
the existing bridge was still of wood. But in the year 1740 a 
handsome stone structure was built, and remains to the present 
day. 

The view from the bridge is magnificent and attracts the 
attention of artists from all 
parts. Stand on the bridge 
where you will, and turn in 
what direction you may, the 
eye is met by a picture 
whose beauty it would be 
hard to excel. 

Once there were two 
towers to flank the entrance 
to this lake. Now only one 
is left. The one which has 
been demolished was built 
by Jean van Oudenarde and 
Martin van Luevene in 1401. 
That which remains was 
built in 1398 by the former 
of these celebrated archi- 
tects. As far back as the 
fifteenth century it was used 
as a powder magazine, and 
as such it is used now. 

The city records tell us that close by was a factory for 
the refining of the saltpetre used in making gunpowder. They 
also record the use of gunpowder in the beginning of the four- 
teenth century. "The Flemings, 1 ' says Renard, "were at this 
period at the head of all the nations of Europe in every- 
thing that related to the sciences ; and there is every reason 
to believe that they were the first to invent certain engines 
for the application of this new discovery (gunpowder) for the 
destruction of armies and besieged places." 

Now, I believe that the presence of English cannon at the 
battle of Crecy, in 1346, is far from being verified ; and it is 
generally asserted that " ribandeguins " (the slang term for the 
early form of cannon) were not used in the field of battle be- 
fore 1380 by the Flemish. But there must be an error some- 




460 GABLES AND OCTAGON TOWERS OF BRUGES. [July r 

where. For, notwithstanding the many regrettable " gaps " in 
the civic records of Bruges, there are numerous indications of 
the existence of such weapons and of the manufacture of can- 
non before that date. Also the communal budget of 1303 
makes mention of " ribandeguins on wheels." For they were 
used in that year in an expedition against Tournay. 

In the records of the year 1339,100, one finds several items 
for the cost of artillery horses and drivers ; and even at that 
time the city had its " Meester van den ribanden," which may 
be freely translated by the modern term " Musketry Instructor." 
Most assuredly gunpowder was made in Bruges in 1339, an< ^ in 
all probability long before that date. The famous mortar of 
Tournay, cast in 1346, was the work of the celebrated Bruges 
founder, Pierre Potghieter. Viollet-le-Duc says that " they be- 
gan to make cannon in bronze " in 1425. But he is mistaken, 
for the City of Bruges had its regular gun-foundries before 
1382, and the casting of leaden bullets was an established 
trade in 1380. 

However, there can be no disputing the fact that we have in 
the tower of the Minnewater still used as a powder magazine 
a most interesting relic of the old fighting days of Flanders. 
To-day, the modern Belgian often assumes the role of a boastful 
braggart, with a wonderfully keen eye for the main chance, and 
an abnormal appetite for the money of the stranger within his 
gates. Yet all this and much more may be forgiven him, so long 
as he preserves the many interesting relics of the past with which 
his country formerly the fighting-ground of Europe is richly 
and bountifully endowed. And this, I may add in all courtesy, 
he is likely to do as long as a stranger can be found willing 
to disburse francs for the privilege and it is a privilege of 
viewing such inestimable treasures. 





I8 99-1 THE LABOR QUESTION. 461 



THE LABOR QUESTION AND THE CATHOLIC 

CHURCH. 

BY DR. NICHOLAS BJERRING. 
\ 

HE poor you have always with you," and this 
will probably remain the order of things on 
earth ; but the distressing poverty, however, 
which is now the scourge of all countries, and 
which is very often akin to absolute beggary, 
is no inevitable fate preordained by an all-wise Providence. 
" Neither was there any among them that lacked " (Acts iv. 34) ; 
this was one of the blessings with which the Catholic Church 
signalized her entrance into the world. He who bestows 
upon us the bread of eternal life will not deny us that daily 
bread for which He taught us to pray. Nevertheless the 
number of those who would be content with mere food and 
shelter increases daily, and many there are who are beset by 
hunger and nakedness. " He who will not work, neither shall 
he eat " ; but not the cry for bread only, nay, the cry for 
work, grows daily louder. " Right to work " has become the 
password of the day, and it remains unregarded. Machines re- 
place the work of men, and men themselves must become 
machines if they desire to find work. The flood of destruction 
grows ever broader. As the dominion of capital grows on the 
one hand, so on the other the impoverishment of the masses 
increases; and in order that the dominion of capital may gain 
firmer ground and greater extent, industrial establishments of 
ever-increasing importance are called into life. How shall this 
destructive current be arrested ? Shall prohibitory laws stop 
the enterprising manufacturer, or shall it be forbidden him to 
make use of inventions aiming at his benefit ? 

THE PROBLEM IS TO APPLY AN OLD PRINCIPLE. 

Apart from the impracticability of such a course, it must 
not be forgotten that industry works with those forces which 
the Creator himself has placed in nature, and that he has 
given the human mind the power to liberate these forces and 
make them subject to itself. If evil is the result of the spirit 
of invention, then God is not its originator, but man, by reason 
of the anti-social use he makes of it. " Organization of labor " 



462 THE LABOR QUESTION AND [July* 

is declared to be the remedy for the disease of the times, 
but socialism is not the physician before whom the evil will 
disappear ; much less is it anarchism, that system of robbery 
which indeed would make the rich poor, but could never 
deliver the poor from their misery. Nor are poor-rates the 
remedy for the ills of the times ; ready money will not help the 
poor man. The problem is not to invent a new remedy, but 
to apply that which is already at hand. Why was there no 
needy one in the first Christian community? It is certain that 
had the industrial progress of our times then existed, it would 
have proved as great a blessing to the faithful as it is, in 
many respects, a curse to us. But they did not recognize 
Christianity merely as a doctrine about which much could be 
spoken, written, and disputed ; above all, they learned to search 
for the kingdom of God and his righteousness ; this was their 
shield for time and eternity. It may not accord with the 
philosophy of the day to declare, but it is nevertheless true that 
in no other way can we be saved from our social sufferings. 
The opinion is becoming prevalent that without the church 
there is no help. This is one step towards improvement. For, 
since the church began to be looked upon as an institution for 
teaching only, and not for healing since that time the curse of 
pauperism has come over the nations. If we desire to -pray 
daily with a deeper understanding "Thy Kingdom come," it is 
time for Christians to show themselves such by helping one 
another in word and deed. 

THE PRINCIPLES OF RELIGIOUS COMMUNISM.- 

I shall endeavor to sketch briefly the outlines of this social 
question, as viewed from the principles of religious communism, 
by speaking of the community of production, consumption, and 
property. Just as the body has many members, and each has 
its particular work to do, contributing to serve the whole body, 
so in a well-ordered household the work is distributed among 
the various inmates according to their ability, and if every one 
work industriously, then the house is well cared for. 

Thus it is ordered in the household which God has estab- 
lished in the world. All must serve each other, both high and 
low ; to none are time and power given for naught ; the main 
question is not the high or low position, but that time and power 
are well employed. With the common work of his hand man 
may serve his fellow-man, still more serve God ; for he does the 
daily work that God has entrusted to him, and by serving his 



1899-] THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 463 

brother he serves himself. By achieving tys maintenance he 
gains health of body and soul. That we shall eat our bread in 
the sweat of our brow is a punishment of sin ; but willingly 
borne, the punishment turns into a blessing. That is the 
Christian doctrine of labor, and social co-operation through 
labor. If we descend from the ideal to the reality, it must be 
confessed that the latter agrees very little with the former. 
The "right to work" is loudly demanded, the right of gain is 
meant thereby. True justice would be established only in this 
condition of affairs : that a member of society be put in his 
proper position, and thus be enabled to do his duty and work 
out his share for the benefit of the whole. Labor has been 
degraded to selfish ends, and has paved a way for open 
materialism. The employer looks upon the hiring and paying of 
strange hands as a necessary evil, and pays as little as possible ; 
as a consequence the labor becomes like unto the hire ; the 
laborer on his part only submits to sad necessity, because he 
cannot do otherwise. He wants " to sweat " as little as possible, 
and it is therefore to be expected in advance that nothing will be 
entirely well done. But this is a relationship bearing joy and 
peace on neither side. As a consequence little work is done, and 
that badly ; there is not so much produced as would otherwise be 
the case ; and yet complaints of no tuork grow louder and louder. 
It is certainly not a good sign when all the hands in a house- 
hold cannot find employment. The complaints are well grounded, 
but this lack of work could not exist if production were so far 
advanced that it required more labor. The soil of this country, 
for instance, might be better cared for ; immense tracts still 
wait to be made productive ; there is great room for improve- 
ment in horticulture, and in the whole domain of the farm and 
the garden. For these purposes means are required. 

PRINCIPLES OF SELFISHNESS DOMINATE. 

What is here wanting is an organization by means of which 
work and wages shall be correctly divided. It is true that such 
organization of work was contemplated, and even begun, by the 
French socialists ; but they did not progress beyond their 
grandiloquent words, because they attempted to create an arti- 
ficial organization. It is not necessary to create an organiza- 
tion. The organization already exists, and exists in all places 
where, from a common stand-point, labor is looked upon as the 
affair of the entire human-kind. But it is disarranged where 
individual selfishness replaces interest for the welfare of the 



464 THE LABOR QUESTION AND [July* 

community. In such cases those who, from their social condi- 
tion, are the givers of work, do not think of procuring work 
for those who need it ; they do this only when their own in- 
terest demands it, the interest of the moment. Enterprises of 
advantage to the future are, therefore, rarely or never under- 
taken. As the laborers themselves are only anxious for gain, 
and to make it easy for themselves, employers herein find a rea- 
son for condensing the work as much as possible, and doing it 
themselves as far as they can. And yet it would be proper 
benevolence to supply work, not give alms. What is everywhere 
lacking is the spirit of Christianity actualized in the hearts of 
the people. 

The Christian who looks upon the exercise of his profession 
not as anything merely individual, private and accidental, but 
as a service done to the world and a function necessary to its 
life, will of necessity feel a particular fellowship for those other 
members of the church who follow a like calling, and perform 
the same functions. In the church a person's calling is not 
looked upon as something particular to the individual, but as 
something general in the objective unity of the church. The 
possibility of every class formation rests on the unity of a pro- 
fession. The necessary hypothesis for this is that every trade 
or profession is originally mutual, individual labor only a par- 
ticipation in the efficiency possessed by a higher totality. This 
interpretation lay at the bottom of the corporation spirit of 
the middle ages, its guilds and trade unions. 

ULTRA INDIVIDUALISM THE CANKER-WORM. 

Competition reigns on most fields of social activity. This 
is by no means a friendly rivalry, but a cruel war for life and 
death. Whoever cannot hold out in this competition must 
look to himself or fall by the wayside ; his fellow will take no 
heed of him. The maxim, " Private egoism leads to the gene- 
ral welfare," is not only the soul of modern production, but is 
actually established as a principle, and in it lies the canker- 
worm of the social evil. Is it to be wondered at that "profes- 
sional envy" has become proverbial? Employers and laborers 
stand in no lasting relation toward each other ; each has need 
of the other for individual purposes, that is all. Hence it has 
come that the master has banished the young workman from 
his table and house. Master and servant, factory lord and fac- 
tory hand, storekeeper and clerk, stand in like loose relations. 

It is a Christian principle that we must not only respect and 



1899-] THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 465 

love ourselves, but also those who are our companions in sal- 
vation, and who possess the same rights of citizenship in the 
kingdom of heaven. When master and servant, employer and 
laborer, factory lord and factory hand meet on Sunday for the 
worship of God, then at least they must demonstrate by their 
actions that they all alike call God their Father. It would 
appear in the modern industrial world that if such a conscious- 
ness ever was present in them, it has become extinguished. 
Faith, hope, and charity have been forced to make room for 
the greed to possess, to enjoy, -to' assert one's self, to govern. 
How, then, can a religious communism exist, and by its social 
workings demonstrate itself in actual living relations. 

SENSE OF RACE SOLIDARITY IS LOST. 

The very kernel of the social question lies, if not exclu- 
sively, yet principally, in the conditions of labor ; their organi- 
zation can, as already said, be effected only on the principle of 
religious communism. The laborer only demands work work 
that is profitable and secures him a livelihood ; when he has 
this he is, as a rule, satisfied at least when he is not yet de- 
moralized by the anarchy in labor. Possession assures the cer- 
tainty of subsistence ; where, however, the possessing class 
seeks to make the most of its advantages at the cost of those 
who have not the means for carrying on any business, and in 
this way to increase its possessions, that animosity is generated 
which finds its vent in the reaction of anarchism. 

" Possession is theft." This extreme is called forth by that 
other extreme in which selfishness considers possession as ab- 
solute property, and treats it as such. But that which may be 
lost, which can sink or rise in value, and which can be pos- 
sessed only in time, must be regarded only as property given 
in trust, not as an absolute ownership of whose stewardship no 
account need ever be given. Property treated in this absolute 
sense is called by the Gospel the " mammon of unrighteous- 
ness." Egoism on one side incites egoism on the other, and 
the egoism of the poor forms itself into a system of greedy 
and rapacious communism. "Serve one another, each with the 
gift he hath received," we read in the Holy Scriptures. All do 
not understand this " serving," nor can it be understood unless 
we have some practical sense of the solidarity of the race. 
In a dissolving of all common interest lies the cause of the 
generally felt want of fortune among the masses. And yet 
here in America collective wealth has not decreased, but land, 
VOL. LXIX. 30 



466 THE LABOR QUESTION AND [J u ly 

real estate, has considerably risen in value, and personal prop- 
erty been immeasurably increased. 

TOO MUCH INDIVIDUALISM CREATES THE GREAT FORTUNES. 

How, then, is the ever-increasing indigence of the majority to 
be explained ? By the fact that countless small fortunes have 
been concentrated into the hands of capitalists, and this ten- 
dency is still on the increase. The use of machinery has indis- 
putably contributed much toward this concentration of wealth. 
Industrial inventions might become beneficent to the masses. If 
machines replace human labor, this should not necessitate the en- 
forced idleness of the portion who are thrown out of employ- 
ment. The machine has done not a little to mitigate the original 
ban that was put on manual labor. By means of it that portion 
of the human race which has hitherto been prevented by hard 
labor from mental culture is put in a position to aspire to higher 
education. If the Son of God has delivered us, why shall not the 
children of God help to deliver one another from the bondage of 
service and the still worse oppression of hunger ? Where in all 
the world is it written that society shall consist of a few great 
proprietors, and an immense number of destitutes who are in 
every respect cut off from any share in the world's goods ? 
Though machinery makes a greater concentration of industry 
and presupposes a larger capital, thus making the former efforts 
of small possessors almost impossible, this does not necessitate 
that such an alteration of things must lead to the financial 
ruin of the parties concerned. On the contrary, it is possible 
to think of an arrangement by which former owners might, 
with their capital and their powers, take part in the new modes 
of manufacture and enjoy the fruits thereof without sinking to 
be proletarian. As in Europe small farmers formerly assisted 
in various ways in carrying out extensive agricultural under- 
takings, so the factory system might assume a form that would 
allow the inclusion of many smaller undertakings. 

The law protects property from the attacks of thieves and 
robbers ; why not also from depredations which have their 
cause only in the right of the more powerful ? The annihila- 
tion and absorption of the smaller owner by the greater does 
indeed 'seem to be only the right of the stronger in the social 
field. Though the law permits this, the religious and moral 
relation which makes the law of conscience still obtains. 

It seems truly as if the password of the day, the device 
according to which the right of the stronger is exercised, were 



1899-] THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 467 

" Go down ! " An appeal to laws which lay no restraint on 
private acts in the financial field would be useless. If the law 
of conscience and not of greed governed the administration of 
fortunes, the capitalist would not altogether strain toward as- 
suring for himself the very greatest profits, but would endeavor 
to dispose of his fortune in such a way as to contribute to 
the welfare of others. The Jews have notoriously in many 
business matters the superiority over the Christians; their reli- 
gious national community, which leads them to close relations 
in financial matters, enables them at any moment to concen- 
trate the fortunes of many individuals. In former times, when 
among Christians also there was greater religious unity, caus- 
ing more truth and faithfulness in material matters than can 
now be found, the consequence of these closer relations was 
that the less moneyed man could undertake something requir- 
ing a greater amount than was at his disposal. The actual 
cause, then, of the present evil is to be found in the absence 
of Christian feeling ! The remedy for the evil lies in the restoration 
of the sense of religious community in regard to money matters also. 

THE IDEAL OF RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY. 

This religious community is no unattainable ideal ; much of 
it has already been in existence. Its complete realization must, 
of course, be looked upon as a goal to be striven after, though 
scarcely to be completely encompassed on earth. It is quite 
possible of attainment, however, to some degree. In every 
circle each individual can contribute his part thereto, not 
alone by applying the commands of his religion to his actions, 
but by introducing the church itself into his ideas, placing true 
Christian teaching at the bottom of all his actions and exem- 
plifying it in his life. Thus, from single families and circles 
will the church again, in the social province also, swell into 
the all-comprehensive temple of God, as it was recognized and 
venerated by past centuries. And on this enlargement rests in 
every respect the salvation of human society. 




" IN THE MIDST OF THE WlNE-H AR VEST." 



THE 'UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN 

ALPS." 

BY E. M. LYNCH. 
GERMAN-SPEAKING IN ITALY. 

HE population of this part of Val d'Aosta is Ger- 
man-speaking, and there has been much wordy 
strife as to the cause of this Teutonic plant in 
Italian soil. One explanation is all sufficient. 
Some centuries ago Gressoney was an appanage 
of the bishopric of Sion, in Canton Vallais. The bishop naturally 
sent his own men to look after the diocesan lands, and there 
they and their descendants have taken firm root, speaking the 
tongue of the Vallais. 

French is the language used for the official announcements 
in the parish church at La Trinit ; and, needless to say, the 
distinguishing appendages, " St. Jean " and " La Trinite"," are 
also French. Moreover, a religious ceremony in use in France, 
and nowhere else, so far as I am aware the handing of a 
basket of pain bcnit during Ma-ss is in force in Gressoney to 




1899-] " UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN ALPS." 469 

this day. Curious to have French and German prominent, and 
Italian in a distant background, in the Regno d 'Italia ! 

The congregation struck me as having the flat, broad face 
and perfectly wooden figure that is characteristically Swiss. 

Gressoney folk are said to be most particular only to wed 
with those of their own village ; a fact difficult to understand, 
when the valleys round about them are peopled by a nobler, 
more beautiful race. However, it is profoundly true that 

" 'Tis man's ancient whim 
That eke his like seems good to him," 

as Dante said when his churlish host, Can Grande, complained 
that he found the court fool better company than the poet of 
the " Divina Commedia." 

MONTE ROSA. 

At the Miravalle, Monte Rosa looked in at our windows. 
It appeared to be a short hour's walk to the heart of the Lys 
Glacier; but we must put this down to the clearness of the 
atmosphere, for it is three long hours alone to the source of 
the Lys! It is owing to the neighborhood of so much ice that 




...J 



v Ft 



fr 



ROMAN BRIDGES. 



the air of Gressoney is so cool. We were told it was warmer 
when we were there (isth and i6th September) than it had 
been all the summer ; and it was warmer still on our return on 
the 2 ist, but it felt frosty at night, and even frosty in the 



470 " UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN ALPS" (July, 




* -. . ; u \ 

A RUINED ROMAN THEATRE. 



shade in the day-time. Gressoney would be an Eden for north- 
erners wishing to summer in Italy, yet dreading the heat of 
the cities and the low levels. 

VAL D'AOSTA. 

At Gressoney we put two of our mules in the shafts of |a 
little carriage, and trotted down the valley to Pont St. Martin, 
in Val d'Aosta ; starting in the crisp 'morning, with coat- 






1899-] " UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN ALPS" 471 

collars turned up and all our wraps in use. The early after- 
noon saw us in the midst of the vendemmia, the wine-harvest ; 
the brightest, most picturesque event in all the Italian year. 
The heat was almost suffocating, but we were very happy 
notwithstanding. The valley is absolutely unique. Roman 
bridges, mediaeval fortresses, an Augustan Arch of Triumph, a 
ruined Roman theatre, fragments of a great amphitheatre, pic- 
turesque villages, churches with the tinned spires of Savoy, 
and wayside shrines, are landmarks along the course of the 
river Dora ; while the Alps, with occasional fields of " per- 
petual snow," and imposing glaciers, cut the sky-line. At 
Courmayeur the traveller faces Mont Blanc ; not in that moun- 
tain's rounded aspect, as it is seen from Geneva, but in all the 
glory of rock-spire and pinnacle. 





WITH OCCASIONAL FIELDS OF PERPETUAL SNOW. 



472 " UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN ALPS." [July, 

We were on the beaten track at Courmayeur ; but of tour- 
ists there were none, a spell of bad weather having frightened 
away (all too early) the adventurous Alpine Club men and 
their admiring families. The excellent hotels stood empty, 
mournful, deserted. For people who can climb at all, this is 
a most interesting headquarters. The feeble are very gently 
dealt with ; all things are made easy for pedestrians and riders 
of mules. The ascent of that " grass-hill," the Mont de Saxe, 
which is rewarded with a sublime view over the most famous 
peaks and passes of Switzerland, is simply a series of wood- 
land walks, and a gradual ascent through some pastures. 

Pr St. Didier, a little lower than enchanting Courmayeur, 
is at the foot of the Little St. Bernard Pass. Here, also, the 
wayfarer may " rest and be thankful," in a good hotel. 

Aosta city, where the old Roman interest culminates the 
scene, too, of Comte de Maistre's well-known book, Le Le'preux 
is quaint and old world enough to satisfy those who most 
detest the monotony and banality of modern life ; but it is not 
so far behind the age we, live in as to be an uncomfortable 
halting place. It has, at least, two capital hotels. Many days 
might be spent in visiting the things of interest in and around 
Aosta. Chatillon, where the Matmoire (which rushes down from 
the Matterhorn) falls into the Dora, is another interesting spot 
in Val d'Aosta, at which the traveller finds cleanliness, comfort, 
and civility, at a quiet old hostelry, across the threshold of 
which seldom falls the shadow of the stranger. Foreigners, in 
fact, hardly know of the existence of any part of Val d'Aosta, 
Courmayeur excepted. 

From Verrez upwards Val d'Aosta speaks French since the 
time of the Franconian Empire. Therefore, a small stock of 
foreign languages will go far in these valleys, where three 
tongues are indigenous. In the hotels, generally, some one 
understands a fourth English. 

VAL D'AOSTANS. 

Aostans are a primitive population : The amateur photogra- 
pher is a novelty to them, as the following conversation will 
show : 

Photographer Thank you for letting me take the picture 
of the plough. Shall I photograph a group of yourselves ? 

Old Woman. I'm old and ugly, but I should like . . . ! 

Photographer (Group being already taken). Would you like 
to see how a picture looks ? 



1 899-1 " UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN ALPS" 473 




474 " UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN Ai PS" [July, 

Ploughman CFrom behind the camera). You said you 
took me, but I'm not in that group (aggrieved). Unless you 
took me with the plough, I'm not done at all. I see all the 
others. 

Photographer explains, soothingly, but apparently convey- 
ing no clear idea the ploughman could not " be in the pic- 
ture " when standing behind the camera ! 

Ploughman. I know all about it now. I saw a machine at 
the Fair. You got the portrait directly in a gilt frame. Ten 
cents was all the man charged. 

Omnes. Can we have our portraits at once, please? 

When the primitive plough needs transportation along the 
high-road panniers are set upon the mule's back and the 
plough is laid upon the panniers. So there are advantages in 
ploughing with a little tin toy that one slim mule can drag 
through the earth. 

A comely old dame in the background of the plough-pic- 
ture was beset by a sad thought after her portrait was taken. 
" Ah," she wailed, " if only it had been Sunday and that I had 
had my nice clothes ! " 

Yet another proof that the Val d'Aosta is unridden of the 
tourist lies in the fact that reins are not in fashion there. The 
carts and other traps meeting our carriage were often drawn 
by mules and horses that had no bit in their mouths, the only 
substitute for a " guide " being a foot of pendant strap from a 
headstall. The man in charge almost invariably reposed inside 
the vehicle, sleeping sweetly. Happily, draft-horses answer to 
an alien voice, and our driver's " Yee aw aw ! " would send 
approaching quadrupeds to their own side of the way, the right 
side, in both senses, in Savoy. The mules generally picked it 
out for themselves. We used to notice them, when still far off, 
making their long ears almost meet at the points in their de- 
termined efforts properly to measure their distances ; and our 
coachman, trusting them completely, forebore from troubling 
their minds with his spoken directions ! His confidence in- 
variably proved to be well placed. 

FORT BARD. 

From the city of Aosta travellers begin the ascent of the 
Great St. Bernard Pass. 

On the I4th of May, 1800, the First Consul, Napoleon 
Bonaparte, crossed the snows of the Great St. Bernard at the 
head of thirty-five thousand men. Fort Bard, in the Val 



1899-] " UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN ALPS" 475 

d'Aosta, manned by four hundred Austrians, held the con- 
queror in check for a week before the battle of Marengo. The 
French army, horse, foot, and artillery, passed behind the 
houses above the picturesque bridge. The mountain here is in- 
describably steep and rugged. Fort Bard commands every inch 




IS QUAINT AND OLD-WORLD ENOUGH." 



of the ground. There were sentinels at every angle of the 
fortress. After that night, dead or alive, the commandant was 
never seen again ; hence the belief that he must have been 
"bought," and must have carried off his sentinels those, at 
least, posted on two sides of the fort. (There is a partly-tun- 
nelled, "secret" outlet running from the upper ranges of the 
buildings to the east.) 



476 " UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN ALPS." [July, 

Each wheel, each hoof in Napoleon's army was wrapped in 
manifold swathings to deaden the sound. Darkness, and the 
roar of the Dora River, were on the side of the invaders. 
Still, the passage of thirty-five thousand men over the roughest 
ground, having cannon and ammunition wagons in their train, 
must have been heard in the fort, which rises up in the middle 
of the narrow valley, had the sentries been at their northern 
and western posts. 

The ancient bridge is highly picturesque the foot-way ris- 
ing sharply, as in "saddle-back" bridges, to the centre, where 
shrines rise above its parapet on both sides. Close by this 
bridge a great mill-stream falls, like a magnificent natural cas- 
cade, into the turbulent Dora. 

In the lower parts of Mont Bard three hundred military 
convicts are now imprisoned. Some of these are said to be 
officers of high rank. 

After five days of walking and driving, we wound our way 
up the long valley of the Lys once more to Miravalle, Gres- 
soney-la-Trinit. 

BROWNING AND GRESSONEY. 

In Gressoney-St.-Jean I tried to come upon some trace of 
Browning's visits, remembering his delight in the place, and in 




THEY ARE GATHERED FOR THK SHEARING. 



its remoteness from dreaded tourists of his own world. Though 
he was so sociable, he could not take his rest or work at all 
in haphazard company. Old friends in the enforced com- 



1899-] "UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN Aipsr 4;; 




" ALL THINGS ARE MADE EASY FOR PEDESTRIANS ANI> RlDERS OF MULES." 

panionship of hotel life were so many interruptions, while 
"pushing" strangers afflicted him with positive panic in his 
holiday-time. Thus, the most lovely spots on the highways of 
travel were banned and barred for Browning, and he was driven 
into the byways to find a summer holiday-land. 
^ But the place he so loved keeps no memory of Browning. 
At the hotel at Gressoney-St.-Jean I was assured it was fifteen 
years since the poet was in the valley, and that he had never 
been anything more than a passer-by ! 

But, we all know, he was at Gressoney in '83 and again in 
'85, and in both years stayed on and on, till he and his sister 
must have been the only strangers left. To quote from Brown- 
ing's Life, by Mrs. Orr : " He became so attached to Gres- 
soney, with its beautiful outlook upon Monte Rosa, that noth- 
ing would have hindered his returning or at least contemplating 
a return to it but the great fatigue to his sister. . . . 
They walked down in October, 1885, and completed the hard 
seven hours' trudge to San Martino d'Aosta, without one atom 
of refreshment or a minute's rest." The early snows had al- 
ready fallen before they left, and the Brownings might easily 
have been the weather's prisoners for an indefinite period. 



478 " UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN ALPS" [July, 

Since those days the new carriage-road has been made from 
Biela to Gressoney. A train runs through Biela, so that any- 
body can now reach the place. 

There was a pathetic suggestion in this oblivion as to the 
great poet in his beloved valley that called forth a deeper 
emotion in a Browning devotee than would have produced any 
except the most precious recollections on the part of the 
host of his inn. 

BACK TO CASA JANZO, OVER COL D'OLEN. 

We feared our mules, tired with much carriage-work, were 
scarcely fit to face the long and trying Pass of the Col d'Olen, 
but their owner declared that their " foot upon their native 

heath," they would be fresh 
again. And so it proved. 
They dragged at starting, and 
could scarcely keep up with 
our re-enforcing donkey ; but 
the harder the climb, the bet- 
ter went the mules. 

Col d'Olen is the happy 
hunting-ground of the botan- 
ist. The Abbate Carestia, who 
has been knighted by the King 
of Italy for his services to the 
science of botany, declares this 
Pass to be the richest in flow- 
ery treasures of any spot in 
the Alps. The hotel is the 
highest in Europe (nearly ten thousand feet above the sea) and 
we were told we should find it shut up, for the Pass is gener- 
ally under snow some days earlier than the 22d of September. 
However, the hotel was half-open and still hospitable, and the 
Col bright with a greater quantity of beautiful flowers than we 
had seen for many weeks. 

Ascending, the heat was very great ; the air indescribably 
clear, the views on all sides magnificent. On the Col a keen 
wind blew, and everything to east and south was veiled in 
smoke, for the starved-out Pastori had set fire to the withered 
grass on the upper rocks (they do it every year, saying the 
ashes enrich the ground at an altitude to which artificial 
fertilizers cannot be profitably carried), and every growing 
thing burnt burnt like tinder. Sparks falling to lower levels, 




OUR RE-ENFORCING DONKEY. 



1899-] " UNSPOILT VALLEYS OF THE SOUTHERN ALPS" 479 

where the pines grow, set woods ablaze. Chalets, in many 
cases, during the dry autumn, were in danger in Val Sesia and 
Val Vogna. There has been much destruction of property, 
water being so terribly scarce on the heights. Nobody is 
likely to be punished for the malefaction, because none saw 
the herbage fired. Mountains burned in Valle Vogna for a 
week a terrible but sublime spectacle at night smouldered 
for some days in consequence of thunder-showers, and were 
fanned to flame again by the first high wind. The local de- 
fence is to cut a trench across the track of the fire. Some- 
times, unfortunately, stones and timber roll down the steep 
slopes, and no workers dare approach the scene of destruction. 

In Val Sesia the mountains burnt for twenty-one days. 
All Varallo drove out at night to see the Denti di Cavallo 
glowing like a furnace. 

Few, at any time, see the view towards the plains from Col 
d'Olen, except in the early morning ; so, for consolation, we 
reminded ourselves, as we sniffed the smoke and hurried down 
the long, rough path in the gathering dusk, which was dark- 
ness before we got to Atagna. We stumbled up the steep 
salite (stairways) to Casa Janzo by the light of lanterns. 

To those who find the old " playground of Europe " rather 
dusty and over-beaten I repeat, I recommend the fresh and 
unspoilt valleys of the Southern Italian Alps. They> at all 
events, have not been to use Mrs. Browning's expressive 
words "trodden flat by the feet of the Continental English." 





480 THE CELTIC REVIVAL. TJ ul y> 



THE CELTIC REVIVAL. 

BY REV. GEORGE McDERMOT, C.S.P. 

HISTORY of the Celtic literature of Ireland from 
the earliest times to the present day is given 
in the remarkable book before us.* We have to 
confess that reading it produced an emotion like 
that which rises under the influence of certain 
kinds of poetry. To say that the review of the ancient 
literature of his country by Dr. Hyde was careful and authori- 
tative, is merely to state what any one would expect the 
work of such an accomplished man must be ; but this would 
be the least part of the praise to which he is entitled. He be- 
longs to an academical family, one of those leisured and culti- 
vated families to be found in every part of Ireland and 
which typify the unperverted taste of all classes. The grotesque 
extravagances in Irish country life that we read of are excres- 
cences, abnormal developments of buffoonery or recklessness 
when the humor and the good taste which are the natural 
characteristics of that people ran wild under particular social 
and political influences. A member of one of those scholarly 
families, with ample leisure, varied learning, and surpassing 
critical acumen, our author is marked for this labor as a man 
of no other class could be ; but more, he is marked for it by 
his passionate love of the old race and its literature ; and he 
gives his possessions of mind and heart to the service with a 
devotion pure as religion, a spirit of sacrifice higher in courage 
than chivalry at its best. Had he carried his labors to London 
and placed his gifts and acquirements on the altar of English 
public opinion, wealth and honor would be his reward; We 
would hear of the great " English " archaeologist Hyde in the 
Times and the magazines. As it is, he is an Irish country gen- 
tleman, known to the scholars of the world indeed, and so 
far as he is known in England, looked on as the worst kind of 
irreconcilable one who would disturb the safety of the empire 
by filling Irishmen with the delusion that they belong to an 
ancient and cultured race, instead of leaving them blessed 
with the privilege of being the Gibeonites of the United King- 
dom. In this work Irishmen and their descendants everywhere 

*A Literary History of Ireland. By Douglas Hyde, LL.D., M.R.I. A. New York: 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 



1899-] THE CELTIC REVIVAL. 481 

will find scientific proof that they possess a richer inheritance 
of the qualities which make man divine than all races save 
that one whose poetry, eloquence, and wisdom still teach the 
world as when Greece was young. Nor is this an idle knowledge 
without title to respect in an age which values only the strong 
and fortunate. Historic truth is more useful to mankind 
than successful commerce I am too civil to say successful 
violence and fraud. Irishmen, or their children out of Ireland, 
are not bound to live exclusively in the past ; they can take 
their place in the bustling world, and, if true to themselves, it 
must be a foremost one. Without offence, one might say that 
thirty centuries probably, twenty centuries certainly, of intellec- 
tual activity must have given to mental processes a power in 
those fields of labor which require man to be something more 
than a beast of burden. 

There was a great Celtic Empire in Europe centuries before 
Caesar went to Gaul to make his fortune ; the subject classes of 
that empire were the ancestors of the modern Germans and of 
what are called the Anglo-Saxons. It is quite touching in the 
light of this fact to read the verse which the children in the 
"National" schools of Ireland were compelled to repeat: 

" I thank the goodness and the grace 

Which on my birth have smiled, 
And made me in these Christian days 
A happy English child ! " 

Dr. Whately, who was one of the Commissioners of National 
Education, may be the man most directly responsible for this 
outrage on good taste and decency, but his colleagues were 
indirectly responsible when they became the tools of that 
Englishman who did the Irish Establishment the honor of 
accepting the great revenues of the archdiocese of Dublin as 
the solace of his exile. The " National system " of education 
pursued two objects : one with an unanimity among the com- 
missioners which can only be understood in Ireland this was the 
destruction of Irish as a living language ; the other was the ruin 
of the Catholic Church as a social and religious influence. Half 
of the commissioners were Catholics, and though Whately and 
his allies accomplished much, they were not able to effect 
their entire aim against the church. Nothing could be more 
unprincipled than Whately's conduct we know it from Nassau 
Senior, his favorite pupil but he had to work "with one 
hand, and that the best, tied behind his back," because one 
pr two of the Catholic commissioners were obstacles. It was 

VOL. LX1X. 31 



482 THE CELTIC REVIVAL. [July, 

different in regard to the old language. It was doomed to 
death by Catholic and Protestant alike. 

The same motives which caused the anglicizing of sur- 
names ever since the Statute of Kilkenny, the putting on the 
shelf Celtic Christian names to-day as well as in penal times, 
the sending of the youth of our better classes to Oxford instead 
of to Trinity, the assuming of a " Brummagem " or Cockney 
accent to disguise the manly burr of Ulster, the rich melody 
of the south and west, or the clear sharpness of the Leinster tone, 
were in force with the commissioners in killing the native tongue. 
They preferred to make a mongrel of the kindly Irish child 
than to leave him his descent from saints. Whately, the quasi- 
Unitarian Archbishop of Dublin, supplied "Christian days" of 
his own for that child whose ancestors were Christians when 
the Saxon worshipped Woden and Thor and the host of 
witches and goblins he brought with him from the German 
forests. If a single Christian influence or one scintilla of letters 
is to be found in the Saxon before the Norman came, he owes 
it to the Irish missionary and teacher, the Irish monasteries 
and schools. The first chapter of our author, in which he 
answers his question : " Who were the Celts ? " will be a reve- 
lation to many, the fixing of floating ideas to many, a new 
impulse to all. 

They were a conquering race. When first seen by authen- 
tic history they occupied the region along the banks of the 
upper Danube, together with Bavaria, Baden, and the district 
round the Maine. Our author tells us that issuing thence they 
established for two centuries an empire over all North-west 
and Central Europe, or, as we might put it, they possessed the 
territories which some fourteen or fifteen centuries later, under 
Charles the Great, revived the Western Empire. We are in 
the dark as to their polity, but that there was a political 
unity is evident from the extent of their conquests. That 
the occupation was not like a Barbarian inroad must be inferred 
from the names of places which have remained amid all the 
changes of Europe, and those which are mentioned in the his- 
tory of the nations. Possessing historical intuition as exact as 
the intuition of mathematical science, Dr. Hyde leads his 
reader along safe roads. He is never betrayed by that specula- 
tive historical imagination which even in Gibbon, Thierry, and 
Sismondi from time to time becomes a haze. 

Dr. Hyde, we think justly, infers that from 500 B.C. to 300 
B.C. the Celts possessed a high degree of political unity, and 
"to have followed with signal success a wise and consistent ex- 



l8 99-] THE CELTIC REVIVAL. 483 

ternal policy."* I must send the reader to him for his rea- 
sons ; f but we have during the period named three successful 
wars, in one of which they took Spain from the Carthaginians, 
the north of Italy from the Etruscans, and considerable terri- 
tory along the Danube from the Illyrians. In passing I call 
attention to the close alliance between them and the Greeks 
during this period ; I contrast with it their haughty contempt 
of the Romans, which even nine or ten centuries later found 
expression in that letter of St. Columbanus to the Holy See, 
so well known to us all.:}: 

A fair question arises at this point : Where were the Ger- 
mans ? The ancient Greek historians of the sixth, fifth, and 
fourth centuries B.C., who tell so much about the Celts, know 
absolutely nothing of the Germans. The explanation is given 
by Jubainville: they were conquered by the Celts. They 
were so completely beneath the surface that the immediate 
neighbors of the latter, so far as political life was concerned, 
were the Scythians. This was the view of the Greeks, and it 
is singularly enough corroborated in the old Irish manuscripts 
which in one way or another appear to claim a Scythian origin 
for the Irish race. Dr. Hyde does not note this last point, for 
the reason, doubtless, that his argument at the moment is mainly 
philological ; and we refer to it because the Scythian origin has 
been always looked upon as a wild idea. The notion sprang 
from political juxtaposition probably, but even in this the old 
poets and chroniclers had some ground for their tradition. 

An interesting statement is that there existed a kind of 
Celto-Germanic civilization.! A number of words common to 
the Celts and Germans are not to be found in the other Indo- 
European tongues, and there are many common to all these 
tongues which bear the same meaning in the Celto-Germanic 
languages while bearing a different one in the other languages 
of the group. How such words and such meanings became 

*The valuable discussion on linguistic tokens and the allusions of foreign writers, 
Greeks and Romans, seem to prove his thesis to the very letter. We hope Irish-Americans 
will arrange to invite him to deliver a series of lectures on the work of their ancestors in 
forming modern society. 

t Livy gives an account of Ambicatus, who seems to have been a Celtic Charlemagne. 

JTo guard against misconception, I mean that the proud Irishman, while recognizing 
the greatness of the URBS, added : " It is great to us only because it contains the tombs of 
the Apostles." 

% Premiers Habitants de r Europe. The German's "language during ages of slavery 
had been reduced to the condition of a patois." 

|| It is dearly inferrible that there was an Italo-Celtic period previous to the establish- 
ment of the Italian races in Italy, perhaps some twelve centuries before our Lord's coming. 
This is the opinion of the great authorities. The perfection of the Celtic tongue seems to 
have been attained at a very early. period. 



484 THE CELTIC REVIVAL. [July, 

common to the tongues of Celts and Germans is easily under- 
stood ; the two peoples, the dominant Celts and the subject 
Germans, obeyed the same chiefs and fought in the same 
armies ; but the invention of the one class of words and the 
assignation of new meanings to the other, open up a different 
question, one of profound interest concerning the reach of 
time about which European history is silent : What was being 
evolved the while? Some solution maybe found in the ancient 
Irish traditions preserved in the mass of manuscripts scat- 
tered through the libraries of the Continent, buried in the 
libraries of Trinity College and Oxford, of the Royal Irish 
Academy, and other collections in the United Kingdom. A 
social and political life must have been developing side by 
side with the growth of language during this night. To men 
possessed of historical intuition a more solid field for specula- 
tion on the early life of man is afforded by those manuscripts 
and similar aids than from traces left in caves and river-beds, 
or from glaciers melted in the consciousness of a savant. 

We have, incidentally, proof of the strong sterling qualities 
of the German: namely, that despite his long subjection he 
held his own language, his own religion, was never assimilated 
by his conqueror, and finally broke his yoke. This rising was 
about the year 300 B.C. The Celts were driven from the region 
between the Rhine and the North Sea, between the Elbe and 
the basin of the Maine. It was a rending in sunder of the 
Celtic Empire. Those Celts driven from the right bank of the 
Rhine to the left are known to school-boys as the Belgse of 
Caesar's Commentaries; others settled along the Rhine; others 
turned from the west and founded that colony of Galatia to 
whose inhabitants, three centuries later, St. Paul wrote the 
famous epistle "'with his own hand"; later on they lost Spain 
and Gaul, and there remained to them nothing of their vast 
possessions* except Britain and Ireland. 

We pass over the thousand years in Ireland previous to our 
era and in this we are like Romeo's apothecary, consenting 
against our will and just refer to the great servile revolt 
against the free clans or nobility. It was led by Cairbre, and 
would seem to have been what Balafre would describe as "a 
sufficient onslaught/' for the Milesians were all but extermi- 
nated. I think under the text we may find a metaphorical 
palimpsest telling us the rule of Cairbr was that of the worst 
kind of tyrant there could be, a serf intoxicated with triumph 

* St. Jerome, who was not a friend of theirs, allows himself to speak of them as "the 
conquerors of the East and West.' 1 



I8 99-1 THE CELTIC REVIVAL. 485 

and maddened by memories of humiliation. The Four Masters 
transcribing the contemporary chronicles say : " Evil was the 
state of Ireland during his reign, fruitless her corn, for there used 
to be but one grain on the stalk," and so on through a tale of 
blight during the inauspicious period. There was a very ancient 
belief among the people, a belief transmitted almost to the pre- 
.sent, that bad seasons were a judicial punishment for the crimes 
of kings. Of course no one can pretend to trace its origin, but 
we may suggest that as kingship was a sacerdotal office in the 
earliest times, the person entrusted with the dignity should be 
worthy of the friendship of God. Acts forfeiting that friendship 
.would naturally be punished by God. Our author translates the 
hymn chanted in the ears of a prince of Erin on his inauguration, 
as a warning of what he might expect from unkingly conduct : 

"Seven witnesses there be 

Of the broken faith of kings : 
First to trample on the free, 

Next to sully sacred things, 
Next to strain the law divine, 

(This defeat in battle brings,) 
Famine, slaughter, milkless kine, 

And disease on flying wings. 
These the seven-fold vivid lights 

That light the perjury of kings!" 

On the restoration of the old line the country bloomed as of 
yore and peace was on the land to be interrupted, however, By 
another rebellion and massacre of the masters. This seems to 
have been the last great social rebellion in Ireland, and I sug- 
gest that the influence of Christianity, if it did not fuse the 
free and unfree clans, obtained for the latter some advantages 
in the tenure of land by which many, though never rising above 
the rank of peasants, became wealthy men. Indeed, on account 
of the strictness with which the genealogies were enrolled and 
preserved, it would be impossible for one not belonging to the 
chief's stock to be included in the clan. Before our era the 
local genealogies were written, recopied, and made matter of 
court roll as part of the regular business of clan administra- 
tion, and at the triennial parliaments of Tara were subjected to 
national examination and revision. The vast mass of matter 
contained in these documents might in part explain the opinion 
which seems to prevail in certain quarters, that Irish manuscript 
materials are of no literary value. The term literary value is 
relative. The critic the other day who pronounced an unfavora- 



486 THE CELTIC REVIVAL. [July, 

ble opinion on the novels of M. Sienkiewicz because they were 
studded with a number of hard names, has, doubtless, his own 
standard ; but if these documents contain names which appear 
in the sagas and which are associated with historical events, the 
reality of the heroic and historical characters would be estab- 
lished by autochthonous testimony alone. We know that from 
the fourth century of our era, at least, historical events are con- 
firmed from external sources; we can go further and say that 
wherever there has been the chance of controlling historical events 
from outside testimony, or correcting accounts by outside criti- 
cism, the Irish records have been put beyond all praise for 
accuracy. A sufficient reason for the exactness of the genealo- 
gies would appear to a lawyer on the bare statement that the 
title to a share of the tribal lands depended on a claimant's 
power to prove his descent from the ancestor of the chief ; but 
a provision of the law dealing with documents of the kind and 
with the related subject of poetical recitation might not be so 
convincing. The poet and historian should be free from "theft 
and killing and satirizing and adultery, and everything that 
would be a reproach to their learning." We fear if such a 
law existed in our time there would be no poetry and very 
little history. Mac Firbis, quoted by our author, speaks from 
the sentiment which possessed his whole being as an historian 
belonging to a great professional family of historians, and his 
words have the ring of that overmastering sense of duty which 
is inseparable from honorable life. The honor which in the 
knight made a suspicion burn like a stain, had its counterpart 
in the respect for truth by which those Irish historians were 
ruled, and which compelled them to exercise a critical faculty 
severe indeed, but just, before letting the work go from their 
hands. It may be said, that if all manuscripts were subjected 
to such scrutiny the faculty spoken of was not needed. Why, 
it is the very essence of professional training to take nothing 
for granted, and this same professional training supplied that 
secondary common sense in which modern critics often the 
free lances of inquiry are so deficient. 

I pass over the lovely descriptions submitted by our author 
of the Elysium of the Gael.* Quoting one, he says: " It breathes 
the very essence of Celtic glamour, and is shot through and 
through with the Celtic love of form, beauty, landscape, com- 

*"The Voyage of Bran," a pagan poem translated by Kuno Meyer, who speaks of its 
antiquity. Zimmer thinks the transcribed version is not later than the seventh century. A 
curious remark concerning the word " Rein" "of the sea" which occurs in the poem, is 
made by a great French linguist the Gaels brought it with them as a reminiscence of the 
Rhine. 



THE CELTIC REVIVAL. 487 

pany, and the society of woman." " I verily believe," he goes 
on, "there is no Gael alive even now who would not in his 
heart of hearts let drift by him the Elysiums of Virgil, Dante, 
and Milton, to grasp at the Moy Mell of the unknown Irish 
pagan." I must send the reader to the work for the fine story of 
Cuchulain's sick-bed. The conceptions are pagan. The deserted 
wife of the Celtic Neptune, Manannan, sends an ambassadress 
to the hero to invite him to the other world.* He would find 
" There are at the western door, 

In the place where the sun goes down, 
A stud of steeds of the best of breeds, 
Of the gray and the golden brown." 

Belief in rebirth comes out in the " Wooing of Etain." She 
is the wife of one of the Tuatha De Danann ; is reborn as a 
mortal and weds the King of Ireland. Her former husband 
follows, and tries to win her back by painting the Elysium to 
which he would again lead her. It surpasses Innisfail, beauti- 
ful as that land is, and rich in good things though it be. 

In the chapter on the "Early Use of Letters" we have 
much that is interesting; among them this: the philosophical 
character of the Ogam alphabet is accounted for by Dr. Reth- 
wisch, a German, as follows: "The natural gifts of the Celts 
and their practical genius for simplicity and observation ripened 
up to a certain stage far earlier than those of their Indo- 
European relations." We have from the fact that this writing 
was peculiar to the Irish Gael, and only to be found where he 
had settled, distinct proof that he planted colonies in Britain 
and Scotland in those marauding expeditions of which later on 
we read complaints as well from Gaul as from Britain. This 
justifies Dr. Hyde's opinion that the hypothesis which treated 
the Ogam as an early cryptic alphabet will not bear investiga- 
tion. There would have been no meaning in recording the 
simple facts centering round invasion and settlement in any 
except the ordinary script. Plundering a village, driving out 
the inhabitants or the like, and the date would be the matters 
carved upon the stones. But the question is set at rest by the 
number deciphered owing to the key contained in the Book of 
Ballymote, and to duplicates inscribed in Latin letters. That 
many still defy all efforts to read them is not a proof that the 
original intention was to use the signs as a cryptic alphabet, 
though in the absence of fuller knowledge we may allow that 
in time they might be employed as a cypher by writing names 

*" Their ocean-god was Manannan Mac Lir." See McGee's fine ballad if you want to 
be affected as by the gathering of the clans. 



THE CELTIC REVIVAL. [July. 

backwards, transposing syllables, or any other method by which 
the ordinary reader would be set at fault.* 

The prehistoric Irish were very much behind the inhabi- 
tants of Great Britain in civilization, we are informed by 
English writers. They infer this from the remoteness of Ire- 
land from the Continent. Down to the time when the full 
swing of the National school system killed Irish as a spoken 
language, English conviction was a preconceived theory. We 
offer a comparison between the Irish-speaking peasant at the 
beginning of the forties and the English peasant in this year of 
grace at the end of the scientific century. The vocabulary of 
the latter ranges from three hundred words to an extreme never 
reaching six hundred; that of the Irish-speaking peasant went 
from four thousand to over six thousand. Sir John Davis, James 
I.'s Irish attorney-general, finds Irish law all naught. " Bacon, who 
knew nothing whatever about it, speaks of it as a barbarous 
custom. Yet the former says there is no man in the world 
likes fair and equal justice better than the Irishman. He is 
satisfied even when it goes against him if he believes it has 
been honestly administered. There is no man has such a dread 
of the law when justly administered as the Irishman, in which 
respect he is greatly in advance of the Englishman, who only 
fears the law when he thinks it will be enforced if he violates 
it. Davis shows in this observation much of the quality which 
distinguishes the lawyer from the legal artisan, the statesman 
from the politician. He wrote as an eye-witness whose busi- 
ness was to defame the people whose estates were to be con- 
fiscated and whose laws were to be taken from them by his 
testimony. Everything in their favor from such a pen obtains 
exceptional authority. The truth is the Irishman's reverence 
for just law has the touch of a sacred instinct ; he dreads it as 
something awful and venerable, as if in that sentiment of religion 
with which he is so strongly imbued he looked upon indifferent 
justice as an emanation from the divinity. This, I think, is 
the way this stranger and enemy is to be understood whose 
cold and pitiless policy reached the same goal as that aimed 

* The challenge in Ogam on the stone pillar before the court of the three sons of Nech- 
tan to every one who passed by should be ordinary script. On the other hand, the Ogam on 
Core's shield when he fled to the court of King Feredach in Scotland must have been in- 
tended to be read only by the initiated, for the prince himself did not know the meaning of 
the inscription which was intended to be as fatal to him as the semata lugra which Beller- 
ophon was to take to the King of Lycia. These, however, were pictorial, and we think indi- 
cate a more primitive stage of letters than the Ogam. Some kind of secret understanding may 
have subsisted as to a special use of symbols or the ordinary letters in very early times, and 
would probably regulate the intercourse between kings and great men ; so with Prcetus and 
Jobates ; so in the instance in the text. 



1899-] THE CELTIC REVIVAL. 489 

at by the false, cowardly, and malignant Bacon. If I am 
right, I think that their own system, intricate as it was, with 
its guarantees and pledges, its notices and counter notices, 
its steps so like what we call dilatory pleas, its judgments 
devoid of anything which we understand by the word sanction, 
save that of conscience and opinion, must have worked in peace- 
ful times with a power, precision, and harmony never before 
or since attained. It wrought out of this bundle of passions 
and prejudices, hopes and fears called man, the citizen of an 
ideal state ; for such he must be who obeys a law behind 
which there is only a moral force. 

I am not here to claim for the Brehon laws a character 
which they did not possess. I am not competent to pronounce 
an opinion as to whether the code expressed anything like the 
active principles of a jurisprudence; but it is clear as daylight, 
if Davis's testimony be not an imagination, and if the whole 
tenor of Irish political and social life as we find it in history 
and tale, in proverb and in doom laid down by king or 
Brehon, be not the invention of some romancer fancying him- 
self living for thousands of years among a people who had 
never existed, there is only one conclusion that the system 
suited a people of simple but lofty ideals, that in its elements 
it came to them from the farthest past endeared by every as- 
sociation which makes home and name and fame a passion, 
that it was part of their inheritance and their pride, marking 
them off from others like their language, and their gods like 
that later religion which seems their very own by the ring of 
sorrow and of glory in which it binds them. 

I had intended to say something of 'the schools of Chris- 
tian Ireland, something of the Bardic schools, something of the 
great cycles of romance and chivalry and song, but I have 
gone beyond my space. The work has been in the reading a 
pain like that which intense emotion places in the heart, the 
subtlest pleasure life can meet with, the sweetness of the songs 
that tell of saddest thought. Of the scholarship of the writer 
it is not for me to speak. Wherever learning has an influence 
his name is known in the Empire of Germany, on the banks 
of the Seine, among the few men of science in England who 
do not look upon him and his like as branded with the curse 
of Swift. I may not despair. The land to which such love is 
given, and for which so much is sacrificed, must have something 
in store for her in the time when the powers that wait on no- 
ble deeds shall enter on their reign. 




49 THROUGH THE MUNSTER" s PEACE. [July* 



THROUGH THE MUNSTER'S PEACE. 

BY E. C. VANSITTART. 

" One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 

I. 

"N a late spring afternoon peals of baby laughter 
came through the open windows of one of those 
old houses facing the cathedral ; within, the room 
with low ceiling and wainscotted walls would 
have afforded a fine subject for a picture. By 
the window sat a young woman, whose typical Madonna face 
bore a sweet and serious expression ; the fair hair formed a 
kind of halo round the white brow, and the soft brown eyes 
shone with a starry light. She had been working at a child's 
frock, and the dainty tucks and frills that grew under her 
needle might have been the work of elfin fingers ; but the heap 
of white cambric had now fallen unheeded into her lap, as her 
eyes rested with a look of intense love on the two-year-old 
baby who had been playing on the floor till attracted by a 
slanting band of golden sunshine sweeping straight in from 
the west. The little one had struggled on to her jet unsteady 
feet, and was now vainly striving with both dimpled hands to 
catch the myriads of dancing, leaping motes which whirled 
rapidly up and down, round and round, in the glory of that 
golden stream. At each fresh attempt the child broke out into 
renewed peals of laughter, till the sound filled the room like a 
peal of joy-bells, and finally roused the third occupant, a tall 
man bending over a table littered with musical scores and 
chant-books, causing him to look up with a smile. It required 
but a glance to recognize Ulrich Spindler as a musician, and 
to realize that with him his art was a passion : the dreamy 
look in the blue eyes, the gesture with which he threw back 
the heavy locks falling over his broad forehead, the slender 
hands with their sensitive fingers-tips, all bespoke the artist. 
The little one standing in the sunset glory was a lovely child 
indeed, but totally unlike either parent, with her crop of ruddy 
curls and violet blue eyes. That spontaneous baby laughter 
welling up and overflowing from sheer gladness of heart was 
irresistible, and after looking on for some minutes, Ulrich, 



1899-] THROUGH THE MUNS TER 's PEACE, 491 

pushing back his papers, rose and lifted the child on to his 
shoulders, exclaiming: "There, you sprite! see if mother can 
get at you now ! " 

"Mother! mother!" shouted the child from her coign of 
vantage, her attention at once diverted from the now fast fad- 
ing sunlight, as there began one of those romps which form 
the supreme joy of a baby's life ; round and round the room, 
in and out of corners they sped, till the exhausted elders sank 
laughing on to the cushioned window-seat with the child be- 
tween them. 

Gravity soon returned, however, as the young wife, leaning 
against her husband, said in a low and hesitating tone : " Ulrich, 
there is something I have long wished to ask you, but I have 
refrained from fear of paining you." 

" Say on," was the reply, as he stroked the fair head beside 
him. " You know, dear heart, I can refuse you nothing ; to 
make you happy is my one desire, my sole aim and object," 
and they exchanged one of those looks of perfect confidence 
blended with tenderness and mutual understanding known only 
to those who are of one heart and mind. 

" It is only that I want you to let Hedwig grow up regard- 
ing me as her own mother. I would not ask it if she had 
known her mother, for then it would be wronging her memory; 
but since she has known no love but mine, it is different." 

" I have no objection," answered Ulrich, " but is it quite 
wise? If she should hear it some day when she is old enough 
to understand, would it not be worse than if she grew up 
knowing the truth?" 

" There is no fear of that," was the eager reply ; " we know 
no one here as yet, and of course every one takes it for granted 
she is my own child. I spoke to your sister before we left 
Berlin, and she agreed with me." 

"I still think it is rather a risk, Lisa. Is not honesty 
always the best policy ? She will not love you the less when 
she understands." 

" O Ulrich ! you do not know the prejudice that exists 
against step-mothers," answered Lisa, with an imploring look 
in her eyes. " I think it would break my heart if Hedwig grew 
up with that feeling in her mind, she is so precious to me." 

The pleading voice, the tears in her brown eyes, were more 
than he could resist. "Very well, dear, have it as you like," 
he replied; "if any one has a right to the title of mother, it 
certainly is you," as fondly raising the child into her lap, 



49 2 THROUGH THE MUNSTER'S PEACE. [July, 

"there, little one, kiss your Miitterchen," he folded them both 
in his own embrace, till the Miinster bells suddenly rang out 
their vesper chime, and hastily gathering up his chant-books, 
he hurried across the Platz to fulfil his office of organist. 

Lisa, remaining behind in the twilight, passionately strained 
the child to her heart, murmuring: "My darling, my baby! 
you are mine now, my very own. Oh ! how can I ever thank 
God enough for all his goodness to me! I will try to be 
more worthy of it," and across the Platz from within the 
Munster came the echo of the choristers' sweet voices chant- 
ing "Amen," as though in benediction on her head bent low 
over the now sleeping child. 

Ulrich Spindler's youth, spent in Berlin, had been that of 
most artists a struggle to live by drudgery whilst he longed 
all the time for leisure to devote himself to art. Then mar- 
riage with a lovely, dowerless orphan girl, who died at her 
baby's birth after one short year of happiness, leaving her hus- 
band crushed and desolate. His sister, Frau Doctorin Weide, 
a childless widow, came to keep house for him and to look 
after the motherless child, while Ulrich, spiritless and disheart- 
ened, went on wearily with his daily round of lessons till, when 
little Hedwig was two years old, he casually met Lisa Buchener. 
Her sweet sad face, gentle manner, and the wistful look in her 
dark eyes attracted him from the first ; her loneliness appealed 
to him, and once his heart was touched, the old passionate 
love which he thought had died for ever with his young wife 
leapt into life once more. It was not that he was disloyal to 
her memory, but he was one of those who cannot stand alone, 
who must ever be first with some one ; his sister's placid affec- 
tion did not suffice him, nor was her prosaic nature capable of 
entering into his dreamy enthusiasms and high ambitions. 
In Lisa Buchener he met with full response and perfect sym- 
pathy, while to her the love of this strong man came as a glad 
revelation of what life could hold, and her whole heart went 
out to him and little Hedwig, for she was one of those true 
women in whom the instinct of motherhood is strong. The 
weakness and helplessness of the little child, the touch of 
her baby hands and outstretched arms, the weight of the soft 
head nestling against her breast, roused all the mother nature 
inherent within her. Few lives had been so lonely, so devoid 
of home affections as hers ; left an orphan at an early age, 
without a near relative in the world, she had been brought up 
in a home for officers' daughters, and when her education was 



1899-] THROUGH THE MUNSTER" s PEACE. 493 

completed, a situation was found for her as teacher in a large 
girls' school, where Ulrich Spindler, in his capacity of music- 
master, first met her. 

A few months of courtship ensued ; they were married, and 
shortly after Ulrich, whose talent had made its mark, was 
offered and accepted a position as organist in Freiburg Cathe- 
dral, a good appointment, with sufficient leisure and salary to 
allow of his devoting all his time and energy to the higher 
branches of his beloved art. Hither then they moved, settling 
into one of the quaint old houses in the Dom Platz. Frau 
Weide, though she thought her brother might have done better 
for himself than, for a second time, marry a penniless orphan, 
did not regret being relieved of her responsibilities as guardian 
and housekeeper, for being an easy-going, selfish woman, she 
could now go back to her quiet, self-indulgent life which had 
been rudely broken into by having had to look after a discon- 
solate widower and a delicate baby. She had no appreciation 
of children and was not sorry to be quit of the charge of her 
little niece, though she was her own god-child. Unable to make 
up her mind to leave her beloved Berlin, with her rounds of 
Kaffeeklatsch and narrow circle of friends, she promised to pay 
the little family an annual visit at Freiburg, and thus they 
parted. 

Winter lasts long in some lives, there is no spring-time for 
them. Summer burst upon Lisa ; out of the cold and wintry 
darkness, out of the poverty of a loveless, starved existence, 
she found herself suddenly transplanted into the warmth and 
fulness, the richness and glow of golden summer, effacing and 
blotting out the past by the absorbing satisfaction of the pres- 
ent ; her heart, so long deprived of kindness and affection, now 
poured out its treasures of devotion on the husband and child 
who had been given to her in fulness of compensation for the 
long years of loneliness she had so bravely fought through. 

II. 

No children of her own came to disturb the great, all suffic- 
ing love that Lisa showered on her charge throughout the un- 
eventful years that glided by. 

The pleasures of the little household were of the simplest 
kind and common to all the dwellers in the secluded old town. 
In summer they took walks across the green fields along the 
Dreisam, under the tall poplars which shivered in the breeze ; 
or a drive up to the Schlossberg, a prettily wooded hill laid out 



494 THROUGH THE MUNSTER' s PEACE. [July, 

in winding paths, with wooden seats and little restaurants where, 
according to the homely German fashion, milk, coffee, fruit, 
and other light refreshment may be obtained, together with 
Bretzeln and Streuselkuchen ; at the summit a rest to enjoy 
the view over the valley bounded by the blue hills of the 
Black Forest, the town lying below ; the lovely filigree work of 
the cathedral spire with the white pigeons circling round it, 
rising above trees and houses, like a finger ever pointing 
heavenward ; strolls across the vine-covered slopes to a nursery 
garden where Hedwig would stand entranced before the bril- 
liance of the dahlias, scarlet pokers, and nasturtiums. In winter 
and indeed at all times the cathedral was a source of end- 
less. interest and delight to mother and child, who would spend 
hours exploring every corner, and Hedwig would listen spell- 
bound to its lore which Lisa related during the long winter 
evenings : how the figure of the dead Christ lying in one of 
the chapels wrapped in a white linen shroud, with the marks 
of the wounds in hands, feet, and side, has a door over the 
region of the heart communicating with a small hollow where, 
in bygone days, the Host was reserved during Holy Week ; 
how in 1146 Bernard of Clairvaux preached the Crusades and 
celebrated Mass in the Munster, where still hangs a silver 
crucifix of eastern workmanship, hammered and gilt at that 
period ; how in 1340 a monk named Berthold (Constantin 
Anklitzen), who invented the use of gunpowder, was here sur- 
named Schwartz because he practised alchemy, the black art as 
it was then considered ; how the bust under the exquisitely 
carved pulpit, representing a man looking out of a window, is 
none other than thart of the builder, Meister Jorg Kemph, who 
lived in 1561, while the subjects of the paintings and the faces 
on the gargoyles gave rise to endless fanciful conceits. To 
Lisa's eyes it was ever a feast to rest on the exterior of the 
noble pile, whether it glowed rosy red under a soft mantle of 
white snow every tower and pinnacle, spire and buttress out- 
lined with a wreath of sparkling crystals, or whether the warm 
tints of the sandstone stood out flaming against the blue of a 
summer sky. 

The child inherited her father's dreamy artistic temperament, 
and, while Lisa was busy over her household duties, would 
wander into the Munster and spend hours listening to Ulrich at 
the organ. Sometimes she would climb up into the organ-loft 
and sit beside him, a silent little figure ; after he had smiled 
and nodded to her, he would forget her presence, and go on 



l8 99-] THROUGH THE MUNSTER'S PEACE. 495 

with his music ; but more often she would creep into a favorite 
corner of the church, especially towards dusk when the 
shadows gathered and the lights gleamed more brilliantly on 
the altar; then the angel forms in the windows and the saintly 
faces on the carvings seemed to move and grow whiter in the 
fading light, and she would weave dream fancies and prose 
poems, losing herself in a mystic world of music, beauty, and 
coloring. In strange contrast to this side of her nature was 
her indomitable will and her absolute truthfulness ; never, even 
as a baby, was she guilty of falsehood or untruth ; the horror 
of deceit seemed instinctive in her. Was it from her dead 
mother, Lisa often wondered, that she inherited this firmness 
and rectitude? 

Imperceptibly Hedwig grew out of childhood into a tall 
German maiden, her auburn hair hanging down her back in two 
long plaits, her face lit by large, deep blue eyes. In common 
with the other girls of her station, she profited by the excellent 
education afforded by the Tochterschule, starting off in the 
morning with her satchel of books and her luncheon basket, 
returning in the evening radiant with joy at being home again. 
There was no sweeter music in Lisa's ears than the sound of 
those hurrying steps on the cobble-stones outside the door, 
and the fresh young voice calling through the open window : 
" Mother, mother, where are you ? " The girl never cared to 
be absent long, and it was almost under protest she could be 
induced to accept her school-fellows' invitations to the birth- 
day parties and innocent festivities which Lisa fondly urged 
her to attend, thinking it good for her to meet companions of 
her own age. 

"The best part of the day is coming home to you, mother 
dear," she would say when questioned as to how she had en- 
joyed herself, nestling meantime into the arms always ready 
to enfold her and to ward off every shadow of harm. She 
had no thoughts or secrets from her mother's ear, no other 
friend half so dear ; rare even between mother and child is 
such perfect love and sympathy as subsisted between these 
two, and it was tenderly and pitifully that Lisa often thought 
of the young mother to whom belonged all the joy which had 

been given to her. 

Once a year Frau Weide came to visit the little family, 
glad, now she was growing older, of the rest after the busy 
turmoil of the capital. As Hedwig grew up she took a deeper 
interest in the girl, and a greater liking to her gentle sister-m 



496 THROUGH THE MUNSTE& s PEACE. [July, 

law. Her annual visit was a great event in their quiet lives. 
Hedwig was proud of the " Tante " from Berlin, who was looked 
upon with great respect and whose advent was the signal for 
many a Kaffee-klatscJi, while the good lady herself thoroughly 
enjoyed her distinction, enthroned like a queen among the 
lowly housewives of the little town. All Freiburg was proud 
of its organist, whose reputation attracted musicians from far 
and near. Frau Weide, deeply gratified at her brother's fame, 
carried back glowing reports of his celebrity to Berlin, mingled 
with indignant regrets at his want of ambition, for many an 
honorable and lucrative post in the musical world was now 
offered to Ulrich Spindler, but he unhesitatingly refused all. 
At Freiburg he had leisure for original work ; besides, he had 
grown to love the Miinster so deeply that no worldly advan- 
tage could tempt him to leave it. Lisa, ever of one mind with 
her husband, felt like him ; her life flowed on so full of happi- 
ness and peace in the enchanted calm of the old town that 
she wished for no change indeed she shrank from the thought 
of leaving the shadow of the cathedral in which she had now 
dwelt so long. 

Entirely accustomed to ignore the fact that Hedwig was 
not her own child, it never entered her mind that some day 
chance might interpose and the well-kept secret be revealed. 
Twice during those blissful years her heart stood still when a 
trivial accident revealed to her how thin was the veil that hid 
the reality. Once, when Hedwig was about fourteen, she was 
helping her mother to dust her father's writing-table, which no 
other hands were allowed to touch ; the top drawer had been 
left open, and Lisa, whose back was turned, was suddenly 
startled by the exclamation : " O mother, look at the picture 
of this pretty girl ! Who can she be?" There stood Hedwig, 
with her mDther's miniature in her hands, gazing spell-bound at 
the features so like her own. Seeing it lying in the drawer, 
she had idly taken it up. " I wonder who it is," she went 
on; "the face somehow seems familiar to me. I must ask 
father." 

Lisa, who had turned white to the lips, strove to retain her 
self-possession : " Put back that picture at once where you 
found it; how dare you meddle with your father's things?" 
she said in a voice so cold and harsh that Hedwig dropped 
the miniature in consternation. Never in the whole course of 
her young life had she heard such tones from the gentle lips; 
looking up, however, seeing how ashen Lisa's face had grown, 



i899-l THROUGH THE MUNSTER'S PEACE, 497 

forgetful of all else, she sprang to her side : " Mother, mother, 
what is it? are you ill ? Sit down; what can I do for you?" 
But already calm had returned. " It is nothing, my darling, 
nothing," she answered, smiling at the anxiety in the girl's 
eyes, but pressing her hand to her side, " only a passing spasm. 
Never mind ; it is over now." 

The incident passed without further result ; Hedwig never 
alluded to the miniature again, and its discovery apparently 
left no impression on her mind. 

A year or two later she returned from school one day 
flushed and excited. " O mother ! " she exclaimed, " I have 
just heard such a dreadful thing. Clara Samter's father is 
going to marry again ! " Clara was a school-fellow of her own 
age, and the only girl-friend she possessed. " He is going to 
marry Frau Meir," she continued. " Oh, I am so sorry for 
Clara ! " 

" But, dear child, if it is Frau Meir, I do not think you 
need pity Clara ; she is the kindest woman possible, and will 
be sure to make her happy." 

"A step-mother!" responded Hedwig, in a tone of intense 
conviction : " oh, no ! if I were Clara I could never get over 
it." 

" But sometimes step-mothers love their step-children as if 
they were their own," observed Liza almost timidly, for the 
subject was excessively painful to her. 

" No, no, it is impossible ! " cried the girl impetuously, 
" Why, mother, just think, if you were to die, and father married 
again, it would break my heart ; only he never could do such 
a thing ! " And bursting into a passion of tears, she threw her- 
self into Lisa's arms, and it was long before tender words and 
caressing touches could soothe her. This episode troubled 
Lisa strangely. For the first time she now asked herself whether 
she had acted wisely in withholding the truth from her dar- 
ling ; pure as her motive had been, born of her great love and 
of the desire to keep every shadow of pain from falling on the 
child's head. Had Ulrich been right after all when he had 
urged openness? In any case it was too late now to undo 
the past ; she kept her misgivings hidden in her own heart, and 
did not even share them with her husband ; but as time passed 
on without anything further occurring to disturb her, she re- 
gained her previous peace of mind and basked in the sunshine 
of her home and her dear one's presence. 

VOL. LXIX. 32 



498 THROUGH THE MUNSTER' s PEACE. [July, 

III. 

Happiness is a great beautifier and keeps us young ; the 
years passed lightly over Lisa's head, and by the time Hed- 
wig had reached her eighteenth year they looked more like 
sisters than mother and daughter; no gray threads yet min- 
gled in the fair hair, the brown eyes still retained their starry 
look, and the gentle face its soft coloring. 

It was shortly after Hedwig's eighteenth birthday that Frau 
Weide wrote to her brother : " I am afraid I shall not be able 
to come to you this year for my annual visit, as my rheuma- 
tic pains have been so severe that the doctor absolutely for- 
bids my undertaking the journey. I am not so young as I 
was, and I wish you would send Hedwig to spend a month 
with me instead. It would interest her to see Berlin, and 
would do her good to have a little society. Do not refuse, 
dear Ulrich, for I long for a sight of her fresh young face ; 
she will cheer my loneliness, and I know Lisa is too unselfish 
to begrudge me this satisfaction." 

To refuse was impossible, and Hedwig, who as far back as 
she could remember had never been beyond the bounds of the 
Black Forest, was full of excitement at the prospect ; though 
the natural eagerness of youth for " pastures new " was some- 
what damped by the thought of leaving her mother, from whom 
she had never been separated even for a day. "If only you 
were coming too, Miitterchen, it would be perfect," she ex- 
claimed. But Lisa, bravely hiding her own sinking of heart at 
the thought of separation, only replied : 

" I could not leave your father, dear, even if Aunt Lena 
wanted me ; besides, a month will soon pass, and think how 
much you will have to tell us when you get back." 

An acceptance was sent and busy needles were set to work 
on the traveller's wardrobe, for the next week or two, to ren- 
der it worthy of the great event. A friendly neighbor, also 
bound for Berlin, was to act as convoy, but at the last Hedwig 
had clung closely to Lisa, murmuring: "O mother, I wish I 
had not to leave you ; it takes away all my pleasure." And 
as Lisa caught a last glimpse of the waving handkerchief, ere 
the train passed out of sight, she turned homewards with a 
strange presentiment of evil. 

Ulrich rallied her gently on her depression, and she herself 
strove hard to shake off all dark thoughts ; but the nest seemed 
very empty with the fledgling flown, and the house strangely 



1899.] THROUGH THE MUNSTEK'S PEACE. 499 

silent without the fresh voice and light footfall which had ever 
been the sweetest music in the mother's ears. 

Then came Hedwig's letters, long outpourings always ad- 
dressed to Lisa, with loving messages to her father ; diaries in 
which every little event of her life at Berlin was chronicled, 
descriptions of the sights her aunt took her to see, the muse- 
ums, the Thiergarten, the Schloss, etc.; accounts of the parties 
they attended, minute word-portraits of the people she met; 
how large and gay Berlin seemed after Freiburg, but how she 
was always picturing to herself the dear little house in the 
Domplatz, and longing every hour of the day for her beloved 
" Miitterchen." 

Frau Weide, on her side, wrote how much Hedwig was ad- 
mired, and what a satisfaction it was to have a pretty niece 
to take about who did her so much credit ; she felt years 
younger and better since her arrival. 

"The child seems to be enjoying herself," Ulrich remarked 
as he perused the closely-written sheets ; and Lisa would smile 
and answer, " Yes, I am glad," and live on those letters whose 
advent now formed the chief event in her day. 

Soon Hedwig began to make frequent reference to a certain 
Lieutenant Gottfried Volz, whom she appeared to meet wher- 
ever she went. His name was always mentioned casually, with 
none of the comments which embellished her accounts of other 
people; but with the quick intuition of love Lisa read between 
the lines and guessed Hedwig's secret ; thus it was no surprise 
to her when one morning, six weeks after the girl's departure, 
a rapturous letter announced that "Gottfried" had proposed, 
and she had accepted him subject to her parents' approval. 
The young man himself wrote a manly, straightforward letter 
to Ulrich Spindler, pleading his cause, and requesting permis- 
sion to come to Freiburg, while Frau Weide also wrote saying 
what an excellent marriage it would be for Hedwig, and prais- 
ing Lieutenant Volz as a rising young officer with good worldly 
prospects, being the only son of a wealthy widow. 

" Volz ! I wonder why the name is so familiar to me ? " re- 
marked Ulrich. " I seem to know it, and yet cannot recall 
why." 

Lisa's heart was sore, yet glad ; her darling would indeed 
slip away from her, but her happiness came first ; and she was 
so happy and confident in her love, what mother could desire 
more than the words which ended her letter : " But now, Mut- 
terchen, I am homesick for a sight of your face and for the 



500 THROUGH THE MUNSTER'S PEACE. [July. 

touch of your arms ; I want to tell you all that is in my heart 
in words not on paper. Gottfried's mother has been absent 
ever since I came to Berlin, but she returns to-morrow and he 
is to take me to see her ; after that I am coming home as 
soon as I can home to you, my own mother, whom I love 
more than ever since this great happiness has come to me." 

A few days later another letter arrived from Hedwig, ad- 
dressed to her father this time. " It will be to say when we may 
expect her back," he observed as he opened it. Inside were 
only two lines, evidently hastily penned by a shaking hand. 
" Dear father," she wrote, " I shall arrive on Tuesday by the 
4:30 P. M. train. Please come to meet me yourself, and alone, 
at the station. Your loving child, Hedwig." Not a mention 
of or a message to the fondly loved mother, no word of anti- 
cipation at the impending reunion. 

Lisa turned white as death. "Something has happened," 
she said ; " perhaps she has heard the truth about her mother ; 
if so, she will never get over it ; I have lived in dread of this 
all these years. You were right, Ulrich ; it would have been 
wiser to have told her from the first." 

"Nonsense!" answered Ulrich; "how should she? And 
even if she had, what difference could it make now? She is 
flustered and has written in a hurry, that is all." But secretly 
he felt ill at ease as he set out the following afternoon on his 
solitary walk to the station, leaving Lisa at home pale and 
trembling with foreboding. He paced the platform while wait- 
ing for the train with an uneasy mind ; should Lisa's anticipa- 
tion be correct, he knew Hedwig would not easily forgive nor 
get over it, and he dreaded the suffering it would inflict on 
Lisa's tender heart. 

His first glance at his daughter's face as she alighted from 
the railway carriage confirmed his worst fears. A hard look 
had come into her eyes, and there was an expression of fixed 
resentment round the usually soft mouth. After the first greet- 
ing was over she said : " Let us walk home ; I want to speak 
to you alone ; my luggage can follow by the carrier in the 
evening." Scarcely had they left the station when she ex- 
claimed : " I have at last learnt the truth about my own 
mother. O father! how could you consent to my being thus 
deceived during all these years?" 

" It was not intended as deceit," he answered uneasily. " It 
was to save you pain, and indeed, Hedwig, you have had the 
tenderest mother's love ever since you can remember." 



1899.] THROUGH THE MUNSTER'S PEACE. 501 

"A step mother can never be like one's own mother, and she 
had no right to play a part," was the indignant rejoinder. " I 
cannot get over the deceit practised upon me ; it is too much." 

" Child, child ! " said Ulrich gravely, suddenly stopping short, 
"beware how you wound the heart of her who has been a 
mother to you in deed as well as in name. It may have been 
a mistake to have kept the truth from you, but it was done 
from the purest motive. Your own mother could not have 
been more devoted, more passionately fond of you than Lisa 
has been " (he could not bring himself to use the word " step- 
mother"). "She is waiting for you now so anxiously, so long- 
ingly ; do not meet her coldly." 

" I cannot help it," replied Hedwig, her eyes full of hot 
tears. " To think that you should never have spoken to me 
of my own mother, that even her memory should be forgotten ! 
It hurts too much." 

To argue with her in such a mood was hopeless, and sadly 
enough Ulrich went in to prepare his poor wife for the blow 
that had fallen. 

The shock of the discovery had for the time being almost 
paralyzed the girl's sensations, for her betrothed had taken 
her to see his mother at Berlin, a gentle, elderly woman, and 
had left the two together to make further acquaintance. After 
greeting Hedwig warmly as Gottfried's bride, Frau Volz had 
exclaimed : " I am doubly glad to have you for my daughter, 
dear child, since your mother was my dearest friend." 

"Did you know her?" answered Hedwig eagerly. "How 
glad I am!" 

"You are so like her!" murmured Frau Volz, stroking the 
ruddy waves of hair which would curl in spite of the coils in 
which it was wound. 

"Oh, no!" replied Hedwig, "indeed I am not! I always 
wish I were more like her. You know her hair is fair and her 
eyes are brown; perhaps you have not seen her for so long 
that you have forgotten." 

" But, child, I am talking of your own mother, my dear 
old friend, Hilda Rosenthal." 

" You are evidently making a mistake," was the answer. 
" Mother's name was Lisa Buchener." 

"Ah! but you are talking of your step-mother, whom I 
never saw." 

" My step-mother ! Why. I never had one ! " And Hedwig 

laughed merrily. 

" Dear child, is it possible they have never told you ! " ex- 



502 THROUGH THE MUNSTER'S PEACE. [Juy 

claimed Frau Volz indignantly. " Your father first married 
Hilda Rosenthal, my girlhood's friend, who died at your birth ; 
two years' later he married Lisa Buchener, your step-mother." 

Hedwig had turned deadly pale. " Surely, surely, )'ou are 
mistaken?" she murmured. "Oh, it cannot be!" 

"Poor child! I am sorry I told you, since you were ig- 
norant of the fact," said Frau Volz, full of compunction. 
" Still, I do not think they ought to have kept the truth from 
you. Why, you are the very image of your mother. Judge 
for yourself " ; and rising, she opened a drawer and took out a 
small case containing a likeness, which she put into the girl's 
trembling hands. Yes indeed, she was right ; feature for feat- 
ure it was the same. It might have been her own portrait. 
Suddenly, unbidden, there rushed to Hedwig's remembrance 
the incident of years before when she had found the miniature 
in her father's study ; it was the same face, she remembered it 
only too well. All doubt vanished before this overwhelming 
evidence ; fierce resentment, burning indignation mingled with 
a sharp sense of pain and loss, seized hold on her as she laid 
her head on the table and burst into a flood of tears. To all 
Frau Volz's expressions of regret and attempts at consolation 
she answered : " No, no ! I am thankful to know the truth; even 
now; but oh! how could my father consent to such deception?" 

Later on, pushing back her hair from her tear-stained face, 
she begged to hear all Frau Volz could tell her of her mother, 
and learnt how the two had been together at the same school ; 
how Frau Volz, older by a few years, had married early and 
left Berlin for a town in the north of Germany where her hus- 
band was banker; but the two friends had kept up an intimate 
correspondence, and so, though she had never met Hedwig's 
father, she had heard of him, and of his second marriage after 
his young wife's death. " I often thought of my dear Hilda's 
child," she ended, " and wished I could see her, little dreaming 
she would some day become Gottfried's wife and my daughter. 
And now, you must not take the past to heart so much, dear. 
Your step-mother has acted a real mother's part by you, and 
you owe her love and gratitude in return ; besides, a new life 
lies before you as Gottfried's wife." 

Not very judicious remarks, perhaps, though well meant, 
and her lover's whispered consolations were the best cure ; but 
the girl's heart had received a blow from which it would not 
easily recover ; also youth is very cruel, and slow to make 
allowances or to understand. 

Thus if was that Lisa's outstretched arms fell to her side 



1899-] THROUGH THE MUNSTER'S PEACE. 503 

at the cold expression on Hedwig's face ; her tender inquiries 
met with short answers and scant response. Day by day the 
breach seemed to widen ; mother and child, who had loved 
each other so passionately, drifted further apart ; there were 
no longer any confidences for that mother's ear, for Hedwig 
avoided being alone with her as much as possible, and rarely 
addressed her by the name of " mother." It is wonderful how 
much we may evade addressing a person by their name if we 
try. In the home erstwhile so peaceful and happy discord 
and sadness now reigned, and a chill had fallen. 

What Lisa suffered no words could express ; she strove by 
every imaginable device to regain the girl's love, but her efforts 
only served to widen the breach. Once she even humbled her- 
self to plead : " O child, child ! can you not understand that it 
was no intentional deceit, but my love for you that made me 
do it ? Do you not see that this estrangement is breaking my 
heart ? " But Hedwig answered : " I cannot help it ; the shock 
was too great, it seemed to kill something within me. Indeed 
it is not that I am ungrateful for all your goodness to me, but 
I cannot pretend that things are as they were before." Un- 
consciously her words only wounded the sore heart further, 
cutting deeper than a sword. Gratitude ! Does a mother expect 
to be thanked for the love she expends upon her child in the 
way an outsider acknowledges a kindness done ? Is it not the 
child's natural right to accept that wealth of devotion unques- 
tioningly and return it in loving silence ? It only made Lisa 
hunger the more for one of the old loving glances or caresses, 
one of the confiding touches of the past. 

Vainly Ulrich strove to comfort her: "Let her be; it is 
only a phase she is passing through ; it will all come right in 
the end, believe me." Lisa shook her head and smiled patiently, 
but in her inner consciousness she felt she had lost her child 
more completely than through death itself. 

"Take care," said Ulrich one day to Hedwig; "take care, 
child, that some judgment does not overtake you if you harden 
your heart beyond measure." 

" And do you think that I too do not suffer ? " answered the 
girl sadly ; " only I cannot play a part ; you must have patience 
with me." Perchance none of them realized sufficiently how 
bitter it had been for her to learn that the mother she had 
well-nigh worshipped was bound to her by no tie of blood. 

It was a relief to all when the wedding took place, and 
Gottfried Volz came to carry off his bride. The tall, fair- 
haired young soldier, with the frank, open face, won all Lisa's 



504 THROUGH THE MUNSTER' s PEACE. [July, 

liking and confidence, and he in his turn was strangely attracted 
to the sweet-faced, gentle woman with the sad eyes and patient 
smile which had now become habitual to her. He tried to 
cheer her, saying how grieved his mother was at the harm she 
had unwittingly done, and begged her to take courage things 
could not fail to come right in time ; and Lisa, smiling grate- 
fully, answered : " Never mind me. I made a mistake ; perhaps 
I have loved her too much and must now pay the penalty, but 
I feel you will make her happy ; I can trust her to you, and 
that is everything." 

Tearless and calm Hedwig left with her husband for Berlin, 
where his regiment was quartered and their home was to be 
for the present. Lisa felt how different it would have been be- 
fore ; what confidences would have been poured out to her, how 
her child would have clung to her at parting, what plans they 
would have made for frequent meetings ! All that was past 
now. 

IV. 

In those few weeks Lisa had suddenly aged ; her hair turned 
white, her sweet eyes lost their brilliance, a patient curve 
grew round the sad mouth, the bent shoulders took a pathetic 
droop. 

Ulrich, smitten to the heart, tried by every device to com- 
fort her. During those happy years they had unconsciously 
drifted slightly apart ; he had given himself up unreservedly to 
his art, she had sacrificed him in her devotion to the child. 
But true and deep as ever their love for each other had flowed 
on all the time, and now in the hour of desolation they drew 
near once more, close to one another, closer perhaps than in 
the days of their courtship even ; and Lisa, through all her 
pain, felt that life held compensation for her, since in the heart 
of her husband she still had the first place, and since he shared 
and fully entered into the peculiar bitterness of her loss. Hed- 
wig's letters were exclusively addressed to him now ; they spoke 
of her happiness with Gottfried, of the interests of her new 
life there was never an allusion to the past, and Lisa felt it 
was a closed book. 

But in the spring hope once more sprang up in the mother's 
breast. Hedwig herself was about to know the joys of mother- 
hood ; when the baby came, when she felt the soft touch of 
those little hands, then surely she would understand what Lisa 
had gone through, would make allowances, would pity and for- 
give ! Alas for her hopes ! it was not Lisa whom Hedwig sent 



1899-] THROUGH THE MUNSTER'S PEACE. 505 

for at this time but Gottfried's mother, and the baby's advent 
only seemed to harden her heart the more ; for as she held in 
her arms her little Hilda, named after her own mother, she 
whispered : " Oh, my baby ! if I were to die, could you for- 
give another woman pretending to take my place ? " 

After that Lisa gave up all hope of reconciliation ; some- 
times in the solitude of her room she would open the drawer 
in which she kept her treasures a pair of baby-shoes, a broken 
rattle, a coral necklace, a curl of ruddy golden hair. How 
many mothers have such treasures laid up ; how many tears 
have fallen on such relics, as they recall their lost darlings! 
But no bitterer tears ever fell over little green graves in the 
churchyard than Lisa shed over these tokens of her living 
child, dead to her in the saddest sense of the word. When 
the burden pressed heaviest she sought a refuge in the dear 
old Munster, within the shadow of whose walls so many genera- 
tions of weary men and women had prayed and found peace ; 
where the hush around spoke of benediction, and the very air 
seemed laden with tranquillity. Here resignation came to her 
as she laid down her own will and gave up all struggling, bow- 
ing her head to the Divine Will. 

Hedwig's baby grew into a beautiful child ; the young mo- 
ther's whole heart was wrapped up in her treasure, whose 
winning ways and sunshiny nature were surely unlike those of 
any other child ! Her letters to her father were full of her 
little Hilda ; he must soon come to Berlin to see his grand- 
child, she wrote. 

Then one day, unexpectedly, a telegram from Lieutenant 
Volz was put into Lisa's hands : 

" Hedwig wants you, come at once," was the laconic 
message. 

"What can have happened? Surely it is a mistake and in- 
tended for you," she said to Ulrich, but he shook his head. 
" No, it is meant for you, dear ; she is no doubt ill or in trou- 
ble, and has turned to you, as I always knew she would in the 
end." 

Hedwig ill, in trouble! Everything else was forgotten as 
husband and wife took the first train to Berlin, having tele- 
graphed to announce their arrival. At the station Gottfried 
met them; it required but a glance at his face to discover 
something terrible had happened. 

"It is the baby," he explained hoarsely, " little Hilda. She 
died after only a few hours illness from croup, and as for 
Hedwig I am trembling for her reason ! She seems literally 



506 THROUGH THE MUNSTER'S PEACE. [July* 

paralyzed, and sits there rigid and tearless by the child ; the 
only words she has spoken to me are : ' Send for mother.' 
Thank God you have come ! " 

Through Lisa's heart, spite of the pain, there darted a ray 
of hope. "O Hedwig, my poor darling!" she murmured, with 
dim eyes. 

When they reached the house, Gottfried led her upstairs 
and pointed dumbly to a closed door. Lisa opened it noise- 
lessly, and stood a moment on the threshold. The baby was 
lying in its little white coffin, looking so fair and lovely; round 
the still figure snowdrops were strewn, and violets lay in the tiny 
waxen hands ; there was something inexpressibly sweet in the 
smiling baby face, as though it were listening to a whisper 
from Heaven. 

" Ah, happy little one ! " thought Lisa, " taken from the 
evil to come ; but oh, poor mother kneeling there, how empty 
her arms must feel ! " 

She approached, and held out her own, saying softly : " My 
darling, my poor darling ! " Then, with a great and bitter cry, 
Hedwig threw herself into them : " Mother, mother, forgive 
me ! Oh, forgive me ! " and the long pent-up tears burst out, 
easing the breaking heart. 

One touch of nature, the bond of a common pain, had 
brought the two so long divided close together once more had 
reknit the link between them, and made them truly " kin " ; 
forgotten was everything, forgiven, wiped out was the past. 
Lisa had found her child again, Hedwig her mother, as their 
tears mingled together over the little coffin. 

"My baby! oh, my baby!" cried Hedwig, "she was so 
sweet! O mother! how I must have made you suffer! To lose 
one's child! is there any pain on earth like it?" And on that 
faithful heart, in the caressing touches and tender words of 
that mother, some balm came to her, and she found the perfect 
sympathy which only exists where the suffering has been mutual. 

Other children were given to Hedwig in after years, but the 
mark of this sorrow was a life-long one, and little Hilda's 
memory remained ever fresh. Even in her brightest hours a 
shadow rested in her eyes as she thought of her first born, but 
to her step-mother she was more closely and tenderly united 
than ever before. The gift of her own will laid down on the 
altar of sacrifice by Lisa was restored to her fourfold as 
Hedwig's children, clustering round her knee, fondly called her 
" Gross-Miitterchen." 



1 899.] 



DEATH OF THE INNOCENT. 



507 




DEATH OF THE INNOCENT. 

BY GRACE BEATRICE BARLET. 

E sleeps : 

He is sleeping ; 
And the white of his brow 
Is whiter e'en yet he is slumbering 

now ; 

And his mother poor mother! 
Will trust to none other 
As she watches so closely the bed, 
For her darling sleeps he is dead ! 

He sleeps : 

He is sleeping ; 
Oh ! the dear little hands 

Are shackled together by Death's icy hands ; 
And the flowers sweet flowers ! 
From Love's richest bowers, 
In clusters strewed ev'rywhere round 
The costliest, loveliest found. 

He sleeps : 

He is sleeping ; 
Oh, the dear little one! 

His bright wings have guided him far past the sun. 
While his mother is weeping, 
He's peacefully sleeping 
His body is here ; his soul it is gone. 
Up to Heaven it fluttered, anon ! 




5oS 7 HE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. [July, 

THE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.* 

BY ERNEST HAWLEY. 

'VERY age of the civilized world has seen the 
rise and decay of its social, philosophical, and 
religious fads. In this present society of ours 
scarcely a month passes ' but we hear, through 
the medium of journals or periodicals, of some 
new system of religion or philosophy which, as those who pro- 
fess it claim, will reform and regenerate the world, give com- 
plete happiness to mankind and society, bring us within reach 
of the millennium, in short, accomplish what, in the opinion of 
the new school, Christianity has failed to do. Of this legionary 
class are Esoteric Buddhism, Culturism, Theosophy, Humani- 
tarianism, and Christian Science, so called, together with many 
other systems equally pretentious in their promises, equally 
fruitless in their final results. The latest and perhaps the most 
pernicious, because most in vogue, is the Christian Science fad. 
The pride of the reformer is of a most subtle kind. Some 
minds, especially, find an unspeakably sweet pabulum for their 
self-love in the admiration accorded them, even by a very small 
number of believers, as teachers and hierophants of a new and 
startling doctrine. Such an impulse, one would be tempted to 
think, is not altogether foreign to the lady (which we take for 
granted from the name on the title-page) who compiled these 
booklets of lessons for the general public. 

It requires, certainly, not a little self-assurance to stand up 
before the world of to-day as the exponent of a doctrine whose 
professed object is the moral betterment of mankind, yet whose 
principles are, nevertheless, fundamentally opposed to those of 
the Christian religion, and also (as we hope to prove) to those 
of common sense. 

Religion, in whatever form it has hitherto appeared in the 
world, has always persuaded man that he was to be exalted, 
and his final destiny realized by humility and lowliness. But 
the author of these booklets has discovered such a doctrine to 
be entirely false ; and she gives us to understand that our only 

* Lessons in Truth. Three booklets. By H. Emilie Cady. Kansas City, Mo.: Unity 
Book Company. 



1 899.] THE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 509 

hope for redemption is in pride and mightiness. Though this 
is not stated in so many words, it is clearly explained in the 
doctrine of Christian Science, as she expounds it. 

The world has long known that pride and pantheism are 
convertible terms, since pantheism is the absolute deification of 
the creature. Moreover, although Emilie Cady takes care fre- 
quently to assure us that there is but one God, we are left 
under the conviction that if her doctrines be true, each one of 
us is a god unto himself. 

Such an inference, while it will undoubtedly shock all right- 
minded people, will afford inexpressible pleasure to a multitude 
of libertines whose only law is their own sweet will and caprice. 
These persons cannot, we think, but be grateful to Emilie 
Cady for giving them such undoubted assurance of what, in 
their hearts, they must have always desired to believe. 

We remember once having read a little book in Italian,* 
which unfortunately is not yet translated into our tongue. It 
deserves to be, for it affords a model not only of correct lit- 
erary style, but what is still more important, of true and na. 
tural principles of a philosophy of man. 

The author commences his book by relating, in all the sim- 
plicity of detail, the biblical history of the fall of man, which 
Miss Cady very presumably rejects as a mere fiction of Moses. 
He shows with clearness that the great advantage of the Evil 
Spirit over our first parents consisted principally in his subtle 
appeal to their innate pride and curiosity: "Ye shall become 
as gods, knowing good and evil." 

The author then traces the application of this crafty sug- 
gestion to all the errors which in subsequent ages have infected 
mankind ; demonstrates that their origin is always pride, and 
shows how, by a most fatal concomitance, men have always 
grovelled in the mire of moral turpitude at the moment of 
their highest declaration of intellectual pride. 

As the exponent of a new doctrine Miss Cady has the ad- 
vantage of Satan in one respect, and she surely ought to be 
congratulated upon it. Her promises to mankind are consider- 
ably more generous than his. For, whereas the Old Serpent 
merely told his disciples that they should become " like unto 
gods," she, on the other hand, assures hers that they are God 
in fact on a small scale. 

We have often thought it a great misfortune that persons, 
especially women, of superficial understanding and acquirements 

* Frommento efuna Storia delP Emptetb. By Antonio Rosmini-Serbati. 



510 THE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. [July, 

should be seized with the mania of posing before the world as 
teachers and philosophers. If they get a little notoriety (which 
they almost always succeed in getting) their example breeds 
dissatisfaction among others of their sex, who forthwith begin 
to imagine there is nothing more noble than to stalk upon 
some platform or pulpit expounding to an interested and ad- 
miring audience some new-fangled notions on religion or 
economics. 

The general public, it is true, laugh at them heartily, the 
journals satirize them unmercifully, and benevolent people com- 
passionate them sincerely. But they are pretty nearly always 
sure of a certain number of admirers, if they happen to be still 
young and good-looking. 

So, being completely fenced in by the applause of their 
followers and the impregnable armor of their self-conceit, they 
do not pay the least attention to the opinions of those outside 
their own little circle. 

Not very long ago Olympus was shaken to its very centre 
by the announcement that a "Woman's Bible" would shortly 
be given to the world. 

The literary midwife in this monstrous parturition was the 
now notorious Mrs. Cady Stanton, who also condescended to 
act as Cassandra (albeit with modern petticoats) in the inter- 
pretation of the divine prophecies. From the oracular revela- 
tions of this lady, it would appear that the Almighty, in collu- 
sion with the ancient writers of the sacred books, had had 
things too much in his own way ; and, naturally enough, had 
regarded the creation and the economy of the universe from an 
altogether too masculine stand-point. It had thus become high 
time to set matters straight, to establish a more impartial 
order of things, and to restore revelation to its rights female 
rights, of course. 

The laughter of the gods has not yet ceased to echo ; but 
one hears nothing more of the " Woman's Bible," and still less 
of those who were instrumental in bringing it into the world. 

But let us approach the subject before us in particular. 
We have read the three booklets, and Miss Cady will, we hope, 
allow us to say that the first of the series contains the theories, 
or rather assumptions, upon which the whole subsequent struc- 
ture of her system is raised. We shall therefore confine our 
remarks and quotations to the first booklet. 

This contains four lessons : Statement of Being, Thinking, 
Denials, Affirmations. 



1899.] THE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 511 

The remaining booklets contain nothing but what is in- 
tended to be an extension and practical application of the 
tenets set forth in the first. 

In a short introduction the author tells us that for the 
present we must lay entirely on one side all previous theories 
and beliefs, and become as little children in our adherences to 
her utterances (Book I. page 2). The caution is quite neces- 
sary. For we shall see that we must also lay aside our com- 
mon sense, which would otherwise continually crop up to in- 
terfere with the progress of our conversion. It will not be 
long before it becomes quite clear that the principles of reason 
are not at all friendly to Christian Science. 

Miss Cady then proceeds, not indeed to prove, but merely 
to assert her cardinal tenet : namely, that God is not a Spirit, 
but simply Spirit. 

This assumption is based on the absence of the article in 
the original text of the New Testament, and she claims the 
translators of the Scriptures into our tongue have inserted it 
without cause. 

Now, whether the original text bore. the article or not, 
makes no substantial difference in the sense of the words of 
Christ. When he said : " God is Spirit (or a Spirit) and they 
that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth," he 
merely called our attention to the divine nature, and showed 
that merely material and external signs of worship such as 
were before given by the Jews were no longer sufficient under 
the New Dispensation. But what does our author wish to infer 
from such a trivial distinction ? She tells us plainly enough 
(page 2). According to her there is but one Spirit in the uni- 
verse, an impersonal one, of which all other forms of being 
are mere manifestations. 

" Each rock, tree, animal," she continues, " everything visi- 
ble, is a manifestation of the One Spirit, God, differing only in 
degree of manifestation ; and each of the numberless modes of 
manifestation or individualities, however insignificant, contains 
the whole " (page 6). 

Here is a fine specimen of the manner in which we are to 
be persuaded of this startling doctrine ! It is evident the 
pupil must dispense with reason that the teacher may dispense 
with proof. 

The philosophy of these ideas is quite as original and 
startling as is the theology. It has been found necessary for 
the purposes of the system to introduce a duality of essences 



512 THE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. [July, 

in the spiritual part of man's being. So one is fabricated to 
suit the case. " Man," she says (page 8), " is a threefold being 
made up of spirit, soul, and body. Spirit, our innermost, real 
being, the deathless part of us, ... has never changed. 
Soul, or mortal mind, ... is the region of the intellect where 
we do conscious thinking." The italics in this last dainty mor- 
sel of philosophy are our own. 

There is a strange confusion of ideas in this last trait. Be- 
sides which, the triple distinction is a false one, and is contra- 
dicted by reason, consciousness, and history. When Miss Cady 
talks such philosophical nonsense as this : " Soul ... is the 
region of the intellect where we do conscious thinking " (ibid\ 
one is almost tempted to doubt, not only whether she really 
knows what she says, but whether after all she really admits 
any spiritual substance at all in man, and is anything other 
than a materialist in disguise. 

Our own consciousness and respectable thinkers of all ages 
convince us that there is one identical spiritual substance in 
man : the soul, which, though endowed with many powers, 
faculties, and operations, remains personally identical in the 
midst of them all. It would require greater philosophical learn- 
ing, we imagine, than Miss Cady is possessed of to -demonstrate, 
even at the expense of common sense, how two distinct spiritual 
substances could exist in the same body, without being identi- 
fied. And if she do not admit this duality, what then does she 
mean by the distinction? It becomes an entirely frivolous one, 
invented solely for the purpose of supporting assertions which 
cannot be proved. 

Now we come to an instance of literary modesty, which 
ought not to be passed over in silence since it is not character- 
istic of Miss Cady alone, but is a distinct feature of the class 
of modern upstarts who claim the sole possession of the truth. 

" Childlike, untrained minds," remarks Miss Cady commiser- 
atingly, " say God is a personal Being. The statement that 
God is principle," she continues (page 8), " chills them, and in 
terror they cry out ' They have taken away my Lord and I 
know not where they have laid him.' But," she adds sweetly, 
" broader and more learned minds are always cramped by the 
thought of God as a person ; for personality limits to time and 
space." 

Setting aside for the moment all direct confutation of this 
ludicrous tirade, it may be asked whether Plato, Augustine, 
Pascal, Bossuet, Newton, and Kepler are included in this 



1899-] THE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 513 

category of " childlike, untrained minds " ? If she modestly con- 
sent to leave them out, we can inform her that all these great 
men believed firmly, not only in a personal God but in the 
essentially distinct and created nature of the human soul; and 
that, moreover, they found such belief in perfect harmony with 
their philosophical convictions. Nay, we will go further, and 
challenge Miss Cady to name any really great man in the 
world's history who might ever have doubted this truth. If she 
fail to do this, her assumption falls back upon herself, and 
really proves, not indeed that only " childlike, untrained minds 
say God is a personal Being," but that only proud and foolish 
spirits ever presumed to doubt his personality. 

Apart from revelation (which Miss Cady completely ignores, 
though she draws largely from its pages to give some color to 
her statements), men have ever recognized the existence of a 
Supreme and Infinite Personality, from the necessity of reason 
itself. That which is impersonal cannot be the cause of that 
which is personal. And neither Miss Cady nor any other self- 
styled philosopher will insist upon the contrary without risk 
of being pretty well laughed at. The eternal principle of 
cause exists in the human reason spite of the efforts of our 
modern religionists to reduce its action to a state of abeyance. 

The other statement, viz.: that " personality limits to place 
and time," is entirely false. And human common sense, as 
well as the highest philosophy, proves the direct contrary to be 
true. The personal will or " Ego " of any human being (letting 
alone that of God) is essentially free of both time and space, 
though its operations are subject to both these limits. The 
absolute identity of the human principle, through all the changes 
which affect its operations, has always afforded the greatest 
thinkers a convincing proof of this great truth. 

But we have been already told that those who differ from 
the assumptions of our pantheistic-scientifico-religionist Chris- 
tians are " childlike, untrained minds," even when they have the 
suffrage of common sense ! 

Afterwards, it is true, Miss Cady says that God is both 
principle and person. But, as she herself explains, it is only 
inasmuch as he is individualized in the creature. Outside of 
that he is entirely impersonal. Yet she speaks of God's "will- 
ingness to manifest more of himself to us" (page 9), "of the 
Spirit's desire to come forth into our consciousness" (ibid.), of 
the " Source which contains love, wisdom, etc." (ibid.), and who 
is the "Giver of all good gifts." 
VOL. LXIX. 33 



514 THE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. [July, 

Now', will Miss Cady explain to us how, in the name of 
common sense (which we will suppose she has not entirely re- 
jected, though she requires us to), a Being who is willing, who 
desires, who loves and has wisdom, can possibly be supposed 
devoid of personality ? 

Another mania she has, in common with other pseudo-reli- 
gionists of the day, is that of quoting Christian authorities, 
especially St. Paul. One would imagine, to see the frequency 
and familiarity with which he is brought forward to substan- 
tiate the claims of Christian pseudo-science, that he was one 
of the sect. 

But our author shows plainly that she has little to do with 
either Paul or Christ as teachers of truth, and that she screens 
her absurd doctrines behind the aegis of their high authority 
only when their words can be interpreted to suit her meaning. 
In like manner certain demireps, whose moral character not 
being above suspicion, find it convenient to claim the counte- 
nance and acquaintance of highly respectable people in the 
world. 

We will give one example of an appeal made to St. Paul, 
to show how senseless such an attempt is. 

One of the favorite hallucinations of these pseudo-scientists 
is, that the outside world is a chimera, and that nothing has 
any substantial existence outside of ourselves ; hence, also, that 
no truth can be learned from the data of our senses (Denials, 
Book I., page 23). 

" Mortal mind," says Miss Cady, " . . . is the intellect, 
the conscious part of us which gathers its information through 
the five senses from the outside world. This mortal mind has 
no way of knowing truth from falsehood. It is what Paul calls 
'carnal mind'" (page 12). 

Here St. Paul is quoted as an authority in favor of the dis- 
tinction as to the carnal mind, which, says Miss Cady, has no 
way of knowing truth from falsehood. Now, does St. Paul bear 
witness to this ? We shall see that he bears witness to the 
exact contrary. 

In the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans (verse 18 
et seqq.) the Apostle, speaking of the Gentiles, says : " The 
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness 
and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteous- 
ness. 

" Because that which may be known of God is made mani- 
fest in them : for God hath shewn it unto them." 



1 899.] THE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 515 

Now, what was the source of this manifestation of God to 
the Gentiles? The Apostle says it was nothing less than the 
external senses which were the irrefragable witnesses of the 
truth of God's existence, majesty, and power. 

" For," continues he, " the invisible things of Him from the 
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the 
things that are made; even His eternal power and godhead; so 
that they are without excuse . . . who changed the truth of 
God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than 
the Creator" 

We have quoted this passage in full, for it has a special 
significance. If Emilie Cady is ever given to meditating, she 
would do well to reflect upon these words, for they touch the 
case of Christian Science very aptly indeed. 

We do not think it worth while to proceed any further in 
the examination and confutation of such absurdities. Such a 
task would only be annoying to our readers, and we should 
run the risk of becoming as unreasonable as those whose claims 
we have undertaken to refute. We shall, therefore, conclude 
with a few remarks upon the principles of so-called Christian 
Science, and bid adieu to Emilie Cady for the present. 

This form of pseudo-Christianity (however its professors may 
understand it) is really no other than a system of mental 
therapeutics dressed up in a pantheistic garb. It is not Chris- 
tian, certainly ; neither is it science ; though its votaries make 
no scruple of claiming for it both these qualities. 

A very little will suffice to show what connection (for a 
connection there is, and a very intimate one) exists between 
the practices of so-called Christian Science and pantheism, which 
has been chosen as their natural groundwork. 

It would certainly be unjust to pretend that there is no single 
element of truth in the system. It is our intention to show 
just where it lies, as well as to point out its ridiculous abuse. 

We believe no error could possibly be formulated unless it 
rested on some slight basis of truth. 

Now, the element of truth in this system is, that it avails 
itself of a very remarkable psychological fact, viz.: the extra- 
ordinary power of persuasion upon the human mind and body. 

It is well known to psychological students that a persuasion 
which has acquired a deep root in the mind will, in many 
cases (though by no means in all), produce a favorable or un- 
favorable condition of the body, according to the nature of 
the persuasion. 



5i6 THE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. [July, 

This fact, we think, can only proceed from the dynamic 
and substantial, yet altogether mysterious, link which subsists 
between body and soul, permitting them to react reciprocally 
upon one another. 

Whatever the cause, the fact cannot any longer be called 
in question. And Christian scientists have availed themselves 
of this power of auto-persuasion as a therapeutic agent some- 
times, it must be confessed, with beneficial results. 

Now, did they only confine their pretensions to thus much, 
nothing could be urged against them ; except, perhaps, that 
they push their claims too far and seek to bring about the 
cure of bodily ills which it is beyond the power of the deepest 
persuasion to effect. No extent of belief, it is clear, will ever 
restore a lost eye or member, or even straighten a club-foot; 
though it may perhaps cure a headache or heartache, and coun- 
teract those physical ailments which result therefrom. Hyp- 
notism, after all, is but a still more efficacious method of ap- 
plying, for therapeutic purposes, the doctrine of suggestion. 
The principles in either case, as is now generally admitted, are 
exactly the same. 

But our Christian scientists were not content to pose as 
occasional healers merely. They must needs inculcate- their 
system of persuasion under a quasi-religious form to render it 
more efficacious, and cover it with the aegis of Christianity to 
make it appear more respectable. Having once decided that 
the system of auto-persuasion should have a universal applica- 
tion to disease, the founder of Christian science at once as- 
sumed as a cardinal point that the body is but an appearance, 
and that the external world is nothing but a series of phe- 
nomena without any substantial existence whatever. Hence 
they at once arrived at the conclusion that the human spirit 
is the only self-existent being. 

This doctrine, as will be at once perceived, is identical with 
psychological pantheism, which was first taught by Bishop 
Berkeley and afterwards formulated in a transcendental shape 
by the German Pantheists, Hegel, Fichte, and Schelling. 

By this assumption God, the universe, and the human soul 
become identified, or, to speak more correctly, the two former 
have no independent existence outside of the human soul. 

This great error is the source of the opposition the Chris- 
tian Scientists have had to encounter. It will also be the cause 
of their extinction as a sect. 

If they had recalled the wise advice given by a master 



1899-] THE VAGARIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 517 

nearly two thousand years ago, they had then been spared the 
final catastrophe : 

" Nee deus intersit, 
Nisi dignus vindice nodus 
Inciderit. . . ." 

The rule applies in all its force to makers of new sects as 
well as to makers of new epics. There was no need of the 
"Deus ex machina." Every phenomenon of Christian Science 
is of a purely natural and psychological order; and the pres- 
ence of the quasi-religious element will spoil everything, be- 
cause it is both superfluous and misleading. 

We have done. Yet, before entirely dismissing the matter, 
we may as well touch lightly on the moral and religious effects 
of such a doctrine as the above. That there is in such a 
system no possible existence of sin or moral responsibility 
towards God or man, needs no proof. It follows necessarily 
from the nature of the principles upon which it is founded. 
The supreme court of appeal in all cases is the individual 
will. And all this is admitted by the Christian Scientists them- 
selves. (Book I., Third Lesson.) The effects of such a system 
if it were pushed to its last consequences are better imagined 
than described. Nor shall we attempt to describe them. With 
moral anarchy there comes necessarily the absolute throwing 
off of all restraint. Hence we may justly conclude that Chris- 
tian Science, so-called, in its logical consequences, is the most 
perfect expression of unreason and misrule, and may well claim 
the right of calling itself the doctrine of anarchy in the three 
orders of being physical, moral, and intellectual. 

We would not have paid any attention to these weakly- 
written little books of Miss Cady if we had not been per- 
suaded that they are a very poor expression of a system which 
has taken root, in one form or another, in the minds of a great 
portion of our modern generation. 



ci>e 



07 sones. 



BY CLAUDE M. GIRARDEAU. 
; THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE BEAUTIFUL VISION." 




How beautiful thou art, how 
fair, my love ; 

Thy lips are scarlet lace, thine 
eyes the dove 

Hath not ; and like pomegran- 
ates are thy cheeks 

The ivory tower of thy neck 
above. 



As flocks of goats from Galaad thy hair, 
Wounding my Jieart. Oh, love, thou art all fair 
A paradise with fruits of orchard set, 
And sweet zvith spice and aromatic air. 






Do not consider me that I am brown . 

On me the desert's burn- 
ing sun looked doivn 

And altered all my color. 
I am black 

But beautiful, and with a 
king's renown. 




Come thou from Libanus, my love : behold. 
From Amana thou shalt be croivned with gold; 
From Sanirs top, from Hermon, and from those | 
Dens that the leopard and the lion fold. 





Of Libanus a litter 
have I made, 

Pillars of silver, seat 
of gold in shade 

Of purple silk with 
cedarn canopy, 

And ivory with hya- 
cinths inlaid. 



Upon my breast as myrrh, beloved One 
Abide ; for of the concubines are none 
So terrible in beauty and so bright ; 
Fair as the moon and radiant as the sun. 

Thy throat most sweet, thy neck a bulwarked tower ; 
Thy head like Carmel, thy fair month a flower ; 
The purple of the king is in thy hair, 
Thy breasts appear as clusters of the boivcr. 





Thou art a fountain sealed ; a garden close, 
Wherein are plants of Paradise the rose, 
Pomegranates, lilies all the chief perfumes, 
Spikenard and saffron, cinnamon, aloes. 



O thou most beautiful, 
shozt' me thy face! 

My dove in rock cliff, in 
the hollow place, 

Let thy siveet yearning 
voice sound in my ears ; 

Let me rejoice in thy per- 
fumed embrace. 





Open thy door to me, my 

weary head 
Is wet with dew. Oh 

whither is she fled ? 
My locks are heavy with 

the drops of night ; 
Come to my crying ; hasten 

from thy bed. 




Oh, let me as a seal for ever dive II 

In thy beloved bosom's inmost cell : 

For love is strong as death, but jealousy 

Doth light her lamps at fire and flames of hell. 





Unbar thy lattice, O my rose, 

my dove ! 
A nd comfort me zvith flozvers : 

from above 
Thine eyes have wounded me ; 

I languish here, 
Beneath thy lattice I will die 

of love. 




522 A REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. [July* 




A REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. 

BY SEUMAS MAC MANUS. 

URING the past few decades a revolution has 
been working in Ireland a revolution great, and 
strong, and deep-reaching ; but calm, noiseless, 
and so smoothly graded that I shall not be sur- 
prised if not alone foreigners but many thou- 
sands of observant Irishmen regard this as a piece of startling 
news. When these latter, though, rub their eyes and look around 
them again, they shall ask why they did not awake to the won- 
derful event long since. The revolution to which I refer is 
social and intellectual. 

For upwards of half a century the population of Ireland 
was, year by year, day by day, surely and rapidly dwindling. 
Able authorities from time to time amused themselves and their 
magazine readers by fixing the date for the final extinction 
of the troublesome Gael in Ireland, and proved home their 
theories by very plausible calculations indeed. As early as 
'48 the London Times flapped its wings with delight as it 
screamed, " They are going, going ! They are fleeing in their 
thousands ! Soon a Celt will be as rare in Ireland as a Red In- 
dian on the shores of Manhattan ! " Half a century of a great 
and steady drain went on, and whilst they created beyond broad 
seas an Ireland which has often since wrung screams in quite 
a different key from the vulture, the prolific and obstinate Celt 
was only four and a half millions rare on his native heath just 
rather more than one-half what he had been when the goading 
cry of the Times pierced his ear and his soul. Still the tide 
was all the time ebbing, ebbing, with painful monotony. Day 
and night, month after month, and year after year, for all of 
fifty years, a stream of westward-hurrying Celts reached from 
Old to New Ireland ; the blood, and the brawn, and the 
brain of our nation was incessantly being borne across the 
western ocean. The cries of the Times and its ilk, like a terri- 
ble 'urse from which they desperately sought to flee, rang 
in t ^ained ears of these rushing exiles and if they had for- 
g^ bis in after prosperous days (as many moralists tell us 



1899-] A REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. 523 

they should) the effort would have been superhuman. They 
who remained in Ireland either because they had not the 
wherewithal to flee, or they perversely preferred Ireland and 
poverty to exile and plenty ceased to hope that this terrible 
drain upon their country's sap would ever diminish sufficiently 
to give Ireland courage and strength to rouse herself from 
apathy and inertia. 

RETURNS OF THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL. 

But lo ! to the surprise of all, a year or eighteen months 
ago the Registrar-General's returns for Ireland, for the first 
time in fifty painful years, did not mark another mile-stone on 
the downhill grade which we had been rushing. The returns, 
in this instance, not only did not show a diminution in Ireland's 
population, but strangely and surprisingly they recorded an 
actual increase ! An increase, it is true, of some insignificant 
decimal percentage but, an increase ! Thinking minds were 
instantly set going ; and when the next half-yearly returns 
again showed an increase, earnest ones, justifiably jubilant, 
twirled their hats aloft on their blackthorns. The ship's rudder 
had been heard to grate upon the shoal ; but lo, it had gone 
over at a jerk, and the leadsman began to cry deeper marks ! 
That there may be minor shoals to negotiate before our Celtic 
ship is clear of the bar I am prepared to expect, but with that 
Providence at the wheel which piloted our race through storm 
and shoal, dangers and dread, for long, long ages when other 
(seemingly stouter) ships went down and were forgotten, I have 
not the faintest doubt, we shall surely, surely, unharmed, reach 
the deep waters of the haven which our wonderful persistence, 
through toils and dangers, has rightly earned for us. 

When this stubborn welcome fact of the Registrar-General's 
caused us to open our eyes and look about, we discovered 
that, imperceptibly, the face of the country had been chang- 
ing, and was mightily changed. Ireland was more prosperous 
and more comfortable ; its fields better tilled and stocked ; and 
the people possessed of (somewhat) more money, and more 
ease, better clothed and more enlightened, than what had been 
the case thirty years ago, and what up till now we still be- 
lieved to be the case. The greater part of the change was 
certainly wrought in the last thirty years probably within the 
last two decades. The new generation forms an entirely new 
Ireland. 



524 A REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. [July. 

THE SPREAD OF SCHOOL EDUCATION. 

It is very interesting to seek out the causes of this happy 
revolution for it has been the result of a combination of 
causes. First amongst these causes I place the spread of 
school education. For a few hundred years the term "ignor- 
ant Irish " came trippingly off the English tongue, and was a 
happily convenient argument for the English nation to throw 
at our heads and at the heads of an upbraiding world. And 
only to-day is it dawning upon the English politician and the 
English snob that the phrase may have outlived its truth. But 
yesterday one of England's leading lords and statesmen* 
likened us to Hottentots and, I think, did so honest-mindedly. 
I daresay we poor Irishmen, or our fathers, or our fathers' 
fathers, earned the epithets. At one time, long, long ago, 
before God bestowed upon us the blessings of English rule, 
Ireland, " the Island of Scholars," was the light of the West. 
The Northmen strove in vain to quench the light, and suc- 
ceeded in dimming it, but the beneficent rule of England ex- 
tinguished the last glimmer almost. Under English law, as 
meted out to our country two centuries ago, and continued 
with more or less rigor down to one hundred years since, it 
was a penal offence for an Irishman to send his child to school. 
The school-master, with a price upon his head, like a sneak- 
thief or a murderer skulked from townland to townland under 
cover of the night, and lay in hiding during the day, when 
only honest men stepped abroad ; and to harbor him was to 
invite upon one's head and one's house the rigors of rigorous 
laws. True, there were proselytizing schools open, to which 
Catholic Ireland was coaxed and cajoled, wheedled and bribed, 
to send its children but Catholic Ireland was wickedly per- 
verse. The father and mother who could do so, scraped and 
gathered, and pinched themselves and the rest of the family 
to the point of starvation, to get enough cash to send one son 
to the Continent, there to gather some crumbs of that knowl- 
edge which the Irish have ever worshipped. In those days few 
smuggling smacks stole out of forgotten Irish bays that did 
not bear away to France a precious burden, a soft stripling in 
whom were centred the hopes and fears, and the very soul, of 
the mother who wailed upon the shore, and the father whose 
grief found no outward expression. But this was a hazardous 
proceeding, and the parents who were proven to have been 

* Lord Salisbury. 



1899-] ^ REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. 525 

guilty of the flagrant crime quickly felt the heavy hand of 
Justice laid upon them. So, I must confess that our people 
did shamefully lapse into ignorance ignorance dense and deep. 
And when our English friends scornfully twit us with our 
ignorance they have truth on their side and when their states- 
men tell the world the Irish are no better than Hottentots, 
they have history to prove it. 

Seventy years ago the Penal Laws were repealed. Teaching 
was by act of grace decreed no felony henceforth, and 
learning no crime. Shortly after, England, in a spasm of gen- 
erosity, bestowed upon us a system of education, yclept 
National because all references to our nation and its history 
were to be rigorously excluded from the curriculum of the 
schools. The master who had taught his little school behind a 
hedge, or in shelter of a bank, and who went home with each 
of his pupils on successive weeks, was permitted to have a 
school built for him by the parish, and was salaried by gov- 
ernment with the (to him) fabulous wage of fifteen pounds a 
year. For many years after schools were, however, still sparse, 
and pupils trudged five, six, and seven miles of moor and 
mountain daily to get the benefit of a lesson in the Reading- 
made-easy, a drill in the Universal Spelling-book, and a dive 
into the mysteries of figures as propounded by Vosther and 
Gough. At the present time schools are plentiful, teachers re- 
markably capable and salaried moderately, and Irish parents 
as eager as ever to see their children educated. So, almost 
without exception, every child of school age in Ireland is now 
acquiring an education ; and when the present generation have 
arrived at maturity Ireland will, for enlightenment, hold an 
honored and honorable place amongst civilized nations. When 
such remarkable headway will have been made in three- 
quarters of a century, it is pleasant to speculate where the 
children of Ireland will find themselves a century hence. 

THE INFLUENCE OF AMERICA. 

Besides school education, another highly important element 
in Ireland's intellectual advancement has been the influence of 
America. And American influence has been a factor far more 
important than is usually suspected. The educational influence 
which America has, during the past forty years, wielded over 
the Irish race at home is marvellous. Every young Irishman 
and Irish girl who sails for America carries thereto an unfur- 
nished, impressionable mind, a keen observation, and a quick 



526 A REVOLUTION IN ICELAND. [July, 

intellect. The great, strange, fresh, new world that bursts 
upon them beyond the seas fills their minds with facts and 
ideas, sets them thinking, and broadens and deepens their 
understanding. It is fair to calculate that to each townland 
throughout Ireland at least six Irish-Americans yearly return 
six who have spent long enough in the New World to have 
placed them in a position to journey home on a holiday, or 
return with money enough in their pockets to encourage them 
to start life in Ireland again and this means six new mission- 
ary teachers per year to each townland, six big with Ameri- 
can facts and American ideas, and eloquent to give them ex- 
pression. The schools at which these missionary teachers call 
their pupils together are the wakehouse, the winter fireside, 
and the harvest-field ; on the way to Mass, and. in the chapel 
yard on Sunday mornings ; and at the cross-roads or on the 
pleasant hill-tops on Sunday evenings. An Irish audience is 
always an appreciative one ; but if. the subject be one bearing 
upon the wonders and the ways of life in a new country, the 
theories and habits of thought of its people and if, moreover, 
that country be one in which every listener has a brother, and 
a sister, and a cousin, toiling for the dear ones at home, then 
an Irish audience is one to charm the heart of the talker. 
Furthermore the returned " Yankee," as he is called, is a per- 
ambulating object-lesson of independence independence of 
thought, and of speech, and of act, his or her comrades' 
ambition being of the same mood. 

THE NEWSPAPER AS AN EDUCATOR. 

Irish political agitation has been incessantly held up as de- 
moralizing to our people. But they who so pronounced it 
took for granted a theory which it pleased them to believe in 
and promulgate. Agitation and particularly the excited agi- 
tation which raged over the land throughout the eighties has 
had a great educational influence on the Irish mind. It 
aroused us out of our intellectual torpor. It made us read, it 
made us think, it made us analyze and debate. The newspaper 
was subscribed for, and read aloud in the shoemaker's, or in 
the tailor's, or at the forge, and then item by item the politi- 
cal news was turned over and over, and criticised and debated. 
Men's craving increased till many who could ill afford the 
luxury indulged in the private vice of a three half-penny weekly, 
devoured it in their own chimney-corners, and then went 
abroad to read it at less fortunate neighbors, or to argue it 



1899-] A REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. 527 

with equally fortunate ones. Those were the days when there 
was a flourishing political night-school in every townland, and 
men's ideas developed and ripened, discovering to each that 
God had blessed him with an individuality and a mind of his 
own, and inciting him to measure that mind against his neigh- 
bor's. And when, later, the great Irish political party split in- 
to many sections, the growth of individuality was yet further 
fostered thereby, for then even the most lymphatic found him- 
self confronted with a problem that compelled him to think, 
to weigh, and to choose; and if he could not find choice, then 
to nail together a raft for himself, and seek to navigate the 
troubled political waters according to his own chart. The 
training given to the Irish mind during this agitation was, I 
assert, invaluable ; it developed a reading taste which very 
often reached beyond newspaper literature, and raised the 
standard of intelligence over Ireland. I speak from long, close, 
and intimate experience. 

IMPROVED INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS. 

In Ireland of to-day there is much more money, ease, and 
comfort than in Ireland of thirty years since and this for 
several reasons. 

There is a marked improvement in agricultural methods 
throughout the mountainous, and remote and poor districts ; and 
just these years this improvement is becoming more remarka- 
ble still. Bitter experience, after a long and sore lesson, forced 
upon the Irish small farmer the fact that the fertility of his 
ground and the luxuriance of his crops are governed by inex- 
orable laws that will not be curbed or thwarted, and must be 
obeyed. It unfortunately took a long time to teach the Irish 
farmer this fact ; but now he has come to acknowledge it, he 
will travel fast enough along the road of progress. 

The greatly improved land laws, the results of his long agi- 
tation, too, have not only directly alleviated his hardships, but 
encouraged and inspirited him to struggle afresh with the nig- 
gard soil. His rent is from one-third to one-half (and often 
still more) less than what it was ; he does not dread a raise of 
rent as the consequence of a good crop and an improved soil, 
and he fears not eviction. The land laws are not yet entirely 
satisfactory but, by comparison, they are good. There are 
yet thousands who wrestle with rocky patches, and coax al- 
most sterile moors in Donegal and the West, who are com- 
pelled to pay a highly unjust rent, which they win at the 



528 A REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. [July* 

edge of their sickles in the Scotch lowlands and the English 
midlands during the summer months. It is a moving sight to 
see hundreds and hundreds of these hardy, poorly-clad West, 
erns, bearing their sickles and their little red bundles, on a 
June evening boarding the cross channel boats at -Berry and 
Belfast and Dublin. And, a few months later, it is a touching 
sight to see them, still with their sickles and little bundles, in 
the gray mornings leap upon Irish soil again, brown and happy, 
and wealthy with the wealth of forty, or sixty, or mayhap a 
hundred shillings. Their wives and daughters, or their sisters, 
have attended to their own harvest, while they garnered the 
harvest of the stranger. 

FROM THE KIN AMONG THE STRANGER. 

Emigration benefited Ireland, I am of opinion, by relieving 
its congestion. That it benefited it educationally I have noted. 
But Ireland has likewise profited to an extent that will never 
be known an extent as wonderful as it is creditable to 
the exiled sons and daughters of Ireland by the stream of 
money that for long, long years has been coming back over 
the ocean, in return for the flesh and blood and brain and 
soul that have during the same years been going. The poor 
Irish boys who toil and sweat on the streets of Chicago and 
in the mines of Montana, and the poor Irish girls who are to 
be found in the kitchens from Connecticut to California, toil 
and sweat, and give of their flesh and their muscle, and their 
spirit, that they may win the yellow gold which will keep the 
hearth warm and the meal-kist full at home, put a shawl on 
their mother, and a new coat on a father who has not known 
the luxury since he began the desperate struggle that the up- 
bringing of them, his children, demanded. The " Amirikay let- 
ther" comes daily to one house or other in each townland, is 
borne in in triumph and opened with joy, and the much-needed 
money order which it always contains is passed around the 
circle of hastily gathered neighbors, amid exclamations of joy, 
and ejaculatory prayers for " poor Shusie among the sthrangers, 
may God bliss an' prosper her every day the sun dawns on 
her ! " It is difficult to estimate the proportion of Ireland's 
present-day prosperity which is the direct result of- the wages 
earned by Irish boys and girls in America but the proportion 
is much higher than is generally suspected. In the poorer 
parts of Ireland every family must wind up its nightly Rosary 
with " Wan Pather-an-avvy now for poor Pathrick (or Shusie) 



1899-] A REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. 529 

in Amirikay. May Almighty God guard, guide, and protect 
him ; keep him from all sin and harm, parils and dangers ; may 
He comfort his heart among the black sthranger, strengthen 
his arm, and prosper whatsomever he puts his hand till." And 
the murmurous Pater and Ave which in response rolls up 
straight from their pure and fervent hearts to God's throne 
ever seems to have been hearkened to. 

It was at one time fashionable to refer to the Irish as 
great drinkers. Whether or not this was justifiable, I will not 
undertake to say. But I will say that statistics prove we were 
not "in it" with our saintly Scotch neighbors, nor (taking 
alcoholic drinks generally) even with the highly moral English. 
And I know, too, that a quart of whisky among a crowd of 
Irishmen would tell more tales than a gallon soaked by a group 
of Scots. A Scot takes whisky into his stomach, an Irishman 
takes it into his head. But if whisky was a vice amongst us, 
it is a national vice no longer thanks to the movement inau- 
gurated by the great Father Mathew, and thanks to the 
higher code of ethics that has obtained as a consequence of 
the spread of education and refinement. 

THE PARTY SPIRIT DYING OUT. 

And another national disgrace is fast disappearing. The 
party spirit which, under the name of religion, rent the North 
of Ireland for generations, making many a hearth desolate and 
many a heart break, is, thank God, yearly growing weaker and 
weaker and losing its devotees by crowds. The Orange Insti- 
tution, in most parts of the North of Ireland, has, one by one, 
lost from its muster-roll the names of the respectable and in- 
telligent men which once swelled it. So that, chiefly now 
remain in it only the rowdy elements of the towns, and the 
narrow, good-hearted zealots of the remote districts. And 
then the Catholics are in like manner getting rid of the bit- 
terness and hate that marked their feelings for their Orange 
neighbors. It is ridicule that kills and the Celt is keenly 
alive to the ridiculous. The more sensible have begun to see 
matter for laughter rather than recrimination in petty little 
displays of party spirit. Laughter is always catching; and as 
the zealot sees his neighbors laugh at him more and more, he 
is less eager to act for their entertainment. Many a matter 
which, forty or fifty years ago, would have been sufficient 
matter for murder, is now good matter for mirth. The few 
intermarriages between Protestant and Catholic, occasionally, 
VOL. LXIX. 34 



530 A REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. [July, 

still cause a little domestic strife of the storm-in-the-teapot 
order. In black Belfast a Catholic woman lived happily with 
her heretic husband till one day she committed the crime of 
buying and hanging at the bed-head a picture of Leo XIII. 
Next night Andrew brought in a much more elegant and 
costly picture of King William crossing the Boyne, with King 
James's heels just showing in the distance, and as a counter- 
acting influence hung it at the bed-foot. On Saturday night 
Andrew got drunk and pious, and so came in and danced upon 
the Pope until he effaced him. On Monday Andrew went to 
his work, and Ellen took down King William, pawned him, 
and purchased a grand new Pope, under whose loving eye 
Andrew snored the snore of a martyr resigned to his fate (if 
martyrs do snore) thereafter. 

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE REVIVING. 

Our language and our literature are blossoming forth again. 
The stride that within the past half-dozen years the Gaelic 
League has made towards the revival of our language is a 
matter of sincerest congratulation to all Irishmen who love 
the beautiful old tongue, and who recognize what its revival 
means in the intellectual uplifting of our race ; and, further, in 
the preservation of our nationality. To the Gaelic monthly 
which has long been in existence was added last year a Gaelic 
weekly newspaper, Fainne an lae (" The dawning of the day ") ; * 
an annual Gaelic literary festival, An fOireachtas, at which 
large sums are distributed in prizes, is now firmly established ; 
an able and eloquent travelling organizer, Thomas O'Concan- 
non of Arran, has been appointed and salaried by the League ; 
Gaelic League branches have sprung up, and flourish in all 
corners; classes at which enthusiastic teachers give their ser- 
vices gratis are common over the island ; the teaching of 
Gaelic as an extra subject in the National Schools is rapidly on 
the increase, and year by year shows more encouraging results; 
the demand for Gaelic books, not only those for learners but 
Gaelic classics for proficient scholars, has become great within 
the " past few years ; almost a million people still speak the 
language, and have now learnt to take pride therein ; and, if 
the wonderful success of the Gaelic League continues (and 
there is small reason to doubt that it will), Ireland will have 
become a bilingual nation half a century hence. 

Although less than twenty years ago Irish literature or, 

* Literally, " The ring of day." 



1899] A REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. 531 

to be correct, Anglo-Irish literature by which I mean litera- 
ture produced by Irish writers, and breathing the Celtic spirit 
through the Saxon garb, had almost ceased to be produced. 
Now we have Irish writers, chiefly young, who, fired with the 
mystic Celtic genius, are attracting wide attention, and creating 
a new and bright era in the history of our literature and our 
country. William Jenks and the Sigersons, "A. E.," Lionel 
Johnson, Standish O'Grady, Frank Matthew, Nora Hopper, 
William Rooney ("Fear na Muintir"), Shan Bullock, Frank 
Fahy, Jane Barlow, Alice Furlong, and (from the Black North 
itself two rising stars who shall certainly brighten that dark 
firmament, to wit,) Iris Olkyrn and Ethna Carbery these are 
only some of the names of those who are giving to Irish 
literature a new and promising lease of life. There are several 
Irish writers of distinction not referred to because there is 
little or nothing distinctively Celtic in their work. Dr. Doug- 
las Hyde does not, of course, come within this list he has 
earned for himself a special place inasmuch he is one of the 
very few truly Irish litterateurs, conveying as he does the 
charming Celticism of his thoughts in the tongue that alone 
befits them. 

THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT. 

The Local Government, which this year is placed in the 
hands of the people, will be highly beneficial less a direct 
benefit than an indirect one, though. It will be a grand edu- 
cational influence. It will cause our people to think for them- 
selves still more ; it will bring home to them the study of 
political economy, apprentice them to the use of power and 
administration, and create a healthy rivalry and independence 
of action, in even the most remote district in Ireland. 

Several simple-minded good people inquire if this scheme 
of Local Government will be likely to satisfy the aspirations of 
the Irish people. To those who know our people " from the 
inside " the question is amusingly ridiculous. This Local Gov- 
ernment affords to us more purchase ground upon which to 
continue the strife and as such we shall use it. 

What will, then, satisfy your aspirations? you ask. Will 
nothing short of absolute Home Rule do so ? Now, I have 
studied my countrymen, their nature and their character, and 
I am vain enough to think that I know their hearts. And 
before answering this, I beg the questioner to know that 
the Celt is still mediaeval in that he listens to the whispering 



532 AGNOSTICISM. [July. 

of his soul, which is Sentiment. The world and the material 
things of it are not all in all to him. There is a world within 
him which appeals to him more strongly than the world with- 
out. To him 

" Stone walls do not a prison make, 
Nor iron bars a cage." 

So, the cold logic and inexorable facts inside which wiser 
peoples would sit down and nurse their knees will not curb his 
spirit, nor allay its cravings. If it be not either conformable 
to the absolute law of eternal justice, or warranted by tradi- 
tion, the faintest restraint put upon his spirit is irksome to him, 
he becomes restless, and the restraint chafes and cankers his 
tender flesh, and grows daily more intolerable. 

You promise us material prosperity, then, under Home Rule 
and English protection a degree of prosperity which, you say 
(probably with truth), we could never attain as an independent 
nation and you ask will that satisfy for ever the aspirations 
of the Irish people? And I return the one answer which my 
little knowledge and experience entirely independent of my 
own inclinations forces upon me, Never ! 

Yet, notwithstanding, the year 1900 will, with God's help, 
dawn upon a hopeful Ireland. 




AGNOSTICISM. 

BY "EAMON HAYES." 

HE youth Ben-Ezra, honest, pure, and brave, 
One day in hunting found a lustrous stone 
A pretty bauble worth a caliph's throne 
And greed seduced his soul. A spell-bound slave 
To its ignoble witchery, he gave 

No further thought to all He erst had known 
Of grace and beauty: loveless and alone, 
He went a gibbering miser to his grave. 

So often fares, alas ! the devotee 

Of science who, to win the paths of light, 
Sets out with all the lofty zeal of youth, 

But heedless of what perils dire there be 
In following every firefly's fickle flight, 
Forgets the splendor of the Sun of Truth. 




FISHING VESSELS HARBORING AGAINST THE STORM. 




A CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. 

BY C. M. O'BRIEN. 

HAT is true of the school-boy is even more true 
of the business or professional man : " All work 
and no play makes Jack a dull boy." All work 
and no rest leaves him in a few years unable to 
pursue his avocation. A summer holiday, where 
it is at all possible, is a recognized necessity in modern life. 
Some in holiday time hasten to the sea-side, and strolling on 
the beach, or perched on the summit of a cliff, breathe in the 
bracing air. Some explore the beauties of nature on their cycles, 
and not a few there are who seek renewed vigor in the land 
of Morpheus. As for myself, I delight in going as far from 
home as possible subject, of course, to the advice well .not 
of my physician, but of my banker. The Pyrenees and Mont 
Blanc, John O'Groat's and Land's End, the Giant's Causeway 
and The Twelve Pins had I made acquaintance with already, so 
looking round me, and being determined to carry out my prin- 
ciple, I aimed at the North Cape to see the midnight sun. I 
was, doomed to disappointment, however, as no "conveyance" 



534 A- CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. [July, 

went that way so late in the year, when I was free. I did what 
I considered the next best thing, however; I went for a cruise 
in the Fjords of Norway. 

Ne\vcastle-on-Tyne was our starting place. About the beau- 
ties of that emporium of the North I shall say nothing except 
what a merchant friend recently remarked to a customer who 
entered to purchase some potatoes : " I won't praise them ; if 
you buy them, they will speak for themselves." If you care to 
see Newcastle, it will speak for itself. Though it isn't always 
" good for a man to be alone," yet for a bachelor when travel- 
ling the possibility of disagreement with gentlemen, and the 
certainty of endless trouble about ladies' baggage, make it de- 
sirable to travel alone ; and you are sure to meet plenty of 
interesting travellers. Curiously enough, however, my first ac- 
quaintances on that trip were a youthful pair from the Emerald 
Isle who were happy, "though married" indeed were ideals of 
happiness. Novices in travelling take as much baggage as they 
can ; as they get experience they take as little as they can. 
As I awaited the tender that was to take us to our ship, which 
lay at Tynemouth, I noticed the amount of luggage that was 
appearing : huge hunchback trunks, portmanteaus, hold-alls by 
the score, and the thought flashed across my mind whether 
I was- bound for a short cruise to Norway, or going to winter 
on the " Fram " at the North Pole. However, the matter was 
easily solved a few days later, when I discovered that while a 
few "philosophical" tourists, like myself, were content with a 
couple of suits, the gentlemen as a rule appeared in a different 
suit every day during the first week, and the ladies appeared 
in new costumes several times a day, for the whole fortnight; 
indeed, recognizing passengers for the first few days was out of 
the question. 

Pope knew man when he said, as a child he is " pleased with 
a rattle, tickled with a straw : . . . scarfs, garters, gold, 
amuse his riper stage : . . . a little louder, but as empty 
quite." 

There was considerable excitement when we got on board, 
as the passengers sought out their baggage, searched for their 
cabins, and made themselves acquainted with the topography 
of the boat. We were about two hundred aboard, all Britishers. 
When I got to my cabin " state-room " is the name given in 
the prospectus I could not refrain from exclaiming, " Well, 
this is a cell!" I had come to Norway to rid my lungs of the 
twelve months' dust of a city, but, alas ! to spend a fortnight 



1899-] A CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. 535 

in a room not "big enough to swing a cat in" was a disap- 
pointment, and then to have to sleep on an " apology " for a 
bed ! The first thought that struck 'me was to return home ; 
but that was out of the question, as we were now well into the 
North Sea. I was leaving my " state-room " in high dudgeon 
when I met a gentleman just passing, and remarked to him, 
" Aren't these cabins awful ? " " Well," he said, " I have come 
off pretty well ; where is yours ? " " It 's just here," I an- 
swered, and he stepped in to see it. " Oh ! " he said, " you 




" PANORAMA OF BEAUTIFUL SCENERY FILLS THE EYE." 

have a capital cabin; you won't get better in any ship ; I have 
been on several. You will get accustomed to it, and you will 
like it." He was right, for I did ; I slept soundly every night 
on that " apology " for a bed, and woke every morning as fresh 
as a lark. 

Like the Bay of Biscay, the German Ocean has a boister- 
ous name ; however, crossing and recrossing, we had no fault 
to find with it. Our first day on board happened to be Sun- 
day, and naturally a quiet day was spent. Next day there was 
little social intercourse, and had I not come across some good- 
humored passengers I should have got into the " blues." Neces- 
sity is* the mother of invention, however, and the following 
note appeared on the notice board at the entrance of the 
dining-saloon before dinner : " Owing to the general hilarity of 
the passengers, and the anxiety of the Management to cater 



536 A CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. [July, 

for same, a dog-fight has been arranged in the Saloon at 9 
o'clock P. M." The notice was read by all as they filed into 
dinner, and there was a general smile. The good humor thus 
begun continued during the rest of the cruise. Needless to say, 
an Irishman was at the bottom of this useful joke. We left Tyne- 
mouth on Saturday evening, and we were timed to be in sight 
of land on Monday morning. The bugle sounded on Monday 
morning at six bells, and soon after all were hurrying on deck 
expecting to get a view, as per programme, of the Norwegian 
hills. We were not disappointed ; we were sailing up the 
beautiful Bukkenfjord. 

It was with no small emotion and delight that we gazed 
upon the scene before us. We had seen numerous beautiful 
photographs of Norwegian scenery in our guide-books and in 
the ship's saloons, but they only gave the faintest idea of the 
reality. 

It would be impossible to describe this grand panorama of 
beautiful scenery. There was here a combination of the beauties 
of nature that one sees in various lands. As our ship steamed 
up the fjord, and wended its serpentine way, I was reminded 
of the south-eastern end of Lake Katrine. Further on, on 
either side, were the mountains, so precipitous that they re- 
minded one of the cliffs of Moher. The little red-painted 
hamlets at the water's edge and on the side of the mountain 
where the slopes were not too steep, and the snow-capped sum- 
mits everywhere, brought to my mind Lake Lucerne and the 
Alps. 

The various tints of color on the mountains, as we pro- 
ceeded, could not fail to call to mind the beautiful tints that 
characterize the surroundings of the Lakes of Killarney. But 
one characteristic, which one does not meet elsewhere and 
which Norway exclusively possesses, is the countless magnificent 
cascades, formed not by streamlets but by mighty torrents 
which shoot down from the glaciers over precipices a thousand 
feet high. If what we saw on this our first morning was the 
only interesting item of Norwegian scenery that we were to be- 
hold, we would have returned home contented. But, happily, 
we were to enjoy during ten days a feast of equally beautiful 
scenery. After several hours' journey up the fjord we landed 
at the little village of Sand. We were glad to have a couple of 
hours' stroll on terra firma. Following the conscientious ob- 
ligations of tourists, we examined everything. The houses were 
small, and were entirely of wood, except the roofs, which were 



1899-] A CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. 537 

of tiles, probably the better to resist the winter gales. Nearly 
all the exteriors were painted in gaudy colors, and the interiors 
were neatly kept. The villagers were fairly well dressed, and 




BERGEN is THE WETTEST CITY IN THE WORLD. 

we were surprised to find that quite a number of them spoke 
English. 

Getting on board again, we sailed down the fjord, and new 
and beautiful views were again meeting our gaze. The sound 
of the bugle reminded us that we were not in fairyland, and 
that after feasting our eyes on the scenery for so long a time 
we ought now give the inner man a chance. During dinner 
there was a run- not on any particular dish exactly, because 
the catering was perfect but on the adjectives of description : 
the scenery was "grand," "beautiful," "magnificent," "gor- 
geous," etc., the ladies keeping principally to their favorite ad- 
jective, " lovely." 

An impromptu concert in the evening brought a most en- 
joyable day to a close. 

While we were dreaming of fjord and glaciers our good 
steam yacht was cleaving .once more the German Ocean and 
hastening northward to enter at early morning the Hardanger 
Fjord. "God save the Queen," played at eight o'clock next 
morning, fulfilled the double purpose of reminding us that we 



538 A CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. [July, 

weren't Norwegians and also that it would be desirable to get 
up for breakfast. Thus aroused, I remembered what time I went 
to bed, then applied the old rule six hours for a man, seven 
for a woman, eight for a fool ; I said I would risk being the 
last-mentioned during the trip. Rising at a reasonable hour, I 
perceived by the large number then at breakfast that I was 
not the only " fool " on board. When I got on deck we were 
sailing up the celebrated Hardanger Fjord. 

One gentleman had been on deck since six o'clock A. M., 
determined to get value for his money and, to use a passen- 
ger's words, was "gulping down the scenery." He was some- 
what disgusted when he discovered that the fjord was a hundred 
miles long. 

This fjord was similar to the last, but the scenery is so 
much beyond what one sees elsewhere that it does not be- 
come monotonous. 

We landed at Odde, and we had the greater part of the 
day at our disposal to visit the interior of the country. I had 

become very friendly with a certain Mr. B , who had been in 

Norway before and whose charming manner and superior in- 
telligence made him a most delightful companion, and he in- 
vited me to accompany him to the Buer Glacier. 

He had seen it before, and said he considered it one of the 
best sights in Norway. When we got there I was not disap- 
pointed. As we had plenty of time at our disposal, and as our 
walking capacity was so restricted on board, we elected to walk 
to the glacier, though there was a question of six miles each 
way. The roads in Norway are very good. As one would ex- 
pect, they are circuitous and rise and fall in switch-back fashion, 
yet the surface is perfectly smooth, and either on foot or on 
car they are comfortable. At either side, at a short distance 
from the road, are situated the farm-houses. 

The farmers possess usually four or five cows, and while 
the little farm is producing hay and .grain during the summer 
the cows are driven up to little verdant patches on the moun- 
tain side Saeters and kept there till the winter. Here they 
are attended to by some members of the family, and as ascent 
and descent is exceedingly difficult, the milk and butter is sent 
down from the saeter on a strong wire rope which extends 
from the saeter to the plain. u 

After walking some three miles we came to a pretty lake 
nestling among the hills ; we crossed over in a small boat and 
began our ascent to the glacier, some two and a half miles dis- 



1 899-] 



A CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. 



539 



tant. Beside a hissing mountain torrent that issued from the 
glacier we wended our way, stumbling over large stones, climb- 
ing over slippery rocks, slipping on the wet pathway, and re- 
strained from turning back by the thought of refreshment at 
the hotel near the glacier. 

We were amply rewarded for our trouble. To stand at 
midday beside an ice-field some twenty miles long by fifteen 
wide, glittering like a silver sea in the autumn sun, is a sight 
never to be forgotten. We returned to our ship in the eve- 
ning, and though wearied we were highly pleased with our 
day's outing. Neither Mr. B - nor I heard the national 
anthem next morning. 

All having returned from their respective excursions, we 
steamed away late at evening and arrived next morning at 
Bergen. This city of thirty thousand inhabitants, the second 
largest in Norway, has the unenviable reputation of being the 
wettest city in the world. It is said that on an average five 




FISH-DRYING AMONG THE LAPPS. 



540 -.A CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. [July, 

days out of seven are wet. The story is told of a Dutch 
yachtsman having sailed into Bergen one day and, finding the 
sun shining gloriously in the harbor, scudded away immedi- 
ately, thinking he must have been somewhere else. We spent 
two days there, and fortunately both were fine. I did not in- 
quire whether the five days previous had been wet. Bergen is 
a rather up-to-date city ; it has electric trams, electric light, 
and is neatly kept. The public buildings are good and there 
are some very fine churches. There is a newly built magnifi- 
cent Lutheran cathedral, Gothic in style and situated on an 
eminence ; and there is also a Roman Catholic church with a 
handsome spire. One of the greatest curiosities in the town 
is the fish-market, where the fish swimming about in the tanks 
are sold alive to customers. There was an exhibition held 
in one of the public gardens principally a fishery exhibi- 
tion but it was rather a poor affair. We steamed off from 
Bergen at evening, and, after doubling one of the Norwegian 
promontories during the night, we entered next morning, further 
northward, another fjord named the Sogne Fjord. 

The sun was shining brightly, the air was dry and bracing, 
the scenery was once more beautiful, and all the passengers 
except a few disciples of Morpheus were up betimes to see 
Nature in her picturesque Norwegian garb. We reached the 
little town of Gudvangen before noon, and the general plan 
was a drive to the summit of Mount Stalheim. The route 
was along one of Norway's most beautiful valleys, named the 
Naerdal, or Narrow Valley. The ordinary vehicles of convey- 
ance are : the cariole, which takes only one person and the 
driver, and the stolkjaerre, which carries two and a driver. 
Just as we were landing I fell in with a good-humored Scotch- 
man, and we both selected a stolkjaerre and an English-speak 
ing "cocher" and set off for Stalheim. 

We jogged along, one among a procession of some twenty 
cars, noticing the neatly kept, painted farm-houses, the little 
patches of flourishing barley, and the new-mown hay, which 
gave a delightful aroma to the air ; crossing and recrossing 
the torrent that swept the valley, observing on left, on right, 
the little saeters on the hill-sides, and whiling away the time 
with cross-examining our good-tempered driver on all possible 
Norwegian subjects. 

After two hours' drive we came to the base of the Stalheim 
hill, and as it is too steep for carriages we had to walk, or 
rather to climb, to the top. 



1 8 9 9-] 



A CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. 




"BESIDE THE MOUNTAIN TORRENT THAT ISSUED FROM THE GLACIER." 

The air was so dry and exhilarating that even the ladies 
walked to the summit. 

Here a good lunch awaited us at the hotel, and while we 
partook of the viands an orchestra, consisting of a violin and 
piano, discoursed interesting Norwegian airs. 

The view from the hotel down the Naerdal valley, the 
winding road appearing at intervals, the cataracts in scores 



542 A CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. [July, 

rushing down the mountains on both sides, the mountains them- 
selves all capped with snow, leave a lasting image on the mind. 
We returned to Gudvangen after a very pleasant day in the 
interior, and returning half-way the fjord, we spent the night 
at anchor at the very pretty village of Balholm. 

While at least many of us were as yet in dreamland our 
good steam yacht left the Sogne Fjord and started still north- 
ward. The next day's journey was a very interesting one : 
under the guidance of an experienced Norwegian pilot we were 
steaming among islands at a short distance from the shore. 
The weather was fine, the air was clear and bracing, and the 
scenery was novel and interesting. 

The coast resembled that of the west coast of Scotland 
rugged and wooded, but here, even in early autumn, it had a 
background of snow. We entered at evening the Nord Fjord. 
The sunset was the most beautiful that we had seen. The 
golden sun sank gradually behind the western mountains and 
gilded them with glittering gold. Orange-bordered mists ap- 
peared among the hills, and we moved along in a sea of fluc- 
tuating waves of gold with nothing to disturb the silent calm- 
ness except the thud of the machinery of our ship. 

The sun soon sank, however, and the most exquisite scene 
that we beheld in Norway had passed away for ever. The 
vanishing of such a sight leaves one wrapt in contemplation, 
and moments of irrepressible sadness follow. 

Soon, however, the Aurora Borealis appeared, making the 
night bright as day and filling the fjord with a flood of light. 
To add to the effect our good captain, a genial Scotchman, 
sounded the fog-horn, which echoed and re-echoed several times 
and gradually died away among the hills. Then suddenly there 
were sent up a few rockets, which, falling into a spectrum of 
colors, made us think we were again in fairyland. We landed 
next morning at the village of Visness, and spent the day in 
strolling quietly into the interior and back. Returning to our 
yacht, we again set off northward towards the Sonnud Fjord, 
the most northern that we were to see. The scenery con- 
siderably differed from what we had seen heretofore. The 
arctic climate was becoming evident ; snow was everywhere on 
the hills, mountain torrents were more numerous, vegetation 
was becoming limited, few birds could be seen, and sports- 
men could be heard on the summit of the mountains bear- 
shooting. 

At the head of the fjord was the village of Merok, and 



1 899.] 



A CRUISE IN THE FJORDS OF NORWAY. 



543 



from this we climbed a few miles up the mountain, turning 
back every now and again to behold the scenery. 

Towards evening we descended to our steamer, and, regret- 
ting that circumstances would not permit our going further 
north, we bade good-by 
to Norway and steamed 
away for Merry England. 

" Ye mountains capped 

with silver snow, 
Where Thor presided 

long ago ; 
Ye winding fjords that 

smile in blue, 
Cascades and rocks, 

farewell to you." 

Soon the hills sank 
away in the distance, and 
as they disappeared we 
gave " a longing, linger- 
ing look behind." 

The next two days, 
while crossing the North 
Sea, were given over to 
sports and amusements. 

As we sailed into Tynemouth the hunchbacked trunks again 
made their appearance, and the portmanteaus and holdalls, now 
filled with Norwegian curios, had assumed gigantic dimensions. 




NEW ROAD IN HARDANGER FJORD. 




544 THE PHILIPPINE INSURRECTION, [July* 



THE PHILIPPINE INSURRECTION, AND THE 
VOICE OF THE COURTS. 

BY E. B. BRIGGS.'D.C.L. (Catholic University). 
cf 

HATEVER may be the final verdict of the 
American people upon the wisdom of the policy 
pursued by the government in regard to the 
acquisition of the Philippine Islands, they will 
never be justified in complaining of the silence 
of those opposing that policy. There has been a super- 
abundance of pessimistic eloquence poured forth in denuncia- 
tion of the alleged illegality of the acts of the executive, and 
if, as recently asserted by one of the orators at Chicago, " it 
is true that we went to war in 1861 to free the Negroes, and 
in 1899 to enslave the Philippines," the republic is now in ar- 
ticiilo mortis, for, if President Lincoln in accepting the gauge 
thrown down before him by the bombardment of Fort Sumter, 
did so to free the negroes, and not to maintain the integrity 
and sovereignty of the nation, his acts were unconstitutional, 
as much so as were the acts of President McKinley in striking 
back at the armed forces of Aguinaldo, after they had assaulted 
our lines at Manila. 

THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE EMERGENCY 
WHICH CONFRONTED HIM. 

Prior to the battle of Manila Bay, the undisputed sover- 
eignty over the Philippine Islands, as recognized by every 
nation on earth, was vested in Spain. On February 4, 1899, 
the city and bay of Manila were in possession of the forces of 
the United States, as a conquest effected in public war ; and a 
proposed treaty of peace providing, among other things, for 
the cession to the United States of this sovereignty of Spain 
over those islands was pending for ratification in the Senate 
of the United States. That treaty was duly ratified, and Con- 
gress adjourned without making any provision for the govern- 
ment of the newly acquired territory. In international law, as 
well as in constitutional law, the effect of the ratification of 
the treaty was to make the Philippine Islands territory of the 
United States ; and the treaty itself became " the supreme law 



1899-] AND THE VOICE OF THE COURTS. 545 

of the land" (Const., Art. VI.) The Constitution, Art. II. Sec. I, 
requires the President to take the following oath or affirma- 
tion : " I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully 
execute the office of President of the United States, and will, 
to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the 
Constitution of the United States " ; and it further says of the 
President, Art. II. Sec. 3, "-he shall take care that the laws be 
faithfully executed." In other words, the President is abso- 
lutely bound by his oath of office, and by the explicit language 
of the Constitution, to " take care " that this treaty, which 
vests the sovereignty over the Philippines in the United 
States, and which is " the supreme law of the land," be 
"faithfully executed" throughout all the " la.nd " over which 
floats our flig. To do less would constitute an executive viola- 
tion of the Constitution and the laws. This ought, of itself, to 
be a sufficient refutation of the charge that our President, the 
freely chosen of a free people, is violating the Constitution, and 
recklessly causing the slaughter of our brave and steadfast 
soldiers, in furtherance of an attempt to deprive a " people " 
of the right of self-government. Something more than argu- 
ment, however, is needed, and the voice of potent authority is 
not lacking. The initiatory attack of the Tagalos and Chinese 
half-breeds, styling themselves " Filipinos," was made upon the 
American army on the night of February 4, 1899, while the 
peace treaty was still pending ; and their armed resistance to 
the authority of the United States has been maintained since 
the ratification thereof, always with due and profound regard 
for the adage " He who fights and runs away may live to 
fight another day." President Lincoln was confronted with an 
astonishingly similar condition of affairs in 1861, the " run 
away " part of the programme being conspicuously absent, 
however, and he, like President McKinley, promptly concluded 
that his duty was to "take care" that the "supreme law of 
the land " be " faithfully executed," without allowing the national 
sovereignty to be flouted, and the national flag to be insulted, 
while waiting for Congress to "declare war " against " insur- 
gents." Precisely like President McKinley, he " struck back," 
with all the national strength. In due course of time his acts 
were subjected to the judicial scrutiny of the Supreme Court 
of the^ United States; and the constitutional doctrines then 
laid down could not more completely cover the present emer- 
gency if the court had been gifted with prescience. 
VOL. LXIX. 35 



546 THE PHILIPPINE INSURRECTION, [July. 

AN APPOSITE UTTERANCE OF THE SUPREME COURT. 

In the collection of cases generally styled " The Prize 
Cases," reported in 2 Black, page 665, the court says : " As a 
civil war is never publicly proclaimed, eo nomine against insur- 
gents, its actual existence is a fact in our domestic history 
which the court is bound to notice and to know. The true 
test of its existence, as found in the writings of the sages of 
the common law, may be thus summarily stated: 'When the 
regular course of justice is interrupted by revolt, rebellion, or 
insurrection, so that the courts of justice cannot be kept open, 
civil war exists, and hostilities may be prosecuted on the same 
footing as if those opposing the government were foreign ene- 
mies invading the land.' 

" By the Constitution, Congress alone has the power to de- 
clare a national or foreign war. It cannot declare war against 
a State, or any number of States, by virtue of any clause of 
the Constitution. 

"The Constitution confers on the President the whole execu- 
tive power. He is bound to take care that the laws be faith- 
fully executed. He is commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several 
States when called into the actual service of the United States. 
He has no power to initiate or declare a war either against a 
foreign nation or a domestic State. But by the acts of Con- 
gress of February 28, 1795, and 3d of March, 1807, he is au- 
thorized to call out the militia and use the military and naval 
forces of the United States in case of invasion by foreign 
nations, and to suppress insurrection against the government of 
a State or of the United States. 

"If a war be made by invasion of a foreign nation, the 
President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by 
force. He does not initiate the war, but is bound to accept 
the challenge without waiting for any special legislative authority. 
And whether the hostile party be a foreign invader, or States 
organized in rebellion, it is none the less a war, although the 
declaration of it be unilateral." . . . 

" The battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma had 
been fought before the passage of the act of Congress of May 
13, 1846, which recognized 'a state of war as existing by the act 
of the Republic of Mexico' This act not only provided for the 
future prosecution of the war, but was itself a vindication and 
ratification of the act of the President in accepting the 



1899-] AND THE VOICE OF THE COURTS. 547 

challenge without a previous formal declaration of war by Con- 
gress. The greatest of civil wars was not gradually developed 
by popular commotion, tumultuous assemblies, or local unor- 
ganized insurrections. However long may have been its previous 
conception, it nevertheless sprung forth suddenly from the 
parent brain, a Minerva in the full panoply of zvar. The Presi- 
dent was bound to meet it in the shape it presented itself, 
without waiting for Congress to baptize it with a name ; and no 
name given to it by him or them could change the fact." 

Thus does the Supreme Court dispose of the attacks upon 
the President for discharging his plain, manifest constitutional 
duty. In the war of 1861-65 the President was confronted with 
organized rebellion by States against the sovereignty of the 
Nation; and "was bound to meet it in the shape it presented 
itself, without waiting for Congress to baptize it with a name." 
In the Philippine insurrection of 1899 the President was con- 
fronted with rebellion by local insurrection against the sov- 
ereignty of the nation ; and " was bound to meet it in the 
shape it presented itself, without waiting for Congress to bap- 
tize it with a name "; and is required to " take care " that the 
Treaty of Paris, which is now " the supreme law of the land," 
be " faithfully executed " in the Philippine Islands until such 
time as Congress, in the exercise of its plenary power " to dis- 
pose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting 
the territory or other property belonging to the United States," 
shall determine upon the final disposition to be made of the 
islands and their inhabitants. 

ARE THE MALAY AND PAPUAN INHABITANTS OF THE PHILIPPINES 
A JURISTIC "PEOPLE" OR SOCIETY? 

We hear much, nowadays, about our alleged abandonment 
of the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence ; and with as much historical, philosophical, and legal 
truth as is contained in the assertion that our government went 
to war in 1861 "to free the negroes." 

The framers of that immortal Declaration, statesmen, publi- 
cists, philosophers, and lawyers, in speaking of " a people," and 
of all governments deriving their just powers from the " con- 
sent of the governed," were certainly not themselves so fantas- 
tically idiotic as to dream that their words would be taken to 
apply to individual men, or to heterogeneous masses of indivi- 
dual human beings, not constituting the moral entity known as 
social and civil society. Government, in the juristic sense of 



548 THE PHILIPPINE INSURRECTION. [July, 

the word, as contradistinguished from the family or even tribal 
meanings applied to it, presupposes the existence of organic 
social and civil society ; in other words, a juristic organic " peo- 
ple," from the consent of which alone it can derive its just 
powers. 

Such a jural society or " people " must, of plain philo- 
sophical necessity, and in the nature of things, contain five ele- 
ments, viz.: 

1. A multitude of people inhabiting definite territory. 

2. The possession by that multitude of substantial unity of 
social and civil end. 

3. The knowledge by that multitude of this unity of social 
and civil end. 

4. The desire of that multitude for the attainment of this 
social and civil end. 

5. The conscious conspiration of that multitude for the at- 
tainment of this social and civil end. 

No jural society, civil and politic, no jural " people," nation, 
or state ever has existed, or in the essence of things can exist, 
short of this analysis. Can it be pretended, in the face of his- 
tory, that such a moral entity exists organically among the 
mass of Malay, Papuan, Chinese, and mongrel half-breed inhabi- 
tants of the Philippine Islands ? 

It may be developed, yes. But until it is evolved there will 
be no society capable of giving the " consent of the governed " 
spoken of in the Declaration of Independence. 





1 899.] REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS. 549 



REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS IN 
ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 

BY REV. C. A. WALWORTH. 
III. 

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ENGLISH HIERARCHY. ITS EFFECT 
ON THE PROTESTANTS AT HANLEY AND UPTON. 
I 

HE deliberations at Rome which resulted in the 
constitution of a new Hierarchy for England 
are understood to have occupied some five years. 
Of all this I knew nothing until its actual es- 
tablishment. It was announced in all the 
churches of England as early as October 27, 1850, and a week 
earlier in the churches placed under the immediate jurisdiction 
of Dr. Wiseman himself, as Archbishop of Westminster, who re- 
ceived also the additional title of Cardinal. The announcement 
was first made public by the Cardinal himself, in a communi- 
cation to Dr. Whitty, Vicar-General of the London District. I 
was then attached to the Redemptorist house at Hanley, in 
Worcestershire. 

The letter is generally designated as the Pastoral, or letter 
from the Flaminian Gate. 

The establishment of a Catholic Hierarchy with local titles 
derived from English soil was, of course, a religious right. It 
belonged to freedom of worship. It was a surprise to most of 
us, but a joyous one. I confess, however, that I was not with- 
out much apprehension of the consequences. There was some, 
thing in the tone of the Pastoral which sounded like the flour- 
ish of trumpets, or the flaunting of a red flag before the eyes 
of a bull ; and I felt sure it would be so received by a preju- 
diced Protestant population. 

The Anglican clergy, particularly the bishops, were by no 
means insensible to the social advantages which the state gave 
them in exchange for their religious dependence. Catholics, 
even, were not wanting to manifest their delight that not only 
our bishops would be put on an equality with Anglican pre- 
lates, but that the new cardinal would have a claim to social 
precedence. Catholics of a thoughtful temperament prophe- 



550 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [July, 

sied that mischief would likely arise from this social relation, 
and regretted that the Cardinal in his Pastoral had not adopted 
a humbler and more spiritual tone in announcing this great 
event to the Faithful. 

Whatever causes may be assigned, the result of the estab- 
lishment of the new Hierarchy, when published, was a perfect 
storm of popular indignation. Protestant England was thor- 
oughly aroused. Bigotry, always ready, sounded all its trum- 
pets, and prejudice, always credulous, listened with all its ears. 
A Hierarchy for Catholics in England ! What could that 
mean but a religious invasion, a papal aggression. Meetings 
were speedily summoned in town and country, in large halls 
and in the open air. It seemed as if the riots aroused by Lord 
George Gordon, not long before, were on the eve of being re- 
vived. Things did not really come to so violent a pass, but mobs 
were not infrequent. We had one at Upton-on-Severn, only four 
miles south of Hanley, the charge of which station had been 
committed to me. We had a very pretty little chapel there, 
recently completed, where I preached on Sundays and visited 
catechumens two or three times a week. This mob did me the 
honor of escorting me out of the town, carrying behind me an 
effigy intended to resemble the Pope, but they did not Inter- 
fere with our services in the chapel, or with the little pony and 
wagon which had brought me from Hanley. After I had driven 
home they carried the " Holy Father " across the Severn, well 
tarred, and burned him there. 

Outside of England, and among Catholics, I have always 
found the idea prevailing that the establishment of the new 
Hierarchy in England was simply a grand step forward on the 
part of Catholics and an unmixed blessing. It is well enough 
understood that it was received by the Protestants of England 
with a very general feeling of indignation. This was to be ex- 
pected as a matter of course. But this indignant feeling is 
supposed to have died away after a few weeks, with little 
damage done to Catholic interests. It gave rise to the " Ec- 
clesiastical Titles Bill," so called, which made it a penalty for 
any Catholic nominee to a bishopric, or archbishopric, or dean- 
ery in England or Ireland, to assume the title. The penalty 
affixed amounted to a hundred pounds for each offence. This 
law, however, has never since been enforced ; it remained a 
dead-letter for twenty years, when it was quietly repealed by 
Mr. Gladstone. 

The belief prevails generally, at least in America, that the 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 551 

Catholic faith in the United Kingdom has never received any 
serious damage from the introduction of the Hierarchy. That 
the Catholic cause has benefited largely by this wise and grand 
step is unquestionable. It would, however, be a strange forget- 
fulness on the part of any one who lived in England at the 
time to say that no harm was done, not even a temporary 
damage. To feel hunted in a country on account of one's re- 
ligious belief is a painful thing. To be avoided by friends who 
showed themselves kindly in the past is also painful. To be 
met or followed by scowls is often profitable to the soul, but 
all who have hearts must needs feel it. The storm which 
burst over our heads in Great Britain in 1850, at the opening 
of its autumn, brought with it a more serious damage than all 
this. It stopped a vast number of conversions to the true 
church. These conversions were taking place like a tide. I 
myself had a constant class of catechumens, varying from 
half a dozen to a dozen. Some of these I gathered together 
at Upton-on-Severn. Some of them resorted to me at our 
house in Hanley, and some of them I visited at their own 
homes in cottages and farm-houses. The same work was going 
on in country places throughout the breadth of the land. 
Where Newman, Faber, Petcherine, and other notable converts 
preached or lectured in large cities, or country districts, crowds 
of the higher and more educated classes gathered to listen, and 
were either then and there taken into the church, or received 
impressions which led to conversion later. Was it no serious 
damage to check and almost stop such a tide of conversions? 
In point of fact this work will always continue to some degree, 
but at the time of which we speak the flow of souls to Catho- 
lic unity was like a flood-tide ; and that tide was suddenly 
checked. A terror was spread through the land which reached 
down to every hamlet and family. The movements of the 
Catholic clergy were closely watched. The movements of Pro- 
testants suspected of any leaning Romeward were carefully 
observed and made the subject of talk, and a universal espion- 
age thus established, which amounted to a social persecution 
and often to actual violence. In one case a married woman, 
who was accustomed to come to me a long distance for in- 
struction in the catechism, told me that her husband made a 
point to beat her whenever he heard of these visits. The dis- 
tance she came was so great that he generally heard of it. I 
went on purpose to meet him at the house of her parents on 
a day when I knew he would be there. He was there. She 



552 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [July, 

and her parents were there also, and all in the same room. Her 
parents were alarmed at my visit, but greeted me civilly. She 
trembled with fear. He sat by himself, close to the fire, with his 
back to the rest of us, and never turned his head. After greet- 
ing the others, I went up to him and offered my hand. He would 
not take it, nor answer any of my questions. I said to him: 

" I have come on purpose to speak to you, and meet you, 
and hear from you." 

Then I reasoned with him very gently upon his behavior 
towards his wife, until at last he spoke. 

"What can I do?" said he; "for my part I don't care 
whether she is a Catholic or not, but the parson does. We are 
living on church land, in one of his houses. He has threatened 
to turn me out unless I keep her away from the Catholics. I 
told him that I had done my best, but could not keep her 
away from the Catholics, and I could not help it. ' You could 
help it,' said he, ' if you cared to ; and I shall see that you do.' 
I said to him: 'What more do you expect me to do? I have 
scolded her, and swore at her, and beat her, and picked at her. 
Do you want me to kill her ? ' 

I continued to reason with him, but with all gentleness, for 
I felt that both he and his wife were living under the domina- 
tion of a reign of terror, and were both worthy of pity. The 
persecution of the husband ceased from that time. I never 
heard that the threatened ejectment took place. My impression 
is, that my interference was sufficiently public to have had 
something to do with the protection of both man and wife. 

The excess of terror excited among the people, especially 
the more ignorant and credulous, at this critical period had 
sometimes a ridiculous aspect. A very respectable widow wo- 
man in the neighborhood of Hanley was told that the Catholics 
were not only determined to take possession of England and 
introduce Popery, but that the next step would be to kill all 
the Protestants. She finally not only yielded to the general 
clamor, by allowing herself to be silenced, but actually believed 
it. The determination to which she came was that it would be 
wiser to join the victorious Romans at once, rather than wait 
to be killed. She therefore sent for the priest to come to 
her house, for she was an invalid. He came accordingly. 
She asked to be received into the church, and gave for 
her reason that she did not wish to be killed. Of course 
she was helped to better motives before her request was 
complied with, but she did become a Catholic and a good one. 



l8 99-! w ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 553 

This incident I mention in the briefest way, and only to 
show how suddenly religious excitement and bigotry may work 
its way in alarming right meaning people, until fear reaches a 
state of perfect terror. 

Storms soon pass over, but they always produce some mis- 
chief. These mischiefs are sometimes very damaging, and the 
damages are sure to remain after the storm is ended. Much 
harvesting may be prevented. The laborers most interested in 
the work of harvesting will, of course, feel this the most and 
remember the damage done longest. Their disappointment 
makes a part of true history, and the annals of history should 
not forget that part. 

If any blame in all this is justly attributable to Cardinal 
Wiseman, no one can deny that he made up for it promptly 
and manfully. He roused all his energies to meet the emer- 
gency, like a giant awaking from a dream. He shifted no re- 
sponsibilities from his own shoulders to others. Every Catho- 
lic was made to feel that his hand was the one at the helm 
and that Peter's Ship would ride the waves in safety. 

I never kept any records of these transactions in England, 
although living there during the height of the storm and ex- 
pecting to die there. Many important dates form no part of 
my memories. The same may be said of various documentary 
monuments belonging to the crisis. One document I remem- 
ber very distinctly. This was a petition, or remonstrance, put 
forth by the Cardinal-Archbishop against the proposed " Eccle- 
siastical Titles Bill." This remonstrance was circulated through 
all our Catholic parishes to be read in church and receive 
Catholic signatures. This duty was assigned to me for the 
church at Hanley. After reading the remonstrance and the 
letter of directions which accompanied it, I stationed myself at 
the porch of the church, with pen, ink, and paper lying upon 
a table by which every one must pass, and there received the 
names. We were directed to give a prominent place in the 
petition to Catholics of rank or special note. This included 
not only the name of Squire Hornyhold, a great land-holder 
in the township and nearly allied to the Talbots of Alton 
Towers, but a number of noble names who were often seen 
worshipping in our chapel, especially visitors at Malvern 
Abbey and Little Malvern Springs, villages which lay on the 
eastern slope of the Malvern Hills and adjoining our township 
on the west. 

It was, of course, important that these names of the gentry 



554 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [July, 

should be found on the petition and be brought to the notice of 
the Queen and her Parliament, who would be more impressed at 
the sight than I was. Yet even I received a surprise when a deli- 
cate hand took the pen from me and left on the paper only a 
single word. The word was " Kenmare." I saw that such a 
name would go to the government with emphasis. I felt the 
emphasis myself, but differently. To the government it would 
stand forth as a present important fact. To an American 
mind like mine it looked backward, and was history. My own 
imagination during that eventful morning was more impressed 
by a different picture, which was not by any means a castle 
in the air. I saw the whole of Catholic England engaged in 
writing a letter of remonstrance. It was the whole body of 
loyal Catholics in England sitting, as it were, at one table 
writing to their Queen and asking to be protected in their 
right to worship God according to their conscience. It was 
something still more than this. It was the same body of Eng- 
lish subjects loyal also to purely spiritual power, the Vicar of 
Jesus Christ on earth, protesting in his name and in their own, 
protesting against a threatened injustice, an injustice which, if 
carried out, would not only be a wrong, but become a re- 
ligious persecution. 

There was a certain glow of earnestness and self-conscious- 
ness pervading the whole crowd of signers, which I could feel 
at the time and consequently remember well now. Catholic 
England stood ranged under its two sovereigns, spiritual and 
temporal, and every mind and every heart was made to feel 
the distinction most distinctly. Out of this, necessarily, grew 
a great confidence in the leadership of that master mind at 
whose bidding they affixed their signatures. I stood at only 

one church doorway, but I seemed to be present at a great 
many more. 

IV. 

THE GREAT APOSTLE OF PROTESTANT CONVERSION TO THE TRUE 
CHURCH. DISTINCTIVE TRAITS OF JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 

It is now our time to pass from the consideration of the 
great scholar, divine, church dignitary and leader, Nicholas 
Wiseman, to the portraiture of another mind, equally intellec- 
tual, equally noble, and far more spiritual. The Catholic his- 
tory of our day will have its apostle. Canonized or uncanon- 
ized, a form will tower above all others as the apostle of this 



1 899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 



555 



century ! The church of our day has, as she always has had, 
her hidden souls, her secluded flowers of sanctity, with a 
beauty only partially revealed, or only locally recognized, be- 
cause cloistered by vows or screened by humanity. She has, also, 
her canonized saints, brought to the church's special notice by a 
miraculous hand from heaven, or by such a testimony of heroic 
virtues as human reason cannot reasonably resist. But when we 
name a child of the church as an apostle, we mean something 
more than all this. Some of these holy spirits may be made 
known to the wide world only after their death. The church, for 
instance, has a paleontology of her own. A little slab of marble 
or other stone, with perhaps only a name with one word, perhaps 
one or two figures to mark the years of life, perhaps some- 
times a palm-branch cut on the stone ; if not that, a vial con- 
taining blood like a fossil shell or fern, is enough to make a 
revelation so far as it goes. But it does not go very far. It 
does not make a portraiture. It brings before us the name of 
some Christian who lived, had his time of probation, and we 
are able to classify him as a martyr. But we have little to 
distinguish him from many others of the same class. He must 
have had, in his day, a personality of his own, in many re- 
spects quite different from any one else. But this personality, 
this individuality, is not known to us. The church may have 
proofs enough to canonize him, and by this we know that 
heaven holds his spirit ; and if we feel prompted to erect a 
shrine to his memory, we have the church's guarantee and feel 
safe in doing it. 

When we name John Henry Newman the individual man 
stands out before us, not endorsed as yet by any seal or sig- 
nature of the church. We have the man, however, in full form 
and color. He is not a mere fact in history. He belongs to 
biography.' His home was in England, but he has written the 
facts of his life on a record which the wide world holds in its 
possession, and will not lose. We know him as a deeply 
spiritual man, a holy man. To England, an apostle ; to Chris- 
tianity, a great light. But even in his great character as an 
apostle there is a wonderful peculiarity which attaches to him, 
which makes him out as something distinct from all other 
apostolic men of this age or of any other. Newman's pecu- 
liar vocation and life-work was to bring Protestants, especially 
English Protestants, back to the ancient and only fold of 
Christ. 

Of course, like all other men, he had to look after his own 



556 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [July, 

salvation. But we are speaking of him as a workman in the 
vineyard of Christ. He had a special call from Heaven which 
was peculiarly his own. He could not have recognized this 
call in his early years. He grew up to it by a slow conscious- 
ness. As he himself expressed it before his conversion, he was 
only conscious that a "kindly light" was leading him, but 
whither he could not say. His way was dark, and patiently 
and submissively he uttered his memorable prayer, " One step 
enough for me." 

His own conversion came at last. He stood in the sanc- 
tuary of the Holy Church, a Catholic. He was one of a body 
of men, constituting a visible society, a definite and corporate 
Christian union, to which no beginning can be assigned later 
than the beginning of Christianity. What was his vocation to 
be henceforth? Myriads of disciples looked after him with 
longing and loving eyes who hesitated to follow his example, 
though they belonged to a wide and strong current which was 
flowing Romeward. These circumstances are evident marks of 
the Divine Will. God has opened to him a field of action, 
and in that field his life-work lies. His vocation is manifestly 
to lead his old companions and followers back to that fold 
where his own heart had found rest. This was Dr. Newman's 
own deep conviction. It lay at the very centre of his soul. 
No man can understand Dr. Newman who fails to comprehend 
these signs of his apostleship, or loses sight of them. By this 
light we must read his true character. In this light his motives 
stand revealed. If some Catholics, who should have known 
him better, misconstrued him and opposed him by this light, 
we can sympathize with his disappointments and sorrows. 

Who can forget the cry that came forth from Dr. Newman's 
heart when it became manifest that Pope Pius IX., and the 
majority of the bishops who composed the Vatican Council, 
were determined to press forward to a formal definition the 
doctrine of Papal Infallibility ! He himself was ready to re- 
ceive it, but how would it tell upon the prospects of the true 
Faith among Anglicans? "It will put the conversion of Eng- 
land back full fifty years!" These words came forth to the 
world like the wail of a broken heart. 

In like manner all Newman's triumphs and hours of purest 
joy grew out of this peculiar devotion of his to that one same 
cause of England's conversion. 

In the winter of 1879 Newman was appointed Cardinal by 
Leo XIII. This was a triumph in the great cause of Eng- 



1899.] /tf ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 557 

land's conversion. It was a seal of approbation upon Newman's 
life-work. He felt this in the very depths of his soul. He 
made no pretence of concealing his joy. To his own brethren 
of the Oratory he said : " The cloud is lifted from me for 
ever." (See Ullathorne's letter to Manning of March 4, 1879; 
Purcell's Life of Manning, vol ii. p. 567.) As soon as able, he 
hastened to Rome to express his gratitude to the Vicar of 
Christ. The manner in which this was done was a subject of 
merriment to his companions of the Oratory. I cannot refrain 
from giving a brief account of it, received from one of these. 

On arriving at the Holy City, without a dream of using 
any formality, he hastened to the Vatican. He sent no an- 
nouncement of his arrival beforehand, took no means to arrange 
for an interview, but simply dropped in. The Pope, who had 
served in the time of his predecessor as camerlengo, was per- 
fectly capable of appreciating the joke, but received the new 
Cardinal in the same spirit of simplicity. In this way, some- 
times, " nice customs curtsy to great kings." An illustrious 
Pontiff of the church was closeted with England's great apos- 
tle, and both were joyful. Was anything else needful to that 
meeting ? 

It ought not to be a surprise to any one interested in John 
Henry Newman to find that he encountered in his .life-time 
great adversities, as well as periods of prosperity ; that he had 
times of bitter grief, as well as hours of joy. Such is the lot 
of all men. But can it be that such a man had enemies ? Can 
it be even that it was his lot to find adversaries in the very 
circle of his seeming friends, amongst men engaged with him 
in a common cause, and that cause religion ? Can it be that 
he was assailed, accused, or misrepresented by brethren, har- 
bored, like himself, in the very bosom of the church ? Yet so 
it was. Newman's position was made more painful by a peculiar 
embarrassment which rendered it difficult for him to speak his 
mind plainly, while at the same time circumstances would not 
allow him to maintain a complete reserve. In other words, 
he mistrusted some with whom he had to deal constantly, and 
with whom he would be supposed, naturally, to mingle on 
terms of friendship. The reader will easily conjecture what I 
mean by perusing the following extract from a letter dated 
August 10, 1867 : 

" MY DEAR : 



" You are quite right in thinking that the feeling of which, 



558 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [July, 

alas ! I cannot rid myself in my secret heart, . . . has 
nothing to do with the circumstance that you may be taking 
a line in ecclesiastical matters which does not approve itself to 
my judgment. 

" Certainly not ; but you must kindly bear with me, though 
I seem rude to you, when I give you the real interpretation 
of it. I say frankly then, and as a duty of friendship, that it 
is a distressing mistrust, which now for four years past I have 
been unable in prudence to dismiss from my mind, and which 
is but my own share of a general feeling (though men are slow 
to express it, especially to your immediate friends), that you 
are difficult to understand. I wish I could get myself to be- 
lieve that the fault was my own, and that your words, your 
bearing, and your implications ought, though they have not, 
served to prepare me for your acts. 

"No explanations offered by you at present in such a 
meeting [a meeting proposed by the other party] could go to 
the root of the difficulty, as I have suggested it. 

" It is only as time goes on that new deeds can reverse the 
old. There is no short cut to a restoration of confidence when 
confidence has been seriously damaged. 

"Yours affectionately, 
"JOHN H. NEWMAN." 

Enough ; we care to go no further on this line. The very 
subject is fraught with delicacies and difficulties before which 
the writer feels forced to pause. Newman's sky was overhung 
with clouds like those enumerated above. Such clouds at 
times breed tempests in the soul. Souls that are gentle and 
loving are made to suffer acutely in rough weather of this 
kind. Souls that are full of apostolic zeal have more to bear 
than belongs to ordinary nature. They are impeded in the 
labor they love most, in the work they are doing for God. 
Their pains are something supernatural. They are wearing a 
crown of thorns. Only saints can appreciate the trials they 
suffer. Such was the life of John Henry Newman. Such trials, 
of course, have their alleviations. Religious England loved 
John Henry Newman. There is something historically wonder- 
ful in the love which clustered around his secluded but never 
lonely life. There was no solitude possible to him where the 
alleviations of sympathy could not reach him. His actual dis- 
ciples were many, and they, of course, understood him best. 
But behind them stood an admiring and loving multitude of 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 559 

English hearts to whom he was a magnet. Of course he had 
good reason to know this well, and it filled his life with alle- 
viations. 

John Henry Newman was not destined to be a Savonarola. 
It was not the will of God to leave him without a grave, or 
cover his life with a silence. On the contrary, there came a 
sunlight to his old age. It came from an unexpected quarter, 
and never left him thereafter. The eyes of Leo XIII. fixed 
themselves most benignantly upon him, and set a seal upon 
him and upon the fruit of his labors. This enabled him to 
utter those memorable words which time cannot erase : " The 
cloud is lifted from me for ever." 

For ever is a far-reaching word. In the most limited mean- 
ing which Newman could intend by it, it was sufficient to cover 
the rest of his life in this world. We know that, in fact, eleven 
years and more of life were still reserved for him. His nomi- 
nation to the cardinalate took place early in the year 1879; 
his death was in 1890, and at a later season of the year. This 
was the cloudless period of Newman's life. Views and opinions 
of his were sometimes controverted and not by unfriendly 
hands. He could meet such assailants with a manly serenity 
and yet not feel that his sky was overclouded. We may, there- 
fore, look upon the latter years of Newman's life as years of 
a joyous tranquillity. Bodily infirmity and the ordinary trials 
of life could not take away the peace of such a soul as his. 

The last words of Newman when dying must be interpreted 
with a reference to that joyous expression of deliverance from 
sorrow with which he hailed the sunlight which Leo XIII. had 
cast upon his soul eleven years before. He was speaking to 
the questioning eye of the companions of his cloister. He was 
speaking to them and to a host of loving countrymen behind 
them. Perhaps and it is sweet to think so, perhaps he had 
also in his thought some of us, disciples and lovers, whose 
home is in America. Let not your hearts be troubled about 
the future, he intended to say. He said : " All is light ! The 
hostilities that once threatened to bar out this dear old land 
against conversion have been silenced. Whatever struggles 
may still come to our cause, the cloud is lifted from England, 
and lifted for ever. I leave the world now with this sunlight 
in my soul." 



J\ Hock of marHc caugbi tDe glance 

Of Bu on aro ili's eves, 
WDicD DrigDtened in tDeir solemn deeps, 

tike meteor lisbtcd skies. 

rtnd one who stood Deside Dim listened. 

Smiling as he heard ; 
for, " I will make an angel or it ! " 

Was tDe sculptor's word. 

Und soon mallet and chisel sharp 
Che stubborn block assailed, 

rtnd now bv How, and pang Dp pang, 
Che prisoner unveiled. 

H trow was lifted. DigD and pure ; 

Che wak'ning eves outshone ; 
flnd as tDe master sDarpip wrougDt, 

rt smile broke through tDe stone ! 

Beneath tDe cDisers edge, tDe Dair 

escaped in rioating rings ; 
rtnd. plume Dp plume, was slowlp freed 

tDe sweep or half furled wings. 

Che statelp Dust and graceful limbs 

CDeir marble retters sDed, 
flnd wDere tDe sDapeiess Dlock Dad Deen, 

Jin angel stood instead ! 

Dlows tDat smite! Durts tDat pierce 
C his shrinking heart or mine ! 

WDat are pe Dut tDe master's tools 
forming a work divine? 

Dope tDat crumDles to mp reet ! 

jop tDat mocks, and flies ! 
\VDat are pe Dut tDe clogs tDat Dind 

mp spirit rrom tDe skies? 

Sculptor or souls ! I lift to tbcc 
ncumDered heart and hands : 

Spare not tDe cDisel ! set me rree, 
however dear tDe lands. 

ftow Dlest, if all these seeming ills 
\VDicD draw mp tDougDts to tDee 

SDould onip prove tDat tDou wilt make 
Hn angel out or me ! 




ALL lovers of honest literary workmanship must 
join all lovers of scholarly hagiography in rejoic- 
ing at the testimonial of public appreciation that 
is represented by the demand for a third edition 
of Mother Francis Raphael Drane's St. Catherine 
of Sienna. Aside from the fact that the present edition is 
in several respects more acceptable to eye and hand than 
the first, little new can be said of the work, since it has 
already received world-wide recognition and commendation. 
The gifted English convert who became prioress of St. Cather- 
ine's at Stone is an easy rival for the honors sought by M. 
Joly and his confreres in their laudable attempt to reform the 
methods traditionally employed in writing the lives of saints. 
We know from Mother Raphael's Memoirs the indefatigable 
scholarship expended upon the collation and verification of 
sources of information. The book under discussion bears abund- 
ant evidence of this ; and it does, moreover, what no writing 
about it can do : it convinces the reader of the amenability of 
strict scientific truthfulness to the charms and graces of elegant 
literature. 5^. Catherine deserves wide and enthusiastic patron- 
age as a model of saintly biography. Adherence to this 
model and improvement upon it is an indispensable ally to 
the great Apostolic movement which is to make the English- 
speaking world Catholic. And a Catholicity nourished by 
books such as this must inevitably be a strong, vigorous, self- 
reliant Catholicity, blithely conscious of its superiority to the 
best that hedonistic culture can produce. 

But is the manner of Mother Francis Raphael's work alone 
to be commended as the reason for a third edition? Hardly. 
The most gratifying feature of this bit of news from the book 
market is the reflection that the Virgin of Sienna, the Mystic 
Spouse of Christ, the frail incarnation of supernatural power 
who wrought marvels in the social and ecclesiastical politics of 
VOL. LXIX. 36 



562 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [July, 

the thirteenth century, finds a cordial, world-wide welcome at 
the dawn of the twentieth. It may seem an insignificant de- 
tail, that in an hour when the world is deluged with books 
there should be a demand for three thousand copies of the 
life of St. Catherine of Sienna. But to the thinking mind the 
very environment makes this detail all the more significant. 

The sum of St. Catherine's perfection was fidelity to the 
person of Christ, his humanity and his divinity. In the mys- 
teries of his communications with her we find the dawn of de- 
votion to the Sacred Heart. And thus she at once becomes 
in our eyes very close to the spirit of the twentieth century, 
whose jubilee is proclaimed by a Pope after St. Catherine's 
ideal, in terms that epitomize the characteristic devotion of 
our age. St. Catherine received the stigmata, and thus she is 
united to the mystery of Calvary, becoming a comrade of the 
holy women on whose hearts the vision of Christ's wounds 
was imprinted during the long hours of His Agony. St. 
Catherine, therefore, like every close imitator of Christ, is a 
link between the present and the beginning of Christianity ; 
and thus the popularity of her biography among us is another 
reminder of the marvellous similarity that grows from day to 
day between our imperial times and the majestic Roman peace 
of Augustus ; times of peace without and of anguish within ; 
times of solid governments and of despairing hearts; times 
of civil liberty and of private tyranny ; times of public en- 
lightenment and of souls in darkness, where there is weeping 
and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Oh, may St. Catherine 
pray for our age, and leaven it with the virile power of her 
unflinching sanctity! 

The date of a State's admission to the Union, or the fami- 
liarity of its colonial history, does not fix the value of its 
contribution to our national life, nor must our country's ideals 
be framed upon the virtues, however admirable, of any one 
section of the community. From the pen of an author whose 
name is a guarantee of excellence comes a fascinating little 
volume called Stories of the Old Bay State* It is professedly 
written to foster a broad national spirit rather than simply to 
gratify State pride, but unconsciously and quite pardonably it 
arrogates to the influence of Massachusetts all the virtues in 
the American character. Underlying the ever-entertaining ac- 

* Stories of the Old Bay State. By Elbridge S. Brooks. New York: American Book 
Company. 



I8 99-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 563 

counts of Pilgrim adventure, colonial struggle, and State grandeur 
lurks the insular illusion of the superiority of New England's 
remote ancestors to the rest of God's creation. " John Win- 
throp was one of the noblest of men and of Englishmen," and 
we smile indulgently at the order of classification as we turn 
the page. Yet we must envy the Massachusetts boy this in- 
spiring and character-forming tale of his State's glories and his 
fellow-townsmen's heroic deeds, and at first reading we all wish 
our birthplace had been near Captain Welch's great wooden 
codfish. Let Americans, old and young, admire in these stories 
the excellence of New England's contribution to American 
character, and let us hope that authors as entertaining and as 
earnest as Mr. Brooks will rival his new book with similar de- 
scriptions of New York's Dutch substantiality and domestic 
virtues ; Maryland's initiation of religious liberty ; the South's 
chivalrous regard for woman, and the romance of the ancient 
Spanish-American missions planted from Florida to California ; 
the West's broad tolerance bred of race-fusion, and the Middle 
States' unquestioning patriotism and support of national policy 
in the past and in the present. The old Bay State, with all 
her claims upon our admiration, will yet find in her sister com- 
munities types of American nobility as grand as the heroes of 
Massachusetts for her boys and girls to imitate. 

A new edition of a poet* fifteen hundred years old, 
brought out not by an antiquarian enthusiasm but by a dis- 
cerning love of true poetry, is a laurel that few brows have 
won. Prudentius is a Spanish poet of the fourth century, 
who throughout the middle ages was more widely known 
among the people than any other writer. The Venerable 
Bede declared him the noblest scholar of Spain, and we 
learn from Milman that only the Bible appears with more 
glosses in High German. His writings were used as a book 
of popular instruction, and undoubtedly make up in devotion 
for what they lack in directness. The translation before us, 
which covers only a fraction of the Latin, shows a painstaking 
desire to set forth the beauties of the original, though the 
translator does not hesitate to improve upon his subject occa- 
sionally, as where one's last day of life, diem vicinum senio, 
is rendered as that day, the kinsman of old age. But we cannot 
admire changes that only serve to introduce bald lines, as in 
the following rendition : 

'* Songs from Prudentius. By Ernest Gilliat Smith. New York : John Lane. 



564 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [July, 

Quidnam sibi saxa cavata, 

Quid pulchra volunt monumenta? 

"And what is the tale which they tell us, 
These monuments, graved in white marble?" 

However, aside from all blemishes, this honest effort to 
make Prudentius better known among us deserves our grati- 
tude, and the beautiful sincerity and devotion of the old poet, 
who dedicated his mature years to atone for the dissipations 
of his youth, persuades us that he must have found favor in 
Heaven by these admirable efforts. We must regret that the 
Latin was not placed side by side with the English version. 

Sound Catholic fiction written particularly for boys is a 
modern want occasioned indirectly by rank sensationalism in 
popular reading matter. There was a time, before the present 
flood of cheap story-telling, when youngsters who found any 
pleasure in reading were satisfied with Scott, and excitement 
found its acme in the Arabian Nights or Baron Munchausen. 
The catechism and Robinson Crusoe stood for church and state 
respectively, and in every story hero and villain could be de- 
pended upon to remain true to their roles. Then came un- 
scrupulous business enterprise with its wild tales of unbridled 
adventure. Dime-novel methods of arousing interest overran 
literature for the young. Lawlessness and escapades did duty 
as romantic exploits, recklessness became courage, impudence 
was honored as independence, bragging and bullying paraded 
as manly self-reliance. To offset this pagan attack upon 
youthful ideals stories and story-papers for children made their 
appearance wherein exciting incidents were freely employed to 
recommend a narrative of moral, or at least not immoral, ten- 
dency. These laudable efforts to provide good reading were 
in large part put forth by non-Catholics, and in many instances 
have nobly succeeded. But just as a Catholic parent would 
prefer good Catholic children to good Protestants for his boy's 
companions, so a book presenting Catholic ideals with all the 
natural attractions we have admired in upright Protestants will 
best commend itself as a formative influence when choice is to 
be made among paper-clad intimates. The College Boy* by 
Anthony Yorke, pictures an inspiring example of manliness 
and conscientiousness that every young American should ad- 
mire. The experiences of a New York lad who leaves home 

* The College Boy. By Anthony Yorke. New York : Benziger Brothers. 



I8 99-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 565 

to attend a neighboring Catholic college, and the ordeals and 
adventures with which his career there is varied, afford laugh- 
able incidents in abundance and a sustained interest that cannot 
fail to demand a companion volume from the same pen. An 
exciting kidnapping and a rescue by a detective, a fire, a foot- 
ball game, and a thrilling struggle upon the base-ball diamond 
will make the book a long-remembered pleasure, and its moral 
influence, in spite of the slang that mars it, is just what a 
good Catholic father should wish to exert. 

Hand-in-hand with the world's dawning conviction of the 
impossibility of morality without religion, artists are learning 
that true esthetics must be founded in sound ethics. For in 
the field of esthetics, as in the broad realm of morality, tem- 
perance and order are essential to the. best work. Every liter- 
ary worker hopes to become a classic as defined by Brunetiere: 
"A classic is a classic because in his work all the faculties 
find their legitimate function without imagination overstepping 
reason, without logic impeding the flight of imagination, with- 
out sentiment encroaching on the rights of good sense, without 
good sense chilling the warmth of sentiment, without the 
matter allowing itself to be despoiled of the persuasive au- 
thority it should borrow from the charm of form, and without 
the form ever usurping an interest which should belong only 
to the matter." And if, as we know, a man writes himself 
into his book, it is easy to value a sane, well-ordered life 
among the forces of literature. Such a life speaks to us from 
the pages of Brother Azarias,* and illustrates the poise of the 
true artist. To the young man inspired with the ambition of 
attaining greatness in the world of letters no work can be 
more heartily recommended than his Philosophy of Literature, 
and we trust that the new edition just published will be ac- 
corded the appreciation it deserves. 

A collection of English fiction attacking the church and her 
representatives, with mild comments by that zealous foe of 
bigotry, Mr. James Britten, of the English Catholic Truth 
Society, has appeared in a second edition. f Mr. Britten's aim, 
as he tells us, has been to arouse among Catholics a sense of 
pity for the Protestant misconception of Catholic faith and 

* An Essay Contributing to a Philosophy of Literature. By Brother Azarias. Seventh 
edition. Philadelphia : John Joseph McVey. 

f Protestant Fiction. By James Britten, K.S.G. London : Catholic Truth Society. 



566 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [July, 

practice exemplified in his selections. To characterize these 
tales as very stupid mendacity might reflect upon the wisdom 
of according them any notice, but when we learn that one 
quite commonplace tale reached an edition of one hundred and 
seventy-five thousand copies, we may appreciate England's 
urgent need of the little work under review. 



I. NATURAL LAW AND LEGAL PRACTICE.* 

This work consists of lectures delivered at the Law School 
of Georgetown University. Father Holaind is professor of 
ethics and sociology at Woodstock College, he is lecturer on 
Natural and Canon Law at Georgetown University, and from 
these distinctions in the .great teaching body to which he be- 
longs we are prepared for a treatise of no ordinary excellence. 
Upon the whole this expectation is gratified ; but there are 
some matters to which we desire to call attention, as we are of 
opinion that in his treatment of these the learned writer re- 
quires correction. For instance, he seems to think that equity 
law is in its formal character the application of natural law to 
the purpose of supplying or remedying the defects of the 
statute law. The eminently scientific system which has grown 
up in England, and which is known as the equity jurisprudence 
of that country, is very far from any such discretional exercise 
of judicial knowledge or judicial impulsiveness. In the wide 
range of subtle and complicated decisions dealing with the law 
of trusts we find that the principles which underlie every 
judgment are few, and fixed ; and are easily understood when 
separated from the distinctions and refinements in which they 
are bedded. The principle on which equity intervenes is limited 
by the existence of an analogous principle at common law, 
and consequently is neither judicial legislation nor judicial repeal 
of legislation. 

Not even the current of cases arising out of the fourth 
section of the Statute of Frauds can be deemed a discretion- 
ary application of natural law to prevent the possibility of an 
injustice being worked by the operation of the statute. We 
use the term " discretionary application " according to the strict 
limit in which the word "discretion" is understood among 
lawyers ; that is, to signify a sound judgment exercised with a 

* Natural Law and Legal Practice, By Rene J. Holaind, S.J. New York : Benziger 
Brothers. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 567 

due regard to precedent or analogy in cases where there is 
nothing else to control or guide the judge. Even such a dis- 
cretionary application of the judge's view of the justice of the 
matter in hand is not heard of in a court of equity, of all 
courts the most highly technical and exact in the character 
of its proceedings. No doubt, in the growing complications of 
an increasing commercial system and the difficulties starting up 
from time to time as the artificial character of society becomes 
more marked as the years go on, new issues must spring 
up, relations not foreseen be evolved ; but this will mean no 
more than an accumulating number of reported cases. It is 
inconceivable that any relation, any complication, will be so 
entirely novel as not to fall within the meaning of some prin- 
ciple now established that is, an extension of the scope of it 
as at present defined. 

When we consider that a large part of equitable jurisdic- 
tion deals with the construction of instruments, it must at once 
be seen that a knowledge of the canons of construction is an 
essential part of the equipage of an equity lawyer; yet, can 
there be anything farther from the exercise of mere untrained 
ability than the precision of mind, the critical acumen, and the 
store of learning which must be brought to bear when a deed 
is to be interpreted according to scientific rules? And saying 
so much we have a very interesting and instructive episode 
from Father Holaind's work, which will serve to point our 
meaning in a way possibly calculated to surprise him. In a 
section of his chapter on justice we have " the contract of 
Shylock." He says he will borrow from a poet a fictitious 
case to show the "boundaries" between natural justice, "le- 
gality,"* and charity. The passage is familiar to our readers: 

"Shylock: This kindness will I show. 
Go with me to a notary, seal me there 
Your single bond ; and, in a merry sport, 
If you repay me not on such a day, 
In such a place, such sum or sums as are 
Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit 
Be nominated for an equal pound 
Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken 
In what part of your body pleaseth me. 

Antonio: Content, i' faith: I'll seal to such a bond." 

* He uses the word " legality" to signify something within the letter of the law, while 
elsewhere he employs it for everything we understand by the word legal as distinguished 
from equitable. 



568 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jul>> 

On this our author proceeds with his dissection of the 
" contract." It is contrary to natural law : Because nobody 
has the right to cut off a pound of his fair flesh, hence nobody 
can give that right to another. The mistake in this criticism is 
that the learned author forgets there is such a thing as muni- 
cipal law. Portia, whom he sneers at as a woman preferring to 
annul the contract by a quibble, does not lose sight of the 
force of the municipal law, which is binding until it is repealed. 
In a severe verbal criticism he attacks Austin* for saying that 
the distinction of law into natural and positive is a needless 
subtilty. All Austin means by the position is that the law of 
the land must be obeyed, and Portia recognized the same 
necessity by refusing to give a decision which would have in- 
troduced a dangerous precedent. Father Holaind is mistaken 
in thinking that Shylock's proposal to Antonio to seal the deed 
"in a merry sport" was not a material element in the inter- 
pretation of the contract. We say distinctly it was a material 
element ; and equity would then intervene to prevent the en- 
forcement of the penal condition, holding the bond merely as 
a security for the debt and treating the condition forfeiting 
the pound of flesh as mere surplusage. 

The truth is, that what we may call this leading case in 
fiction affords a very popular, and for the time namely, the 
infancy of equity jurisprudence an excellent illustration of 
the sense of the people concerning the letter of the law which 
works injustice and oppression, and their sympathy with any 
construction by which the authority of the law could be main- 
tained, while at the same time evils flowing from it should be 
prevented. At that time in England persons guilty o.f mone- 
tary contempt suffered life-long imprisonment. Under older 
legal systems, but then in force in parts of Continental Europe, 
the tyranny of the Roman law over the person of a debtor 
was practically unimpaired. Indeed, it was in this generation 
that a party ordered by Chancery to lodge in court money he 
had no more power to raise than he had power to raise the 
dead, escaped the doom of dying in jail. Here we have a 
very distinct instance of the conflict between the law of the 
land and natural justice, in which the latter had to give way. 
We have it, too, in a court the foundation and substance of 
whose administration are equitable ; and consequently there is 
something to support the proposition of Austin, ample ground 

* The Province of Jurisprudence Determined. 



l8 99-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 569 

for the play of fancy upon which the proceedings in Shylock 
v. Antonio rest. 

We must observe that Father Holaind in his judgment of this 
case displays an equal appreciation of legal principles and the 
rules of literary criticism. He holds the contract should have 
been annulled by Portia on the ground that it violated commuta- 
tive justice. Why ? Because there it not the equation of value 
between what is given and what is received. Is it possible that 
Father Holaind is not aware that equity will never intervene 
against a bargain and sale on the ground of the smallness of the 
consideration in respect of the value of the property unless there 
be evidence of fraud, or overreaching, or undue influence ? Of 
course the insufficiency of the amount, taken with other circum- 
stances, may become a badge of fraud, but in the absence of 
circumstances tending to show fraud -the bargain and sale will 
not be relieved against. For instance, if it were shown that a 
man had been made drunk to induce him to sign an agreement 
for the sale of land at a tenth of its value, and that he did 
sign it not knowing what he was doing, the agreement would 
be set aside in equity. But suppose both parties were at arm's 
length, perfectly independent of each other, like Shylock and 
Antonio, the agreement for the sale of the land for the amount 
just mentioned should stand. A court of equity could not step 
in, for there would be no equity that could be raised, but the 
raising of an equity is the essential condition of invoking the 
jurisdiction of that court. 

At the same time we must advert to the high standard by 
which the author would measure the value of laws. We must 
add that it is not even necessary that an absolutely ideal condi- 
tion of society should exist for the operation of his principles, 
legal and equitable. His laws would be equitable indeed, for they 
would be those of natural justice, that justice which, as Edmund 
Burke so finely says, is an emanation from the Divinity and 
which finds a place in the breast of each of us, which is given us 
as our guide with regard to ourselves and with regard to others, 
and which will be our accuser or our advocate when the great 
Judge calls upon us for the tenor of our lives. We await the 
coming of a better era ; we hope that Father Holaind's work 
is a herald of the dawn. We cannot say more in its praise. 



570 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [July* 

2. THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC TEACHER'S INSTITUTE.* 

There has come to our desk the announcement of the Pro- 
gramme of Teachers' Institutes for the current vacation season. 
It is pleasing to know that the good work that Mrs. Burke 
and her collaborateurs have inaugurated and carried on with so 
much efficiency during the last few years still continues. We 
were apprehensive that owing to worn health Mrs. Burke would 
be obliged to discontinue her labors. 

It requires no ordinary amount of physical stamina, as well 
as moral courage, to pioneer any movement which has for its 
purpose the following of better ideals or the uplifting of higher 
standards. There are always to be found some who are so 
wedded to older ways that they are unwilling to adopt the 
newer. There are sometimes to be found those who compla- 
cently imagine that they are in possession of all that is best, 
and, like the wise owl, are content with their semi-darkness. 
They deliberately shut their eyes to the sun, and say the light 
they have is enough and there is no other. 

There is no better proof that a movement is bearing fruit 
in abundance than that there are found some to carp at it ,and 
others to denounce it. We know not whether the Teacher's 
Institute movement has met with any opposition. We would 
think better of it if we knew that it had, and we would be- 
lieve more profoundly in its providential nature. 

That during the short period since its inception it has 
wrought a great good there is no manner of doubt. The most 
experienced educators in the country have watched it with 
keen critical eyes. They would not have been silent if they 
had found flaws in its system or in its workers, and cheerfully 
they have accorded the full meed of praise. 

This year there are to be a number of diocesan meetings 
besides the usual number of Institutes at the mother-houses of 
different religious communities. It is a mistake to say that a 
religious community of teaching sisters has a keen eye to their 
own advantage if they show themselves ready to adopt im- 
proved and approved methods of pedagogy. It would be nearer 
to the truth to say that they have no business in the educa- 
tional arena during these piping times of the apotheosis of edu- 
cation if they did not reach out in order to equip themselves 
in some becoming way for the struggle. If the church, with 

* The National Catholic Teacher's Institute. Mrs. B. Ellen Burke. Educational Lec- 
ture Bureau, 91 Fifth Avenue, New York. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 571 

all the force of her divine authority, insists that Catholic chil- 
dren shall be given a religious education, it is due to these 
children that there be imparted to them the best of secular edu- 
cation along with it. 

It is refreshing to see with what alacrity the Teaching Or- 
ders have risen to the opportunities that have been offered in 
these Teachers' Institutes. It is delightful to see with what 
aptness they have seized hold of and thoroughly assimilated 
the best that the educational world has offered. There is no 
more hopeful sign of the future of parochial education than to 
see the thousands of eager, consecrated women pursuing the 
higher ideals of pedagogy so that they may be fitted in the 
best sense to follow out their vocation. 

It is not the part of wisdom to be a " rainbow-chaser," but 
it is the part of wisdom to look at facts in all their meanings. 
These are some of the facts that are big with significances. In 
the first place, more and more is the non-Catholic world becom- 
ing convinced of the necessity of a religious education. In the 
second place, the actually existing system of schools which gives 
the best secular education conjoined with religious ideals will 
do more to demonstrate to educationists what should be than 
whole libraries of lectures. Such a system is our ideal, and we 
are making giant strides towards its attainment. Among our 
teaching communities are to be found the best educators in 
the country. They have not their peers in or out of profes- 
sional life. Any system that will in an unobtrusive way bring 
these educators together, permit them to compare notes, enable 
them to partake of each other's energy and experiences, bring 
to them all that is best in the outside educational world, is to 
be warmly commended. For these reasons, if* for no other, do 
we profoundly believe in the good of the Institute movement. 



QUERIES have come to us asking who is the author of the 
poem " Discipline," which we print on page 560 of this issue. 
The poem is reprinted from THE CATHOLIC WORLD MAGAZINE 
of February, 1869. We have consulted all our records and 
have not been able to discover who the author is. We print 
is again with the hope that some one who may read it will 
recognize it and will send us some word concerning its author- 
ship. 




THE Christian Science fad has the floor just 
now and is commanding the attention of all who 
are interested in the movements of religious 
thought. The health boards, backed by medical societies, are 
arraigning it before the civil courts. The non-Catholic religious 
journals look on with dismay at the crowds that are flocking 
to its banners and try to stem the tide by denouncing it as a 
" craze." In the meantime the Catholic world, with that self- 
centred poise that comes from the conscious possession of 
the truth, wonders how long this latest vagary will last and 
what wildness will come next. 

In all probability Christian Science has a partial reason for 
its existence in the materialism of the medical profession. 
One extreme invariably originates the opposite. A reaction 
always follows the affirmation of error. The medical profes- 
sion has made very little of the soul, and has taken into 
account in a very small degree the psychological influences of 
mind over matter. It has depended on the knife and the 
remedies of the pharmacopoeia almost entirely. Christian 
Science has obtained not a few of its adherents on account of 
the revulsion against the failures of the doctors who have 
depended upon medicine alone, and have made very little of 
the soul. It, of rourse, can point to a number of well-authen- 
ticated cases of " divine healing." In this it is not by any 
means unique. So can the most innocent quack medicine in 
the market. A large volume of letters full of most truthful 
and sincere statements, from many who have been really 
cured, can be offered in testimony of the efficiency of any 
proprietary medicine on the market. Anything from a bread 
pill to a rabbit's foot carried in one's pocket may stimulate 
the psychological agencies to bring about a cure. 

As a religious system Christian Science is founded on radi- 
cally erroneous principles. It flourishes partly through the 
fatuous tendency of so many to try to grasp what they 
cannot understand, and partly through the inherent passion 
for the novel and the strange. It will soon outlive its popu- 
larity and some other fad will cater to public taste. 



1899-] CATHOLICS IN THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. 



573 




FIRST LIEUTENANT THOMAS A. WANSBORO. 

CATHOLIC OFFICERS IN THE ARMY AND THE 

NAVY. 



FIRST LIEUTENANT THOMAS A. WANSBORO. 

THERE is an account in the October, 1898, issue of Scribner's 
of the regulars at El Caney, written by Captain Arthur H. 
Lee, R. A., from which we clip the following account of one of 
the skirmishes. It embodies in a few speaking sentences a de- 
scription of the subject of our sketch this month, which is a 
noble tribute from a soldier to a brother soldier: 

" The Seventh were suffering terribly at this point, but took 



574 CATHOLICS IN THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. [July, 

their medicine with heroic stoicism. The fire of the invisible 
sharpshooters snipped the grass around them and threw the 
sand in their eyes. Motionless they lay, their rifles at the 
ready, while they watched, with keen intentness, for a sign of 
the hidden foe. Suddenly a man would raise on his elbow, take 
careful aim, fire, and then sink back on his face as the answer- 
ing bunch of bullets kicked up the dust around him. Too 
often one of these would find its mark and man after man 
would jump convulsively, then limply collapse or painfully crawl 
from the firing line with that strained, dazed look that inevi- 
tably marked the wounded. 

" Close in front of me a slight and boyish lieutenant com- 
pelled my attention by his persistent and reckless gallantry. 
Whenever a man was hit he would dart to his assistance re- 
gardless of the fire that this exposure inevitably drew. Sudden- 
ly he sprang to his feet, gazing intently into the village ; but 
what he saw we never knew, for he was instantly shot through 
the heart and fell over backward clutching at the air. I followed 
the men who carried him to the road and asked them his name. 
' Second Lieutenant Wansboro, sir, of the Seventh Infantry, 
and you will never see his better. He fought like a little 
tiger.' A few convulsive gasps and the poor boy was dead, and 
as we laid him in a shady spot by the side of the road the 
sergeant reverently drew a handkerchief over his face and said : 
' Good-by, lieutenant ; you were a brave little officer, and you 
died like a true soldier.' Who would wish a better end ? " 

First Lieutenant Thomas A. Wansboro was born in Albany, 
N. Y., March 22, 1874; was educated at Christian Brothers' Acad- 
emy, graduating therefrom in 1891. He won the appointment 
to West Point in competitive examination ; entered the U. S. 
Military Academy in June, 1892, graduating with his class in 
1896. After graduation he was assigned as additional second 
lieutenant to the Sixteenth Infantry, then stationed in the West. 
He was appointed second lieutenant Seventh U. S. Infantry in 
November, 1896. 

At the declaration of war his regiment, then stationed at 
Fort Logan, Colorado, was ordered to Chickamauga Park. He 
was here detached from his regiment and sent to Knoxville, 
Tenn., as recruiting officer. He was recalled to join his regi- 
ment at Tampa, arriving there about ten hours before sailing 
of transports. He was brevetted first lieutenant about Febru- 
ary i, 1899, for " conspicuous gallantry in battle." His death 
occurred about 4 P. M. July I, about fifteen minutes before the 
fall of El Caney. 



l8 99-J THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 755 



THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 

FROM July 12 to August 3 the Columbian Catholic Summer-School will hold 
its fifth session at Madison, Wis. The Secretary, Mr. J. A. Hartigan 
1937 St. Anthony Avenue, St. Paul, Minn. is now prepared to furnish circulars 
of information regarding lectures, railroad rates, etc. Arrangements have been 
made for a Teachers' Institute, conducted by Mrs. B. Ellen Burke; a conference 
on Catholic charities, and various meetings for Reading Circles. Sunday-school 
teachers, together with social reunions for different cities and States. Courses 
of lectures will be given by the Rev. H. M. Colmer, S.J., of St. Louis, Mo.; 
Austin O'Malley, Ph.D., LL.B., of the University of Notre Dame, Ind.; the 
Rev. William Poland, S.J., of St. Louis University; Miss Eliza Allen Starr, of 
Chicago, 111.; the Hon. M. J. Wade, of Iowa City, la.; the Rev. T. E. Shields, 
Ph.D., of St. Paul, Minn.; Conde B. Fallen, of St. Louis, Mo.; the Hon. John 
W. Willis, of St. Paul, Minn. A number of single lectures are announced 
to be given by the Very Rev. Joseph Selinger, D.D., the Revs. P. Danehy, 
J. M. Cleary, William J. Dalton, Martin S. Brennan, and Thomas P. Hart, M.D.; 

Hon. W. A. Byrne, Hon. M. Brennan, Hon. F. P. Walsh. 

* * * 

A recent issue of the Irish Monthly, conducted by the Rev. Matthew 
Russell, S.J., who writes excellent poetry and is ever ready to encourage young 
writers, gives high praise to a dainty and exquisitely written phantasy entitled 
" Giglio," by Miss Minnie Gilmore, daughter of the late renowned Patrick Sars- 
field Gilmore. She has the gratification of knowing that the distinguished 
literary critic of Dublin regards her recent contribution as "one of the most 
beautiful things of brightest promise . . . noticed among the young Catholic 

writers of the United States." 

* * * 

The charge has been made and substantiated by strong evidence that 
Catholic readers are not sufficiently loyal to writers of their own faith who 
represent their convictions and defend their cause in literature. It was hoped 
that in recent years, as a result of the discussions of this matter in various ways, 
a change had come for the better. A recent meeting declared that there is still 
need of greater zeal for the diffusion of the books that have a distinctive claim 
on Catholics. 

Some difficulties cannot be entirely removed. Not long ago Helen M. 
Winslow wrote the following encouraging statement for young writers : 

The girl who is easily discouraged stands a poor chance of winning in any 
calling or profession, and this is exceptionally true of literary work. Because 
a manuscript is rejected by one publication, it does not follow that it is not ex- 
actly fitted to the needs of some other one. Therefore, when a too bulky 
envelope makes its appearance in your morning mail, instead of the thin but 
check-bearing one you were hoping for, don't cast it into the fire, Miss Literary, 
nor yet sit down and weep over the rejection. If you must weep, keep up a 
brave heart withal, and post your rejected story straightway to some other edi- 
tor, and then, without waiting to learn its fate, sit down to write something 
better. 

Another thing: It is only waste of time and postage-stamps to cast your 
manuscript upon the troubled waters of literature without studying carefully the 
chart which shows the character of its safe harbors. An excellent and well- 



576 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [July, 1899.] 

written story that is exactly appropriate for one publication will be altogether 
out of place in certain others. Find out by thorough inspection what particular 
kind of story a magazine usually inclines to. If your story is a simple love-tale 
for the .delectation of sentimental young women, don't send it to a magazine 
with a penchant for ghost stories and gruesome tales of adventure. 

If it is an essay on the ethics of modern sociology, do not submit it to the 
editor of a fashion sheet. Above all, do not send poetry to any of the publica- 
tions wherein rhymes are tabooed. Study the character of each publication be- 
fore you favor it with the perusal of your manuscript, and thus spare yourself 
many a heartache. 

Again, do not overload your manuscripts on other women who have 
achieved some degree of success. They still have troubles of their own, and the 
most successful woman cannot place worthless manuscript on the literary mar- 
ket, if signed by an unknown name. Remember that success depends upon you 
alone; if there is merit in what you write, and you have patience and persever- 
ance, editors are going to find it out ; otherwise nobody can help you. 

Before I became an editor, I believed, with other aspirants, that acceptance 
or rejection was too often a matter of influence or personal interest. Now I 
know that an editor is frequently obliged to reject an excellent article for the 
best possible reasons. First, the article may not be suited to his publication ; 
second, it may be exactly in line with something he has already used or is just 
going to publish ; third, it may be too long or too short ; fourth, the magazine 
may be already overstocked with manuscripts ; fifth, the editor may not be able 
to pay for it ; sixth, and so on up to sixtieth, there may be plenty of reasons 
why his " with regrets " may be sincere. 

Be not easily discouraged. Do not attempt to write unless you have "some- 
thing to say, and then try to say it in a convincing and, if possible, an out-of-the- 
usual way. Keep up a brave spirit and welcome rejected manuscript as the 
necessary discipline for moulding the successful writer. Send it forth with a 
prayer and a song not a sigh. Practise patience and perseverance with a capi- 
tal P, and you will push up to the profitable paths of a prolific pen. 

Mary E. Wilkins also wrote a letter on the essential things for authorship, 
which is here given : Of course, it is understood that no girl can become a 
successful writer of short stories or books unless she has a certain amount of 
natural ability in that direction. Otherwise all the advice in the world must be 
of no avail. There must be a spark, however small, of genuine talent in order 
to have a flame. 

When this talent does exist the simplest road to success is the best. There 
is really little to do except to provide one's self with good pens, good ink and 
paper, a liberal supply of postage-stamps and a more liberal supply of patience, 
sharpen one's eyes and ears to see and hear everything in the whole creation 
likely to be of the slightest assistance, and set to work. Then, never cease work 
for the pure sake of the work, and never write solely for the dollars and fame 
while one lives. 

A young writer should follow the safe course of writing only about those 
subjects which she knows thoroughly, and concerning which she trusts her own 
convictions. Above all, she should write in her own way, with no dependence 
upon the work of another for aid or suggestion. She should make her own 
patterns and found her own school. When it comes to placing stories, books, 
etc., there is nothing to do but to send them to editors and publishers, with 
the firm belief that no article really worthy of acceptance will be rejected by 
them all. Such a result is very unlikely, and it is generally safe to conclude that 
there is some defect, if not of art, of adaptability, in the article. The influence 
of others in placing work is very much overrated. I doubt if many successful 
authors can attribute their success to anything but their own unaided efforts, 
and if many can trace the acceptance of first articles to words or letters of recom- 
mendation to editors from influential friends. The keynote of the whole is, as 
in every undertaking in this world, faithful, hopeful, and independent work. 




' ' He that loselh his life for my sake shall 
find it." (See page 604.) 



THE 




(Ontario 

CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. LXIX. 



AUGUST, 1899. 



No. 413. 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE, AND WHAT IT 
MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 

|HE folly of mere human strivings, 
as well as the attempt to encompass 
results without the co-operation of 
the supreme power by which all 
great consequences are made possi- 
ble, is fully brought out by the 
futility of the Peace Conference sit- 
ting at the Hague. An attempt to 
insure and perpetuate human peace 
without the aid of the Prince of 
Peace is a foredoomed undertaking. 
An invitation to the representa- 
tive on earth of the Prince of Peace 
was deliberately withheld. The Pope was not requested to 
send his representative to the Peace Conference at the Hague. 
This, it was alleged, was a concession to the civil power in 
Italy. The Czar of Russia, as proposer of the Conference, 
had also the inviting of the various powers thereto. Italy, 
holding the nominal rank of one of the six great powers of 
Europe, and being a member of the Triple Alliance, was 
naturally of the number. But when it was mooted that the 
Pope also would have his special delegates there, Italy de- 
murred. General Luigi Pelloux, the President of the Italian 
Council of Ministers, and Admiral Napoleone Canevaro, the 
then Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, formally protested. 

Copyright. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE 

STATE OF NEW YORK. 1899. 
VOL. LXIX. 37 




THE PEACE CONFERENCE, L Au g- 

PEACE WITHOUT THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

The invitation of the Pope, they alleged, would imply his 
recognition as a terrestrial sovereign, and would be an acknow- 
ledgment to a certain extent of his rights to temporal power, 
all of which could only be to the prejudice of the Italian 
nation as a rightfully constituted individual power. If the 
Pope's delegates were present at the Hague, the Italian gov- 
ernment would accordingly see itself in the necessity, not only 
of refusing the invitation, but also of rigorously protesting and 
of appealing to the other temporal powers of Europe against 
the injustice done it. 

Sophistry and pettiness of spirit, even in the conduct of 
nations, often triumph over what is palpably right and oppor- 
tune, and instead of supercilious contempt being shown for this 
undignified and unjustified protest, the opposite and extraor- 
dinary course was taken of heeding it, and of adopting a posi- 
tively extreme measure to appease and satisfy the protester. 
Thus the " bluff " for it was nothing more of a practically 
fifth-rate European power motived the exclusion from a peace 
congress of the one power on earth best qualified to further 
the interests of harmony amongst individuals and nations. 
Well might the Pope's Vicar-General, Cardinal Lucido Parocchi, 
exclaim when this result was announced in Rome : " Quam 
parva sapientia regitur mundus ! " with what little true wis- 
dom are the temporal concerns of this world directed ! A 
vanity of vanities and a truly puerile undertaking is the organ- 
ization of a mighty and far-reaching project under conditions 
such as these. 

LEO XIII. THE AUTHOR. 

And yet of all powers summoned to the Congress at the 
Hague none had a right of invitation superior to that of the 
Papal government. The great and underlying motive force be- 
hind important deeds is often very different from that which 
appears openly and on the surface. Nicholas II., Czar of Russia, 
has had all the honor of proposing the meeting of the powers 
of the world in a conference to discuss the abolishing of wars 
and international enmities, and the suppression of ruinous arma- 
ments. And yet the first originator of that proposal was Leo 
XIII. himself. The present Sovereign Pontiff was the first in- 
stigator and suggester of the now famous proclamation of the 
Czar, which has had its culmination in the reunion at the 



1899.] A ^D WHAT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 579 

Hague. This will be news to many, but it is an undeniable, 
incontrovertible fact which is here advanced on the highest 
authority. 

When the Emperor Alexander III. died in November, 1894, 
the Pope was one of the first to whom formal announcement 
of the event, and of the accession of his son Nicholas, was 
made. The bearer of the ceremonial letters to the Vatican 
was Count Muravieff, whom the new emperor shortly after 
named minister of foreign affairs and practical chancellor of 
the empire. The Pope was invited to send his representa- 
tive to the coronation of the new Czar. To the special Pon- 
tifical embassy which went to Moscow for this purpose quite 
extraordinary honor and attention were paid by the Russian 
authorities. The special representative of the Pope was Mon- 
seigneur Agliardi, then apostolic nuncio to Vienna and now 
cardinal prince of the church, and in his suite was Monseigneur 
Tarnassi, a young ecclesiastic belonging to the Papal diplomatic 
corps. 

When the special mission left Moscow to return to Rome, 
Monseigneur Tarnassi detached himself from it and turned his 
steps towards St. Petersburg. No secret was made of the fact 
that he had gone there on a private diplomatic mission to the 
Russian government. The nature of this mission was for the 
time being unknown, but the fact that Monseigneur Tarnassi 
had been fully successful in the undertaking entrusted to him 
was soon announced, and the practical proof of it was had 
when the Vatican shortly afterwards rewarded the young eccle- 
siastic by appointing him to the important position of inter- 
nuncio at the Hague. 

Later on the fact came out that Monseigneur Tarnassi's 
special mission was to convey a special proposal to the Russian 
government, that the Czar should take advantage of the inaugura- 
tion of his reign to publicly and solemnly call upon the nations 
of Europe to join hands in an effort for peace and social well- 
being, and as a first step thereto to begin a reduction in their 
costly armaments and military organizations, which were threat- 
ening to lead not only to financial ruin but also to serious 
social disaster. The Pope's proposal was received by the Rus- 
sian ministers with much diffidence, but on the arguments by 
which it was backed being exposed by Monseigneur Tarnassi, 
the statesmen were won round, and the young Czar himself 
clinched matters by taking up the idea enthusiastically and in- 
structing the Papal representative to inform the Holy Father 



580 THE PEACE CONFERENCE, [Aug., 

that his desires in the matter would be accomplished to their 
fullest. 

Even at that time His Holiness had foreseen all the details 
of the practical carrying out of the project, and even then Hol- 
land had been looked to as the most suitable place for holding 
the projected meeting of the delegates of the powers. It was 
on this account that Monseigneur Tarnassi was appointed apos- 
tolic internuncio, to partly prepare the way, as far as the 
court of Holland was concerned, for the coming congress. 

DELAYED BY COURSE OF EVENTS. 

To the Holy Father's disappointment the project was not 
put into execution as soon as he had hoped. The beginning 
of the Czar's reign would have been a spectacular and oppor- 
tune occasion for the proclamation. But there were motives 
which induced the Kremlin to withhold it. Grave troubles were 
fermenting in Crete, and there was serious consideration among 
the powers of Europe of the advisability of their interfering 
with the sway of the " sick man " of the Bosphorus. The dis- 
memberment of the Ottoman Empire was for a time considered 
as an imminent contingency, and such a period naturally enough 
was not regarded by the Russian government as propitious for 
a line of action such as the Pope proposed. And so the Czar's 
proclamation was postponed. 

Finally, however, relative tranquillity had returned to the 
world, the Greco-Turkish and Hispano-American wars were 
terminated, and a period of peace seemed assured. The Czar 
took this occasion for launching the now famous appeal, and 
all the world, on recovering from its momentary astonishment, 
applauded in the most hearty and flattering manner. Leo XIII., 
the original author of the proposal, was forgotten in the hour 
of applause. But little he recked, for human approbation had 
never been a motive of his labors ; and only joy and intense 
satisfaction came to him at the enthusiastic manner in which 
the proposal was received. 

HOLY FATHER ARRANGES DETAIL. 

He had long been working for this result. Over and over 
again in his encyclicals he had alluded to the desirability of 
the ruinous and threatening armaments of the powers of Eu- 
rope being suppressed. In all his public documents he had in- 
variably inserted an appeal for peace and concord among indi- 
viduals, families, and nations ; and over and over again he had 



.1899.] AND WHAT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 581 

expatiated on it, with the aid of convincing arguments, to show 
that by it alone could rulers and governments begin to fulfil 
the primary object of their mission, the promotion of the well- 
being of the peoples under them. 

Now that the first step was taken, the Pontiff laid himself 
heart and soul to the task of preparing so that the delegates 
of the nations, on arriving at the Hague, should have laid be- 
fore them the most complete and detailed proposals for the 
practical means of preventing war and securing permanent 
peace and concord for the world. As the first and greatest in- 
strument for a similar undertaking, prayer was what Leo XIII. 
resorted to at the outset. Times out of number he had prayed, 
and instigated Catholics throughout the world to pray, for the 
benign reign of peace. Now he determined to found a special 
and permanent work for this purpose. And in the Church of 
SS. Vincent and Anastasius, at the base of the Quirinal Hill, 
he ordained that a monthly function be celebrated in perpetuum 
for the impetration of peace. Through an Avviso Sacro of the 
cardinal vicar's office, he exhorted the people of Rome to 
flock to these functions, and urged upon Catholics throughout 
the world to join their prayers with his for the same intention. 
Then he sat down to evolve the details that should be worked 
upon by the delegates of the Peace Conference for the better 
accomplishment of the great undertaking. 

Suddenly it was learned that, through the petty animosity 
of the Italian government, the Pontifical representatives would 
be excluded from the Peace Conference. There is no denying 
the fact that the tidings came as a blow to the venerable Pon- 
tiff. His work for the Conference was henceforward at an end, 
and he could now only passively look on. 

What the outcome of the Peace Conference is, with the 
Sovereign Pontiff excluded, is only too patent to the world. 
No right-minded person could desire to see the efforts of the 
men who met at the Hague frustrated, or to see the great pro- 
posal made by the Czar remain, as before, a mere phantasma 
or figment of the brain. 

Yet what has the world witnessed ? Has the great practical 
scope of the Conference, the reduction of European armaments, 
been attained ? Unfortunately no, not even the first beginning 
thereto was accomplished. And the simple reason, as the 
world at large must have recognized, was that no delegate pres- 
ent represented a power disinterested in the matter of arma- 
ments and yet holding sway over so many millions of subjects 



582 THE PEACE CONFERENCE, [Aug., 

that its voice and suggestions would have carried with them 
serious weight. Such a power is the head of the Roman 
Catholic Church, but that power had been denied admission to 
the Conference. 

THE FAILURE OF ARBITRATION. 

The question of practical disarmament being thus almost a 
priori out of the question, the next great project tending to the 
permanent maintenance of peace was that of arbitration. Here, 
again, what has been the practical result ? Nil, absolutely nil. 
The great powers ranged themselves into two chief groups. 
Those, such as Russia and the United States, which advocated 
the formation of permanent arbitration commissions on some- 
what rigid lines, with a certain implied obligation of recourse 
being had thereto in the disputes of nations ; and those, such 
as England and Germany, which objected to any project of 
arbitration which made recourse to it in major questions more 
than optional. The existence of a radical difference of this 
kind necessarily renders any form of arbitration which may ulti- 
mately be decided on practically valueless, as being totally 
wanting in binding force. 

Thus once more one of the most effective means of further- 
ing the cause of peace was set at naught, simply because the 
Vicar of Christ, the natural arbiter in the disputes of nations, 
was ignored. And yet the student of history cannot but reflect 
that the result must have been far otherwise had this legitimate 
title and prerogative of the Pope been recognized. History 
teems with instances where the successor of Peter has saved 
the world from devastation by the sword, and from the shedding 
of torrents of blood, and from the multiple horrors and curses 
that long and bloody wars bring in their wake. Even in 
modern times, from the day when Pope Alexander VI., by 
drawing the famous demarcation line between their possessions 
in South America, prevented Spain and Portugal from flying at 
each other's throats and pouring out their immense resources of 
blood and treasure in a needless war, the only result of which 
must have been a legacy of hatred for the offspring of either 
nation, down to our own day, when Leo XIII. effected a dis- 
passionate and bloodless settlement of the dispute between 
Germany and Spain over the Caroline Islands, and finally even 
to the present moment of writing, when the same Pontiff has 
under his consideration the pacific arrangement of the frontier 
trouble between the Republics of Hayti and San Domingo, the 



1 899.] 



AND WHAT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 



583 



Holy Father has proved that between nations in their angry 
moments none other than he can come and adjudicate in a per- 
fectly frank, disinterested, and satisfactory manner. 

Many minor points of interest have undoubtedly been settled 
in the Peace Conference at the Hague. Such, for instance, are 
the question of privateering, the rights of private property at 
sea during a war, the use of explosive projectiles, the preroga- 
tive of the Red Cross Society, and similar items. But, be it 
noted, these and other matters, on which the members of the 
Congress reached definite conclusions, have relation to what is 
to take place during war. In other words, the Conference is a 
preparation for the exigencies of war. A Peace Conference it 
has proved to be only in name. This undoubtedly is not the 
fault of the members who attend it. It is simply the result of 
the system in accordance with which the Conference was 
organized. 

As a Peace Conference its results have been Dead Sea fruit. 
No one alive deplores this fact more than Leo XIII. But those 
who organized the Conference may well reflect what measure of 
the ill success of the undertaking is attributable to their want of 
judgment and foresight in excluding from the Conference the 
potentate who was the real father of the project, and who 
alone could have aided most mightily in its successful outcome. 




584 



THE OLD BRO WN HA T. 



[Aug., 




THE OLD BROWN HAT. 

BY JOHN AUSTIN SCHETTY. 

HEN Adrian Devenmore stepped down the steam- 
er's gang-plank and found himself once again in 
New York streets, he paused with a sense of 
strangeness he would never have thought possi- 
ble. He never turned for a farewell glance at 
the majestic thing of iron and steel that had held his destinies 
for one whole week. The ship and the custom-house, where 
they made a terrible fuss over him as though it were really a 
great privilege to be allowed to land at all, had disgusted him 
so that he was only too glad to forget both. But now here in 
the open street, free to go where he would, Devenmore paused 
for a moment. Here he was home again and feeling as 
strangely new to everything as though he had dropped from 
Mars. 

" Well," he thought, " I suppose it is because it is nearly 
ten years since I stood here before ; I suppose I look foreign 
and strange as well as feel that way." 

He drew a cigar from his pocket, lit it, and sauntered on a 
few steps, taking in the sounds and sights of the street with a 
keen relish. He was a well-groomed, prosperous-looking indivi- 
dual, who looked as if he had been blessed with a goodly 
share of the world's creature comforts. One would have called 
him a man whom care had touched very lightly ; and as it is 
not given to us to look into the heart to measure the griefs that 
have found shelter there, no one would have guessed that, in- 
stead of being at peace with the world, he was only one of 
the many who succeed in appearing to be so. A rubber-tired 
hansom hove into view, and the driver, perceiving his meditative 
air, hailed him. 

" Very well, take me up ; but here, come over and get my 
trunk too." He directed the man toward the pier, and, having 
in the space of a few moments gotten it out and safely beside 
him, was soon whirling toward a well-known apartment house 
uptown. 

<( Not a soul knows me," he murmured, gazing at the well- 
dressed throngs who passed on either side ; " and yet I'll wager 



1899-] THE OLD BROWN HAT. 585 

I know many among them. Well, that's what comes of living 
abroad ; and yet, confound it ! I haven't changed so much 
either." He turned almost impatiently and gazed at his re- 
flection in the coach mirror. A moment later the hansom drew 
up and he was at his destination. The elaborateness of every- 
thing, instead of pleasing him, grated on his sensibilities ; the 
halls were embowered in palms, polite porters and attendants 
seemed distributed at every turn, and far off somewhere he 
caught faint strains of music. 

" It seems as though they knew every one in the place was 
home-sick or in want of a home, and therefore tried to fill the 
want by a superfluity of elegance," he murmured fretfully as 
he entered his own apartments. They were pleasantly situated 
on the corner of the house, thus affording a pleasant view of 
park and street. The fact soothed in a measure his irritability, 
and with a sense of relief he sat himself down. His trunk 
coming up a moment later gave another turn to his thoughts. 
He knelt down beside it and began rummaging among its con- 
tents ; first he lifted out a tray littered with dainty rare knick- 
knacks gathered from all corners of the world ; these he placed 
very carefully about the table and the mantel. Some of them 
were almost priceless, and so frail that a mere undue pressure 
of the fingers might ruin them irretrievably, but they were all 
transferred safely nevertheless, and then he turned to the trunk 
again. This time he drew forth a lady's hat! a large, brown, 
broad-brimmed straw hat, that might have been worn with 
equally good results by either a girl or a woman ; there was a 
gorgeous bunch of yellow daisies about the crown, and two 
generously broad brown ribbons hung in streamers from it. 
At the sight of it his face underwent a sudden, spasmodic 
change. He picked it up tenderly. 

"Ah, Miriam!" he murmured half aloud, "you might have 
been less relentless in your cruel pride." There was a note of 
intense pain in the words, but there was nothing of anger in 
them. 

" What would people say of me if they knew that old straw 
hat had been all over the world with me ? Poor woman's 
vanity! " he continued, " you have been my best friend after all; 
you and I were both cast off together, old friend though you 
have hardly suffered as I have." 

He had fallen into this odd way of talking over his reminis- 
cences to the hat ; it soothed him as nothing else could when 
the pain in his heart seemed almost too much to bear. He 



586 THE OLD BROWN HAT. [Aug., 

turned it about carefully in his hand and fell to talking 
again. 

" Who would ever think, to look at me, that I was a married 
man -that my wife is living somewhere in this broad land ? 
Who would think it ? Doubtless the world has forgotten it. 
So much the better. I wish I could, but I never can. God ! 
why are our memories so retentive of some things ? And yet I 
hardly would care to forget ; no, even though it means bitter 
pain, I love to remember ! Ay, poor old hat, I love to remember! 
Let me see. It's about fifteen years now since she and I were 
wedded ; we had three months of happiness at least I had 
three months out of fifteen years ! then she left us. Why 
did she leave ? I don't know ; I never will, I suppose ; she and 
Anne differed in some trivial matter, and her love was so frail 
a thing it died then and there. Anne, dear sister, I know it 
was not thy fault, even though you died because you thought 
it might have been because you felt you had blasted my life. 
I ought to hate her for it she who brought us to this pass ; 
but I cannot the pity is, I cannot ! I love her yet even yet, 
just as of old I loved her in this old brown hat." His voice 
died away plaintively, as though he were pleading with some 
unseen thing to have pity on him. He had never regretted 
the sentiment, fanciful or otherwise, that had made him keep 
it so many years. Looking at it and forgetting subsequent 
events, he saw her again as he saw her that summer twilight so 
many years ago a fair, sweet face, banked in masses of hair 
the golden glory of which was crowned in the big brown hat 
with its broad ribbons tied under the chin, just as one sees 
them in old-fashioned pictures ; every detail, the light in the 
sky, the light in her eyes, the wondrous joy in his own heart, 
was impressed on his mind as though it were a photographic 
plate. Looking at it filled him with all the glow of rare old 
wine ; it renewed in a measure the old-time geniality of his life 
a life that otherwise had grown chilled and numb ; at sight 
of it, like magic, the ghost of his former happiness returned 
and for a brief hour lived with him again, spoke to him in the 
old, old way ; therefore he had grown to love it this old brown 
hat. 

When Adrian Devenmore had married Miriam Dale the 
social structure in which they moved had been stirred to its 
depths ; indeed, it was quite the event of the season. He was 
rich, not burdensomely so but enabled to live in elegant leisure, 
while she was beautiful ; indeed, the gossips deemed her very 



I8 99-] THE OLD BROWN HAT. 587 

fortunate. They were married in a fashionable church, at a 
fashionable hour, with a very fashionable crowd for an audience, 
and had come down to earth again screened behind the aristo- 
cratic exclusiveness of a side-covered awning. Everything went 
off in superb fashion, so that when society heard that Deven- 
more's wife had left him and returned to her father's house, it 
was simply convulsed ! What could be the trouble ? 

Mrs. Weston-Ware, who aspired to be a sort of feminine 
McAllister, said : " I blame him." 

To which Mrs. Schuyler, who also had aspirations, replied 
briefly: "I don't! I am sure it is his sister's fault; young 
people should never bring in a third party." 

As for Devenmore, when he returned to his home and his 
sister told him the truth, he had been utterly unable to realize 
it. That his wife could think so lightly of their love seemed 
to him preposterous. He picked up his hat and hurried off to 
her father's house. At the door her father met him with a 
stern, forbidding air. He asked to see his wife, as he had a 
right to do to explain, if there was anything to explain ; the 
old man refused. It was inexplicable ; he would not hear. 
Adrian, becoming angry, grew insistent and demanded to see 
Miriam, whereat her father, telling him once for all there was 
nothing to explain, abruptly closed the door in his face. Then, 
with a heart grown suddenly bitter, he turned homeward, realiz- 
ing that henceforth their lives would be as separate as though 
they had never met. And so it was. She had taken every- 
thing of hers that might serve to remind him of her, everything 
except the old brown hat ; not realizing that in it lay the most 
potent memory of her. 

So the months drifted on while the breach between them 
ever widened ; often they passed each other in public, in the 
street sometimes they almost touched elbows at church, but 
they never touched hearts. Their eyes merely grew more 
coldly formal, their faces more immobile, with the passing time. 
She was always with her father or her brother, and she seemed 
as he seemed indifferent to the gossip their estrangement 
caused. After a time to see them both at some entertainment, 
each as oblivious of the other as if they had never existed, 
grew to be too common to arouse comment ; so that the sen- 
sation died out at last, as all sensations do. His first impulse 
had been to leave everything and try to forget ; but pride, the 
magic power that has sustained many a heart when all else 
failed, made him stay ; if she could bear it, so could he. He 



588 THE OLD BROWN HAT. [Aug., 

lavished all the tenderness left him on his sister; he held her 
utterly blameless, but, despite his frequent protestations, she 
sank beneath the burden of it all. When Anne died he closed 
the big, luxurious house, which only seemed to mock him with 
its emptiness, and within the month was off to Europe. From 
place to place he roamed, until his old life and its old associa- 
tions grew to be as something he had heard of rather than 
something he had participated in for he received no letters to 
speak of ; yet wide as was the world, he could not find the 
peace he sought. By degrees his anger grew to be more like 
pain and lonely grief; he began to feel the need of her who 
was his wife. The emptiness of the years to come without her 
frightened him with their vast dreariness. He suddenly re- 
solved that the responsibility for such a fate should not rest 
with him ; he would seek her out ; she must still be living, 
just as she must be suffering. He would allow no poor human 
pride to deter him now ; he would be humble, he would be 
anything that they Miriam and he might pick up the 
broken threads of the life begun on that summer evening so 
many years ago. 

It was this had brought him across the sea to his own land 
again ; it was this that found him kneeling beside the trunk, 
her old straw hat held so tenderly in his hand. The slow 
turning of the door-knob roused him from his revery. Who, 
in this strange house where he was quite unknown to any one, 
held such a claim to his friendship as to enter without even 
knocking? He turned about, half curiously, half angrily, while 
the knob turned backwards and forwards; then, just as he 
would have sprung up impatiently, the door opened slowly and 
a little golden, cherub-like head poked itself shyly in. The 
dainty little figure, hardly reaching to the door-knob, looked 
exquisite in a Hubbard gown that reached to the floor. The 
man gazed at her with surprise that quickly became delight, 
while she paused a moment in childish wonderment that was 
half dismay. He was afraid to break the enchantment of her 
presence by a word, until, becoming reassured, she advanced 
one step further in hide-and-seek fashion. 

"Well, little lady," he cried, "won't you come in?" 
The little one burst into a gurgling laugh that awoke faint- 
echoing music way down in the man's heart ; he had almost 
forgotten such harmony still lay within him. The little figure 
made another step forward it was evident she was quite at 
home with him. 



I8 99-] THE OLD BROWN HAT. 



589 



" Come," he said, whirling around, picking her up lightly 
and setting her down again between his knees, "tell me where 
you came from, won't you? Such little blessings as you don't 
fall in a man's way every day," he continued, more to himself 
than to the child. 

She gazed up at him, her bright eyes dilated with infant 
pleasure. " I I jes' corned," she answered ; then reaching up 
with both hands, she grasped his coat. " Oo-oo-oh ! " she 
cried, dancing delightedly, "you've got 'em just like papa 
ain't you ? " 

" Have I ? " he cried, mystified and bending his head to- 
ward hers ; whereat she quickly seized his beard and clung to 
it with little gurgling cries of pleasure. 

" Oh ! that's it, eh ? " he said, thereupon comprehending 
wherein lay his likeness to papa " and so I have them, like 
papa ? " 

The little head nodded demurely, while, as if to prove it 
beyond a doubt, she began turning his head from side to 
side he passively submitting for the want of better knowing 
what to do. " This is the way you treat poor papa, I sup- 
pose," he murmured musingly. " And now, whose little girl 
are you ? " he asked after a moment. 

" Auntie's," was the prompt reply. 

" And who is auntie ? " 

"She's my mamma sometimes." 

"Sometimes," he repeated, amused; "and who is your 
mamma at other times ? " He was beginning to feel a trifle 
more at home with her himself now ; it had been so long 
since he had dealt with childhood that he had felt awkward at 
first. 

" My mamma is my real mamma my own mamma," she 
explained. He laughed outright at this sage reply and her 
serious delivery of it. " And which do you like the best 
mamma?" She nodded. 

"Then papa?" " Um," and another nod. 

"And auntie?" "Yes." 

" Then who ? " 

She looked at him half shyly a moment ; then, withdrawing 
both hands and placing them behind her in a pretty, little old- 
fashioned way, she said " You ! " 

Adrian's face flushed. The little creature's friendliness 
warmed his lonely heart as nothing else could have done ; he 
was more delighted than he could have thought possible, and 



590 THE OLD BROWN HAT. [Aug., 

picking her up he impulsively pressed a kiss to the dainty little 
mouth ; then he placed her on his knee, she submitting the 
while as though it were a customary thing with her. The mere 
contact with this , little human atom fresh from the hand of 
God, unstained as yet by any mingling with a sordid world, 
refreshed his spiritual self. He felt that life had grown brighter 
in the short space of a few moments, therefore he took the 
plump little hand in his and held it almost reverently. What 
a soft little thing it was ! Looking at it made it hard to 
realize that once upon a time a very long time it seemed 
now his own had been as small and as soft ; the reflection 
made him sigh. 

" Now," he said, " tell me your name, my little pet." 

" Ruth Carroll Wilcox," she replied >with a prim precision 
that made him smile ; she had evidently been taught to say it 
well. 

" Then I never heard of you before Ruth Carroll Wilcox 
though I am very happy to know you now," he exclaimed. 
She reached over and grasped his watch-chain. 

" Auntie has one," she said. 

"Has she?" he asked with a wondering interest as to who 
auntie might be ; the fluffy little head nodded. " Hers has a 
picture in it an' an' I don't like it, 'cause when she looks at 
it it makes her cry. 

" Does it ? Poor auntie ! why does it make her cry ? " He 
said the words thoughtlessly, and a moment after caught him- 
self wondering why he asked such questions, as though he too 
were another child ; but it was so pleasant listening to the 
prattle of this little one that he disliked the thought of some 
one taking her from him presently, as he knew they would. 

" Sometimes she cries awful hard, just awful ! " continued 
Ruth artlessly ; " an' then when I cry too, she says I mustn't 
mind poor old auntie, 'cause she can't help it sometimes. An' 
she kisses me, an' says she hopes I'll never have a picture that 
will make me cry an' an* she ain't old at all." The thought 
of auntie's tears had driven all the laughter from Ruth's eyes ; 
there was a solemn, tragical air in their clear depths that made 
him stroke the curly head lovingly in mute protest. 

" You must not look so solemn, Baby Ruth," he cried ; 
" that would never do." And forthwith he began dancing her 
up and down on his knee to some queer old nursery jingle 
that came unbidden into his mind at that precise moment. 
Ruth was delighted ; her baby face broke into a bright sun- 



I8 99-J THE OLD BROWN HAT. 59 i 

shine of smiles that chased themselves in ripples of mirth over it. 
"I declare," he said gaily, "I shall be desperately in love 
with you, young lady, if I look at your little face much 
longer." 

The young lady was wofully unaffected by this frank state- 
ment. Instead she slid with a restless squirm to the floor, while 
he tried to think desperately of something else for her amuse- 
ment. He was afraid she was growing tired of him, and, rising, 
he poked through the many little things scattered about. He 
upset photographs that had been all over the world with him 
with a recklessness that would have driven him frantic but an 
hour before; he picked up the rare bric-a-brac with a careless- 
ness that would have stricken him dumb in any one else ; books 
were opened in the vain hope of discovering some stray card 
that might please the fickle young lady's fancy, and proving 
a futile effort, they were thrown back again indiscriminately. 
How he blamed himself for not having a bag of cakes or bon- 
bons anything, something ! but it was useless ; there was noth- 
ing, and he turned about in disgust. But Ruth had sought and 
found just what she cared for while he had been put to such 
desperate straits, for there she was standing by the open trunk, 
pulling joyfully at the old brown hat. He picked it up. 

"Does Ruth want this old hat?" he asked, wondering why 
he had not thought of it before ; then, as she clapped her 
hands, he squatted down before her until his face was on a 
level with her expectant one, while she placed her hands be- 
hind her in that same pretty, old-fashioned way and turned her 
face up to his demurely the little Hubbard gown just reveal- 
ing the tips of her tiny shoes as he placed the hat on her 
yellow hair and tied the long, broad ribbons under her chin 
thinking, perhaps, of the one who had worn it last ! 

" Now you look like a lady I once knew," he said as the 
child and he gazed at each other. The little maid looked 
wonderfully piquant even though the hat was a trifle too large, 
seeming with its great nodding daisies to be nearly half as big 
as herself, while the ends of the ribbons reached to the floor. 
After a moment, in a burst of childish laughter, she seized the 
brown rims and, pulling them down on either side till it looked 
like a poke bonnet, gazed coquettishly at him, while he, not to 
be outdone, squatted down and up and went through a variety 
of ridiculous antics quite at variance with his usual staid 
bachelor ways and all because she seemed to think it such great 
fun. The room was filled with the music of her delightful self, 



592 THE OLD BROWN HAT. [Aug., 

and both had become so absorbed in one another, to the ex- 
clusion of all things else, that neither heard a slight tap at the 
door. The next moment Adrian, looking up, saw a stylishly 
gowned woman standing, surprised and hesitating, in the room ; 
he was on his feet in an instant, just as Ruth with a glad cry 
of " Auntie ! " toddled over and clung about her skirts. 

" I sincerely hope I have not caused you needless anxiety 
" he began; then stopped abruptly, his speech frozen, as he 
saw her face in the brighter light. Despite the hair that was 
gray about her temples despite the sad lines about the mouth 
despite the years that had fled for ever, he knew her his wife 
of the long ago ! The blood receded from his face as though 
the shock had drained it from him. She knew him too ; and 
there they stood for a moment, her face paling to a whiteness 
that even awed little Ruth the next she placed a hand quick- 
ly on the door, as though to fly precipitately. The movement 
roused him. 

"Miriam!" he cried suddenly, holding out his hands to her 
in a dumb pleading way. " Do not leave me ! I want you, 
dear ; my life is very empty, and I have come so far for you." 
He broke off with something like a hint of tears in his voice, 
while she remained mute, clasping Ruth as though in mortal 
fear of something she could not define. 

" Providence has brought us thus together again for a pur- 
pose," he began again, almost tremulously as the lines about her 
mouth grew hard and stern ; " surely you will not slight it ; 
think of what it may mean to both of us. Ah, Miriam ! let us 
forget the misspent years, the pride that has kept us apart ; 
for I know well 'tis nothing worse even if this little one had 
not told me so." 

She started and looked down at the child half angrily ; then 
for the first time she seemed to see the hat ! At sight of it 
all the crust of cold reserve and pride, that had hidden the 
gold of her heart, of her better self, so long was broken. It 
spoke to her in mute testimony, as nothing else could have 
done, of his lasting love for her how, through all the long 
years of their separation, he had still cherished her as faithfully 
and truly as if they had never parted. Burdened with the 
recollection of a happier time, her pride failed her. A com- 
plete revulsion shook her soul ; she knew, with a sudden sense 
of what it meant, that he spoke the truth : that the responsi- 
bility of thrusting Providence aside would be hers, and, being 
a moral woman, she yielded to the better impulse. 



1 899-1 THE OLD BROWN HAT. 593 

" Adrian husband ! " she said the words sounding strangely 
in her ears as she held out her hands to him "can you 
really take me back again ? " Then, as for reply he drew her 
to himself, she wept her new-found joy out on his shoulder. 

" How foolish of us to have wasted so many years when 
we might have been so happy," she said at length, lifting a 
tear-stained face to his. 

"Poor human pride is always foolish, dear," he murmured; 
" but surely the coming years will be the happier." 

" If I can make them so, Adrian, it is the least I can do." 
She was as humbly earnest now as she had been proudly defiant 
before. Both were silent a moment ; then he looked down at 
Baby Ruth, whose wonder at the whole proceeding now gave 
way to tears ; the old brown hat fell back from the little face 
as he picked her up and tried to comfort her. 

" We owe you an immense debt of gratitude, Ruth Carroll 
Wilcox," he said coaxingly. " Who would have thought you 
were to have the power of uniting hearts ? Poor little girl ! 
we have frightened you in our joy." 

His wife held out her arms. " Let me try to comfort her, 
Adrian," she said ; then, as he placed Ruth in her arms, she 
continued, " she has not learned that one can cry with joy." 
Even as she spoke the fickle little lady changed her mood, for- 
got her tears and smiled ; whereat Devenmore, smiling back, 
seemed to grow ten years younger. Then, as the lights with- 
out grew dim, they told their stories : he of his wanderings, 
his restless seeking for what he never found ; she of the lonely 
years which she had almost steeled her soul to look forward to 
without regret ; humbly she told him how, despite it all, her 
pride at times failed her miserably, so that, had she known 
where to find him, she would have gone to him. 

"And I am so glad it is all over now, Adrian," she mur- 
mured with the air of a tired child who has found a much- 
needed rest. 

Over ay, over for ever; let us trust," he added fervently. 
" We have both wandered far, dear, and now it is very good 
to be home again." 



VOL. LXIX 38 



594 WAITING. [Aug. 



WJUCIR6. 

Gold sunrise and IK morning 

fls tbe sbip wears out to sea ; 
tn. dipping sails all low r tbe west, 
Cbe Deart of a lass in vague unrest 
Witb first=love's melodp. 

Wild sunset and no evening star ; 
Deep, vaileped waters groan- 
Out of tbe gloom a sbivering flasb, 
On tDe sudden nigbt sounds down a crash 
tDe sea runs on alone. 



Buried for pears in tide=wasbed sands 

Salt=crusted timbers lie ; 
On crawling foam wbere wbite surf booms 
H storm=wet cloud in sbadow looms, 

Jlnd restless sea gulls crp. 

lender tbe main, wbere green weeds drift 

Hnd silver sun^ars gleam, 
Chin, sbifting sands in strange unrest 
Uncover and cover a sailor's breast 

Hnd its unremembered dream. 

But far in tbe ligbt tbat moon=patbs make 

On tbe bills of tbe mistp deep, 
H woman waits in tbe gloom of pears 
Witb a bungering soul and conquered tears, 

In girlbood's dream asleep. 

THOMAS B. REILLY. 






HY do not more tourists, especially Catholic 
tourists, come to Louvain ? Baedeker says it is 
a dull town and that its beer is disgusting, but 
even the great Baedeker is not at all times 
omniscient, and some travellers are teetotalers. 
If one wishes to transeat the question of the beer, which the 
Louvanist quite naturally claims to be the best in Belgium, 
and to pay a few extra centimes for wine because Louvain 
water is really unfit to drink one may enjoy a town around 
whose very stones are lingering memories enough to haunt the 
heart of the artist, antiquarian, or dilettante with indefinable 
delight. For the Catholic it is a place of ever-varying inter- 
est not only because of the University which has made it so 
renowned, but also for the charming view it affords of fervent 
Catholic practice in a thousand noble aspects. 

Belgium can boast of many quaint and beautiful cities, but 
of none need she be more justly proud than of her old univer- 
sity town on the banks of the Dyle. This great educationaf 
centre with its schools of Theology, Law, Medicine, Science, 
and Philosophy is the Mecca to which aspiring youth, not only 
of Belgium, but of the whole world, turn their eager steps. 
The fame of its professors is undimmed by the centuries, and 
in scholastic matters it is consulted as respectfully to-day as when 



596 IN PICTURESQUE Lou VAIN. [Aug., 

in the sixteenth century it discussed the vexing theological pro- 
blems of Europe. True it is, there is not now as of yore an 
Irish Stapleton as " Rector Magnificus " of the Catholic Univer- 
sity, nor an Erasmus pondering over learned tomes on the 
picturesque Rue de Namur, nor a Baius, nor a Jansenius throw- 
ing firebrands into the theological world in the shape of gospels 
of despair. But there are lights, one might almost say, as 
brilliant as those old-time scholars. There is Lamy, the Biblical 
authority ; De Harlez, without a peer in the languages of the 
Orient ; Dupont, the subtle metaphysician ; Genecot, S.J., the 
acute moralist, and De Becker, the canonist and rector of the 
American College. But before I introduce you to the celebri- 
ties of Louvain, let me take you on a ramble through this 
most interesting city. 

From the railway station, a commodious and modern struc- 
ture, one passes up the Rue de la Station, a street , remarkable 
only for its cleanliness and the ornate beauty of the facades of 
its residences. At the upper end of the street a vision of 
beauty dark with age bursts upon the view. It is the Hotel 
de Ville, the finest Gothic town hall in Europe to-day. From 
its cunningly wrought niches knight and monk and hooded 
scholar look down upon you, bringing to your mind thousands 
of recollections of the bygone ages of faith. It is narrow, with 
steep roof and mullioned turrets of slender grace springing 
from its extremities. The bases of its niches are miracles of 
delicate stone carving and represent the whole range of Biblical 
narrative. Foliage traceries and emblematical bearings are 
lavished so profusely on its front and sides that one must needs 
wonder at the progress of mediaeval peoples who, with no mod- 
ern mechanical appliances, could execute such temples of art, 
which are at once the envy and the despair of nineteenth 
century architects. The Hotel de Ville saw many stormy days 
in the middle ages, and chronicles tell how, in the feuds be- 
tween the wealthy Flemish burghers and the towns-people, the 
former were hurled from the beautiful battlements of the town- 
hall only to be impaled on the pikes of the angry soldiers 
below. The interior of the hotel is rich with many art 
treasures, none of which, however, are indubitably the works of 
Rubens, Van Dyke, or the two Teniers. 

Across the street from the Hotel de Ville stands the stately 
Gothic Church of St. Peter. It is still unfinishediexteriorly, but 
generous givers have contributed a large sum for its completion 

" *he sculptors are pushing on the work apace. As I said, 



1 899.] 



IN PICTURESQUE Lou VAIN. 



597 



it is of the purest Gothic style and its fine aisles and transepts 
are nobly proportioned. The altars, however, are in very exe- 
crable taste, the Renaissance being the prevailing type of 
sanctuary decoration, and the contrast between the high, spring, 
ing arches of the choir and the somewhat depressing decorations 
of the Renaissance altars is apt to jar upon the sensitive eye 
of the critic. There is an old crucifix in this church which is 
highly venerated by the devout Louvanists, for legend has a 
very pretty story concerning it. It is said that one night, in 
times gone by, 
a robber enter- 
ed the church 
at midnight to 
rob it of its sa- 
cred treasures. 
But lo ! scarce- 
ly had he pass- 
ed the thresh- 
old when an 
arm of the cru- 
cified Saviour 
stretched from 

the cross and 
prevented the 

contemplated 

sacrilege. Was 

the robber con- 
verted by this 

act of mercy ? 

The legend 

does not say. 

The Church of 

St. Peter is also 

the repository 

of the relics of 

the Blessed 

M argaret of 

Louvain, whose 

process of canonization is now before the Roman congregations. 

If you love silvery chimes, stop awhile in the Grande Place and 

hear the bells of St. Peter's caroling out every quarter of an 

hour. The jangle of the bells is so light and sweet that one 

might think them rung by angel hands. 

We now pass up the steep Rue de Namur, perhaps the 




THE FINEST GOTHIC TOWN HALL IN EUROPE TO-DAY." 



598 IN PICTURESQUE Lou VAIN. [Aug., 

most famous, historically speaking, of the Louvain thorough- 
fares. The first building of note one meets is the Hall of the 
University, a venerable, solid pile, with little exterior adorn- 
ment, yet giving an impression of dignity and age that is so 
befitting a college structure. The interior boasts of a fine 
court, with massive gray pillars, and a broad stairway leading 
to a library of ninety thousand volumes. The first floor is 
taken up almost exclusively with the theology class-rooms. It 
is here that purity of doctrine is expounded by scholars 
whose peers cannot be found -in Europe, except possibly at 
Rome, and whose superiors are yet to be heard of in the 
schools of Europe. Two thousand students are in daily at- 
tendance, and when we remember that the university is sup- 
ported exclusively by the sacrificing efforts of the Belgian 
hierarchy and the contributions of the faithful, one can form a 
just estimate of the zeal for higher education which possesses 
the good Catholic people of Belgium. 

A block above the university stands the Belgian Seminary 
of St. Esprit ; there the brighter students among the young 
levites of Belgium pursue their higher theological researches, 
the college being affiliated with the university. St. Esprit has 
a very fine Renaissance gateway, and a paved court that is 
greatly admired by visitors. 

The most striking building after the Hotel de Ville is the 
Church of St. Michael, almost opposite St. Esprit. It would 
require a more facile pen than mine to do justice to its ex- 
quisite facade. It is in very late Renaissance style, and its rich 
arches, its graceful flambeaux, its majestic figures of archangels 
whose trumpets summon the worshippers to divine service, its 
laboriously wrought porches all combine to form a front 
unique in beauty and stateliness. I have seen the famous 
churches of Germany, France, and Italy, and with the excep- 
tion of the most renowned shrines of these countries, I am 
acquainted with no more lovely building than St. Michael's of 
Louvain. The church was built in the latter part of the six- 
teenth century by the Jesuit fathers, whose coat of arms is 
richly emblazoned over the main portal. It is now the paro- 
chial church of the university. During the excesses of the 
French Revolution the horrible sacrilege of Notre Dame de 
Paris was repeated here. An abandoned woman was enthroned 
as Goddess of Reason upon the high altar of St. Michael's. 

There is on the Rue de Namur an asylum which, we ven- 
ture to assert, has not a duplicate in the cities of America. 
Charity takes many forms, but the Hopital des Vieillards is one 



1 899.] 



IN PICTURESQUE Lou VAIN. 



599 

of the new- 
est. It is a 
home erect- 
ed and en- 
dowed by the 
state for the 
s u p p o rt of 
aged men 
and women 
who have 
been aban- 




Two THOUSAND STUDENTS DAILY ATTEND LOUVAIN'S UNIVERSITY. 

doned by ungrateful children. The members of the refuge 
number about two hundred, all of whom have children who 
have failed in one of the most primal duties of human society 
the support and alleviation of parents. Every day you can see 
the old dames, in white caps and blue-checked calico aprons, 
wending their way from the gate in one direction, while the 
old men, in blue military caps and dark jackets, turn in the 
opposite. On sunny days, however, they meet in the pretty 
little park to sit, gossip, and watch the swans in the river. 

The last institution of note on the rue is the celebrated 
missionary college, the American Seminary of the Immaculate 
Conception, which was founded in 1857. The buildings are 
unpretentious, and would never suggest a hint of the seminary's 
glorious history. Within its walls are gathered Poles, Germans, 



6oo IN PICTURESQUE LOUVAIN. [Aug., 

Frenchmen, Belgians, Irish, Dutch, and Americans, all animated 
with the same spirit and all eager for the evangelization of the 
Western world. Like St. Esprit, the American College is 
affiliated with the .university, and the students make all their 
studies under its professors. 

But a view more lively and gayly colored than the Rue de 
Namur affords meets the tourist who turns from the Rue de 
Namur down the steep Mont du College, and emerges on the 
Market Place, that forms an immense rectangle in the very 
heart of the city. Here on every day of the week, Saturdays 
and Sundays excepted, the industrious peasant hurries with his 
roses and carnations and primroses, his crisp, green vegetables, 
and his more prosaic wares in the shape of freshly killed beeves 
and porkers. What a clatter of sabots, what a jargon of huck- 
sters, what snarlings of the wagon-dogs who viciously snap at 
everything that comes within range of their teeth, and who 
every now and then are reduced to order by sound beatings 
from their buxom mistresses ! Unfortunate the abbe" whose 
soutane floats too near these canines ! He need think no 
more for that morning at least of lectures at the university, 
but must needs dive into the friendly obscurity of the nearest 
shop in search of pins to repair the rent in his garments, and 
bless his stars that it was only his soutane and not his calf 
that was torn so ruthlessly asunder. Ah ! those wagon-dogs 
that wait in the Market Place are sad Liberals in their hatred 
for an abbe" ! 

Stretched along the place as far as eye can reach are the 
umbrella-covered booths of the traders, who sit amid their goods 
knitting briskly, or who lean out to cajole the chance passer- 
by. It would be a jaded epicurean who would not be tempted 
by the display the stalls offer and by the importunities of their 
owners. You see groups of women haggling over a plump 
fowl that is held up to admiration, " bonnes " purchasing rolls of 
golden butter and newly laid eggs for milady's dejeuner, students 
inserting in their button-holes a flower for which they have 
been chaffing and bargaining with the flower girls this half- 
hour, and school lads giving their last centime for an orange. 
The confusion and noise are tremendous, but withal there is an 
,air of grace and unconscious courtesy, a sort of good-humored 
.give and take, about all this buying and selling that seems very 
natural to the Belgian character. 

After you weary of the market, there is quiet and restful 
devotion for you in the church of the Jesuits a few yards away. 



1 899.] 



IN PICTURESQUE Lou VAIN. 



Coi 




THE QUAINT WAYS OF THE CITY. 

Here the noise of the outside world never penetrates, for the 
high Flemish roofs and massive buildings by which it is sur- 
rounded deaden effectually the din of the highways. The 
church itself has little or no beauty ; it is in a very forbidding 
and cold style of the Romanesque, and were it not for its ex- 
quisite shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes and its relics it would 
not be as popular as many other shrines with which this Catho- 
lic city is studded. But the groined oak chapel of the Immacu- 
late One, with its suspended lamp burning always before her, 
its votive tablets that have been left as memorials by clients 
grateful for her powerful intercession, and its lovely paintings 
by Janssens, make the shrine a spot loved by the devout of 
all classes. I wish I could fittingly describe " The Presenta- 
tion of the Child Mary in the Temple" and "The Annuncia- 
tion " ! They are such tiny bits of art, and yet so fresh and 
dainty in their coloring, so harmonious and finished to the last 
detail, so breathful of high religious exaltation, so spirituelle, 
if one may say so, that one does not hesitate to endorse the 



602 IN PICTURESQUE Lou VAIN. [Aug., 

exclamation of an enthusiastic critic : " They are almost Ra- 
phael ! " Then, too, close to the shrine of Mary and how fitting 
that it should be so ! rests the heart of the dear St. John 
Berchmans, who was born and lived in boyhood at Diest, a few 
miles from the church where his relics are so tenderly kept 
and venerated. 

Over the floor of the sanctuary, just in front of the high 
altar, is raised a stone slab on which rests a wreath of immor- 
telles, and on which is carved a name known and loved by 
every student of Catholic philosophy and theology Lessius. 
He lived, studied, taught, wrote, and died here in Louvain, and 
to this day his virtues are a fragrant memory that clings about 
the old Brabantine city. 

After you have seen the church a walk about the boulevards 
reveals to you still another phase of life and a very pictur- 
esque one too. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, be- 
tween the hours of two and four, the religious and the students, 
lay and clerical, of the university may be seen promenading 
along the linden-shaded circle which girts the town for a dis- 
tance of four miles. The boulevard consists of a broad car- 
riage-way, flanked on both sides with walks for the pedestrian, 
while the outer edges are kept in fine trim for the cyclists, 
who, by the way, are very numerous and enthusiastic in Belgium. 

If you start from the woods of the Duchess of Arenberg, 
and walk westward, you will meet Dominicans in their habits 
of white and black ; sandaled, bareheaded, and white-corded 
Minorites; bearded Capuchins; Jesuits and secular priests in 
the conventional soutane ; Peres du Sacre Coeur clad entirely 
in white ; Benedictines and Monks of Premontre", who affect 
even white shoes and hats. Sometimes groups of convent girls 
are marshalled in very decorous gait by their sister guardians 
along the boulevard ; while university students in gaily colored 
cap, upon which bands of braid announce the number of ex- 
aminations successfully passed, enjoy a chat and a fragrant cigar 
under the trees. The scene is very bright, interesting, and racy of 
the old world. Indeed, the religious element that predominates 
and that appears so unconscious of anything like publicity is 
charmingly suggestive to an American visitor of- the Catholic 
days of mediaeval Europe. The monks are as much at home 
in religious garb on the streets as in the seclusion of their 
cloisters. 

When you have admired the soft, undulating hills that 
stretch for miles countrywards on the east side of the boule- 



1899.] 

vard, and that 
tivation ; and 
of the quaint 
tages of the 
listened to 
ringing from 
tower of St. 
bey, that nes- 
western hoi- 
climb the 
Mont Csar 
b ir d's-ey e 
the whole 



IN PICT UK mssQUE Lou VAIN. 



are perfect 
when you 




603 



marvels in the way of cul- 
have taken a sketch or two 
Flemish . cot- 
peasantry.and 
the chimes 
the great gray 
Norbert's Ab- 
tles among the 
lows, you may 
steep hill of 
and ge t a 
glimpse of 
city. 




ON THE BANKS OF THE DYLE. 
ST. PETER'S STATELY GOTHIC INTERIOR, A DOORWAY RICH WITH ARTISTIC MERIT. 

This Mont Ce"sar is quite an historic spot. The good 
Belgian will tell you that the remains of an old stone wall 
which lie about the hill are all that is left of a fortification 
which Julius Caesar built there centuries ago. If you quote 
Baedeker to him in refutation, he may yield a hesitating assent 



604 IN PICTURESQUE LOUVAIN. [Aug., 

to your and Baedeker's superior knowledge of ancient history ; 
but if he be of the bolder sort, he will snap his fingers at 
Baedeker, insist that Julius Caesar did build that wall, and 
when pushed too far, will exclaim, with charming naivete : " Ah 
oui! vous avez raison, monsieur. Ce n'etait pas Jules Cesar, 
mais un autre Cesar ! " And really, after all, there were other 
Caesars. 

But there is one historic association connected with this 
hill which even a sceptic armed with Baedeker cannot gainsay. 
It is the fact that the Emperor Charles V. lived during his 
boyhood upon this very spot in a castle of the dukes of 
Brabant, and was instructed by a tutor who afterwards became 
the great Pope Adrian VI. There is a bit of the castle foun- 
dation still remaining, but it is too insignificant to be dignified 
with the title of " ruin." The Benedictines are erecting a 
stately monastery upon the brow of the hill, and the structure 
is far enough advanced to justify the expectation that when 
completed it will recall the lost architectural glories of the 
order of St. Benedict. 

Let me take you to one more spot of interest, and our 
walk through old Louvain will be over. In the tiny park, 
where the poor of the Hopital cles Vieillard while away the 
days that yet remain to them of life, is a statue erected to 
one of the world's great men, to one of God's own heroes 
Father Damien, the leper-priest of Molokai. It is a simple 
block of gray granite, surmounted by a bronze group, at once 
pathetic and majestic. A slender, ascetic priest stands erect, 
with sensitive, passionate face, looking upwards. His left hand 
clasps to his breast the crucifix, while his right arm is thrown 
protectingly about a leper gaunt and eaten by disease, and 
whose face is a speechless appeal of agony. The inscription 
on the pedestal is as follows : 

To FATHER DAMIEN, THE APOSTLE OF MOLOKAI, 

His Fatherland. 

1894. 

As one stands before this awe-inspiring group, how forceful 
and true throng the Master's words into the mind of the on- 
looker : "And he that loseth his life for my sake shall 

find it." 

MICHAEL P. SETER. 




I8 S9-] THE LAY- SISTEXS. 605 



THE LAY-SISTERS. 

BY MARY ONAHAN GALLERY. 

HEY are not sisters by ties of blood. On the 
contrary, they have come from many different 
parts, some of them from beyond the sea. 
"The Voice" called them that was enough. 
One and all, the pretty, the homely, the grace- 
ful, the awkward, the gay, the serious, they obeyed. They form 
part of that religious Ufe, so strange to the world, which is 
often supposed to have died with the middle ages, but which 
emerged therefrom quiet, unobtrusive, yet filled with the strong 
sap of life and growth. 

Not all the religious orders have these lay-sisters. The 
vivifying mountain air of democracy has penetrated, in most 
cases, even through cloister walls. There is a communism of 
labor as well as of goods. The most brilliant Jesuit, the most 
cultivated Sceur Grise, is sometimes called upon to peel potatoes 
or to make, gaily enough, the beds. 

A few of the orders, however, have preserved these distinc- 
tions of class. They do so not from any particular principle 
or prejudice, but simply for their own convenience. The aspi- 
rants to the novitiate who come to their doors are already 
versed, some in the lore of books, some in the more modest 
but no less necessary manual labor ; therefore, the superior 
says, it would be an impertinence to disturb the station in 
which Providence has placed them, and she sets some to teach 
and others to scrub. 

Not that they who scrub are looked down upon by them 
who teach. Far from it! The religious orders do not make 
the modern mistake that book-learning is education. In this 
community life it is the spirit alone that counts, and the most 
abject drudgery is made luminous by the glow of faith. Hence 
that modest but sturdy flower, the lay-sister, grows side by 
side with the frail and delicate lily, the nun. 

It might be supposed that living in the same house for 
twenty, thirty, sometimes even for fifty years, having the same 
occupations, breathing the same placid air of serenity and 
peace, these lay-sisters would grow somewhat alike. Those 



606 THE LA Y-SISTERS. [Aug., 

plain black gowns and demure white coifs, each exactly like 
the other, seem at first to render the wearers indistinguishable. 
But look closer! It will be discovered that even the oldest 
among them have an individuality impossible to mistake. They 
are like ruddy apples touched by faint wintry frost, preserving 
all the characteristics, leanness or roundness, sweetness or sour- 
ness, mellowness or crabbedness, of the days when they hung 
gay and free upon the branch of youth. 

There is Sister Drake, the infirmarian, brisk, blue-eyed, 
matter-of-fact. She is one of the very few who never change 
place with any one else. She does not migrate from the 
kitchen to the refectory, the refectory to the dormitory, the 
dormitory to the laundry, as the other sisters do. Her work 
is always the same; she is the doctor of the house. 

If rumor reaches her, and it does with surprising quickness, 
that you have a headache, that you have missed one or two 
meals, she waylays you in some corner of the hall. 

"What does this mean? You have the audacity to get 
sick and not to let me know ! A grave breach of discipline ! 
Come right along ! ' 

Up to the infirmary you are led straightway, like a criminal 
to the bar of justice. You stand before a prim, mysterious- 
looking cupboard with curtains of Dutch blue, where is hid 
Sister Drake's medicinal lore. She gives you a keen look 
from the sharp blue eyes, feels your pulse, asks a few, a very 
few questions, and mixes the posset forthwith. It is idle to 
make wry faces or to plead piteously for an easily swallowed 
pill. Like the Ancient Mariner, she " holds you with her glit- 
tering eye " until the disappearance of the last drop. She has 
pet names for the drugs most in use. There is a savory con- 
coction of castor-oil which the boarding-school girls loath ; she 
calls it " chicken soup." 

She has seen many a death, has Sister Drake ; but they are 
mostly gentle deaths, like the quenching of a candle that has 
burned its allotted length. There is no rebellion when death 
comes into the convent, no heart-broken parents or children 
kneeling awed and powerless by. Perhaps it is the death of 
some good veteran nun, grown decrepit in the service of the 
Lord, stepping as placidly from this world into the world be- 
yond the tomb as yesterday she stepped from dormitory to 
chapel. Perhaps it is some fair young novice, youth's pink 
glow upon her cheeks and her lashes still wet with the dew of 
life's morning, gathered like a flower too fair for human 



I8 99-] THE LAY-SISTERS. 607 

nature's daily use. Sister Drake has watched by both these 
bedsides, but she turns away with step no less firm to go her 
daily round. 

After all, the nun is the really good Christian. To her 
death means not anguish and corruption, but only the serenity 
of eternal peace. 

Then there are the sisters who cook and wash. There is 
Sister Gertrude, tall, awkward, pock-marked, who has a trick of 
sometimes breaking into a smile which illumines her face like 
the sunlight glinting through wintry boughs. She is always 
drudging, but always happy, having much work and little play. 

Play : for even the lay-sisters have their recreation, walking 
up and down the garden, telling harmless jokes and stories, 
even, in wildly boisterous moments, playing the school-girls' 
games. But Sister Gertrude is rarely with them. Her work is 
never through, though she cannot be made to acknowledge 
that in many cases it is not her own work that keeps her toil- 
ing while the rest are enjoying the recreation hour, but the 
work of some weaker sister whose burden she gladly bears. 

There is Sister Swift, genial, warm-hearted, even motherly, 
though with that chaste aroma of virginity which exhales from 
the nun as fragrance from the rose. She never addresses you 
except as "Dear," yet there seems no insincere effusion ( in the 
word. It is plain that she does love all God's creatures and, 
for Sister Swift is not wholly spiritual, that she loves them not 
merely because they are God's but because they are human as 
well. 

All the boarding-school girls love Sister Swift. She gives 
them, a trifle slyly sometimes, three spoonfuls of gravy and 
extra large slices of pie ; she floods their saucers as well as 
their cups with coffee, and when the nun surveillant of the re- 
fectory passes along the line of tables and her eye lights re- 
provingly upon this untidy spot, Sister Swift goes hastily, 
humbly, apologetically for a clean saucer ; but she takes great 
care not to return until the superfluous coffee has been greedily 
drunk. Delightfully human is Sister Swift ! 

The pale-faced, gentle sister is Sister Rosalie ; she is not so 
generally liked. She is perhaps the prettiest of all the sisters 
and her step is as the tread of a seraph. All of the nuns wear 
felt shoes, so that they make little if any noise ; but Sister 
Rosalie seems to move like the wind in midsummer coming 
from one knows not where. Perhaps this is one reason she is 
not dangerously popular. Culprits are often caught red-handed, 



6o3 THE LAY-SISTERS. [Aug., 

so noiseless is her approach. Then she seems never to have 
any favorites ; no cajolery can tempt her into the slightest par- 
tiality. When her large, mild eye catches the girls secreting 
crackers in the drawer of the refectory table, she neither smiles 
nor frowns ; merely waits until the final grace has been said 
and the tables have been vacated, then quietly opens the drawer 
and whisks the coveted morsels away. Youth resents this lack 
of humor, squirms visibly at being treated " from the heights." 

Sister Garnet is the vestry sister, stout, squarely built, much 
like a sergeant-at arms. She stands guard at the vestry door 
and allows no intruders into her domain. She has charge of 
the wardrobes of the school, which are in open and numbered 
lockers ranked against the vestry walls. When you wish to in- 
terview her she opens a large slide in the vestry door, and you 
catch a meagre glimpse, through the interstices of her portly 
form, into that fascinating land where forbidden finery is hid. 
There are the gay dresses worn on entrance day, now discarded 
for black tucked uniforms that look hopelessly grave and dull ; 
there, the pretty lace collars, the ribbons, and frivolous knick- 
knacks of the world to which even the youngest feminine heart 
goes out in a pathetic agony of longing. 

A terrible story is told that once upon a time a daring and 
wicked fifteen-year-old girl effected entrance, while Sister Gar- 
net's vigilant guard was for a moment relaxed, into that vestry 
domain and actually stole one of her own lace collars ! She 
could not wear it of course not. In that battalion of linen- 
collared girls she would have been detected at once. And she 
knew she could not wear it when she stole it; but just to have 
it by her, to finger and fondle it in her white-curtained alcove 
when the lights were extinguished and girls and nuns were 
asleep, this was a delight which fairly delighted her soul ! 

They searched her alcove, they searched the drawer of her 
little wooden wash-stand, they tossed up the pillow and sheets 
of her small white bed, but the collar was not to be found. 
Success, alas ! made her venturesome. One chilly winter morn- 
ing, awaking before the bell had rung, she proceeded to try on 
the lace collar over her white night-gown, standing on bare tip- 
toes and craning her neck to get a glimpse of herself in the 
five-inch mirror which was all that the pensionnaires were al- 
lowed. Suddenly the white curtain was drawn aside and an 
astonished and scandalized sister was revealed. With some 
trembling the culprit confessed that she had kept the precious 
collar, a trifle rumpled it is true, concealed in the mattress of 



1899.] THE LAY-SISTERS. 609 

her bed, having wormed it in through a tiny hole in the under 
side. There was one disheartened and sulky school-girl in the 
ranks that day. Her treasure had been taken ruthlessly away. 

The good vestry sister is not always up in the latest fashion. 
It is mockingly told of her that on one occasion, journeying by 
rail (the one excursion of her life !) from one convent to an- 
other with an elderly religieuse, in whose charge a four-year-old 
girl had been placed, Sister Garnet, on whom it devolved to 
dress the child, put on the pretty frilled frock with the back 
to the front without the slightest suspicion that she was in- 
fringing fashion's laws. 

One of the most onerous of her responsibilities is to super- 
intend the darning of the stockings, and many a time she may 
be seen, her arms filled with dilapidated hosiery, chasing the 
fleeing figure of some girl down the dim halls of the convent. 
And, though the sister is bulky and, like Falstaff, scant of 
breath, she usually rounds up the delinquent in the end. 

Thus the lives of the good lay-sisters are passed, seemingly 
so humble, so unobtrusive, of so little worth. When the chapel 
bell rings they move with bowed heads and folded hands, like 
nameless shadows, to their oaken stalls. But, though their 
hands are roughened with labor, their voices rise none the less 
pure and strong in the matin and vesper hymn, and as the in- 
cense rises over the altar and their forms are bowed in silent 
prayer, one thinks of the Spirit that Ben Adhem saw, and the 
chant seems to hover over just these lowly heads, telling 

" The names whom love of God had blessed." 
And lo ! the lay-sisters' names led all the rest ! 




VOL. LXIX. 39 



6io 



THE HEIRS Of THE ABBEY. 



[Aug., 



THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. 

BY C. S. HOWE. 

:ND this, then, is Chetwynd Abbey, my own dear 
mother's home as a girl her birthplace. I had 
no idea it was so large a place, so beautiful, so 
grand ! " 

Thus thinking aloud to herself, her sole audi- 
ence, Margaret Buncombe gazed through the gates of a splen- 
didly timbered park, situated in a north-western county of 
England. 

It was a scene fair enough for the most uninterested eyes to 




5**7r ." ' '-/{. ^^Hw^ x f .', 

tsai^^M 



^TTSSPTWEPFW 




look upon with pleasure. A long avenue of horse-chestnuts 
stretched away to where, in the extreme distance, the gray, 
castellated roof of the mansion stood out in relief against its 
background of dark beeches. In front there glowed the bril- 
liant hues of many-tinted flower-beds, with the sparkle of water 
from marble fountains on the long, wide terrace, stretching 
from wing to wing of the noble building, stirring in the heart 
of the young girl, who now saw it all for the first time, a sense 
of rightful proprietorship that would not be gainsaid. 

"It is beautiful," she repeated. "Ah! the difference that 
might have been. Especially to-day my birthday. I am 
twenty-one and heiress to nothing, nothing! What would I 
not do for Cyril, for father, for the church ! Well, I am 



1899-] THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. 61 1 

afraid this is all waste breath, useless grumble. No more of 
it. Just one more look, and then away for home." 

A last long, lingering look at the ancient home of her 
maternal ancestors, and then the speaker set off on her way 
homeward at a quick pace which soon developed into a run. 
The way over the lonely moors was long to the little village 
where for the present her home was, and the shortening day 
a late summer one was almost over by the time she ar- 
rived. It was only a furnished cottage on the outskirts of the 
little village of Scarfell, which, as a change from a big, bus- 
tling provincial town, had been rented for the benefit of Mr. 
Duncombe's health. 

The latter, who was a confirmed invalid, was looking 
anxiously for his daughter's arrival when she came into the 
little sitting-room, and seating herself on a low stool at his 
knees said, breathlessly : 

" Dad, I Ve just been to Chetwynd. I 've seen it. It is 
lovely. You never told me half how beautiful it is." 

" It is too far, much too far, for you to go by yourself, 
child. You must not do it again. I have been anxious about 
you." 

" I 'm very sorry. It was selfish of me to be away so long, 
but I have so longed to get a glimpse of the old place. You 
promised to tell me the whole story when I was twenty-one. 
Won't you do so now? the old and the new story, as you 
called them." 

"Very well, Madge ; but you must be content with a very 
brief account of both. I will reverse the usual order and tell 
the last first. I am glad to get it soon over, as it is through 
me that your dear mother was disinherited. Her father never 
forgave her for marrying me ; for I, though of good family, 
was only an artist, though a rising one, and comparatively 
poor. It made no difference when his only son died some 
little while after, and he bequeathed the whole of his fortune 
and estates to some distant cousin, who is now the owner of 
Chetwynd Abbey." 

"Why is it called l Abbey' ? It is not a church or sacred 

edifice." 

" Therein lies the whole of the old story. It takes its name 
from a real abbey which once stood not far distant from 
where the nominal one is now, from whence the monks were 
driven by order of the eighth Henry, and their lands given to 
Hugh Delamere as a reward for his support of the king's 



6f2 



THE HEIRS OF t THE ABBE y. 



[Aug., 




m 



supremacy as Head of 
the English Church. Sir 
Hugh was cousin to 
Baron Delamere of Chetwynd 
Hall, who, as a leal Catholic, 
took active part in the Pilgrim- 
age of Grace, for which he was 
attainted and all his estates be- 
stowed upon his unworthy rela- 
tive, Sir Hugh. It is this junc- 
tion of properties which forms 
the present estate, though the 
old monastic building has long 
since disappeared." 

"And is this traitorous apostate, Sir Hugh, my ancestor?" 
asked Margaret, in unmitigated disgust. 

" Yes, on your mother's side. On mine you descend from 
the old Baron Delameres, through my mother, whose family 
retained their ancient faith unbroken and untarnished through 
centuries of persecution. Your dear mother became a Catholic 
shortly after we were married." 

"Was it that which made grandfather so unforgiving?" 
" I 'm afraid it added fuel to the fire, though we hoped he 
might relent when his only son died. By the way, a singular 
fatality, some say a curse, rests on Sir Hugh's descendants; 
for the eldest son has never, since his time, been known to 
succeed to the estates. He has always died before his father, 
and it has always been a grandson, younger son, nephew, or 
even more distant relation, who inherited." 

"Is it this curse for sacrilege?" asked Margaret fearfully. 
" I never heard that a curse was actually spoken ; but it is 
known that when the aged abbot refused to leave, or did not, 
on account of his infirmities, go fast enough, Sir Hugh struck 
him to the ground with his own hand ! Your grandfather was 
the last of his family name, so perhaps the sin is expiated at 
last. You must not fret over your lost fortune, Madge. You 
are happy, are you not ? Have you heard from Cyril lately ? " 
" Not very lately. I am expecting a letter by every post. 
Oh ! there is only one post a day here. The country is lovely, 
but has its drawbacks." 

Margaret sprang up lightly as she spoke. A tall, lithe, 
blue-eyed maiden she was, with clear-cut features of what is 
called the patrician type, suited so her father thought more 



1 899.] 



THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. 



613 



fitly for ancestral halls than the cheaperies of middle-class life. 
With a sigh he resumed his interrupted task, which, however 
artistic, was not of the high order to which he had aspired and 
i \ which he had actually achieved distinction when paralysis 
had blighted his hopes for ever. But if ambition had to be 
laid aside, need still remained. Skilful, high-class design was 
always in demand, a fact for which Mr. Buncombe had long 
since learned to be thankful. 

At the top of the steep, ladder-like little staircase which 
led to her bedroom Margaret met Lois, their faithful and only 
domestic, whose honest face, red and shiny from recent soap 
and water, beamed with satisfaction as she cried : 

" Now, there you be, Miss Marget ! I 'm that glad to see 
ye, ye'd 'ardly b'lieve. I've been in such a fright a thinkin' 
about ye." 

"Did you think I'd got lost, Lois?" 

" No, it worn't that, though ye was a long time gone. It 
was becos of that there big dog o' Farmer Bates's ; that great, 
savage beast as 'e keeps tied up in 'is barnyard. 'E broke 
loose this afternoon an' it wor some time afore they got 'im 
agin. Meanwhile I thought you might meet 'im an' git bit." 
" I shouldn't have been afraid if I had met him loose. A 

chained dog who has to take charge, as it were, is always a 

little fierce ought to be, perhaps. Besides, I've made friends 

with Bran ; he wouldn't hurt me." 
" Maybe, an' 

maybe not. It 

makes me all of 

a shiver to see 

you go so nigh 

that there great 

brute, as a'most 

frights me to 

death a tuggin' 

an' 'owlin* at 'is 

chain to git at me 

whenever I goes 

for the milk. But 

that ain't all about 

it neither. There 

was a mad dog 

run through the 

village a few days 




614 THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. [Aug., 

ago, an' Bran got bit. Farmer Bates won't 'ave it as there 's 
anything wrong with 'is dog, and so long as 'e keeps 'im tied 
up 'e can't do no 'arm ; but I'm glad, anyway, to see ye come 
back all right." 

" I'm sorry you have been uneasy about me, Lois. I have 
been a very long way this afternoon. I crossed the moors 
such a long, wild, lonely walk and got as far as Chetwynd 
Abbey, which I 've been wanting to see ever since I came to 
Scarfell. I am glad I saw it, for it is a most beautiful old 
place." 

" Now did ye really ? They do tell such things about that 
place, wusser than ghosts a'most. They say as 'ow one of them 
Ten Plagues o' Hegypt 'as stuck to it for years an' years. All 
the dear little eldest boys die off ; but now that the old gen- 
tleman is dead there may be a change for the better, as there 
ain't no more sons left to die, an' some un of another name 
'as the Habby now. They must 'a' done somethin' awful bad, 
them old Delameres, for there's a rhyme about 'em I got it 
by 'art to tell yes as says : 

" ' When De la Mere's old name is gone 
The penance shall be dreed and done.' 

A good thing, too, they're all gone at last, don't ye think?" 

Lois, who was an inveterate gossip, told all this with great 
unction, although she knew nothing of the listener's family his- 
tory. Neither did the villagers suspect that the " artist gen- 
tleman " now staying among them was son-in-law of the late 
owner of Chetwynd, or that the tall, graceful girl, who had 
been unanimously voted as the " ladyest pussun " they 
had ever " set hyes on," was its rightful, though disinherited, 
heiress. 

It was a little, out-of-the-way, primitive place, this moorland 
village of Scarfell, nearly five miles from the nearest town. 
Fortunately for the Buncombes a Catholic family of position 
had a country seat close by where, when they were in 
residence, Mass was celebrated by their chaplain. It was 
this fact which had decided the visit, as, with Lois' stout arms 
to pull his invalid chair, Mr. Buncombe could go to Mass on 
Sundays. 

Meanwhile, Margaret was greatly enjoying the delightful 
change, and, although she no longer ventured upon excessively 
long walks, she daily strolled upon the breezy, wide-spreading 
uplands, which were a never-ending source of pleasure to her. 



1899-] THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. 615 

She loved the purple bloom on the heather, glowing rose-color 
in the sunshine ; the golden gorse, the bracken, already show- 
ing the first hues of its matchless "autumn chintz"; the free, 
fresh air, health-giving and inspiriting as it was sweet and 
natural. There were drawbacks, it is true, to her unlimited 
pleasure : one, alas ! a permanent one, in her father's health, 
which could never be much better ; the second, the unaccount- 
able silence of Cyril Ryaston, to whom she had been betrothed 
for nearly two years, and whose station in India was, she knew, 
none of the healthiest or safest, though she only knew this in 
part ; the last, and for the time most pressing, was the sad 
plight of poor Bran, Farmer Bates's trusty and valuable 
watch-dog, now known beyond a doubt to be stricken with 
hydrophobia and doomed to be shot. It was quite a village 
tragedy ! 

Especially did it seem so to Margaret ; who, a true child of 
" sweet St. Francis of Assisi," loved and felt pitifully for the 
sufferings of the dumb creation. Lois had noticed her young 
mistress's distress, and bethinking herself of an excuse to get 
her out of the way when the shot was fired which would put 
poor Bran out of his misery, she said : 

" The master was a-sayin' as 'ow he wanted a bit more o' 
that pink 'eather, same as you brought 'im t'other day. S'pose 
you fetch it ; you ain't been out to-day. There '11 be just time 
afore tea." 

The ruse, if Lois' little artifice might be called by that 
name, was successful. Margaret's care was to supply her 
father with the floral models he required for his work, so her 
hat was promptly donned and she herself soon on her way to- 
wards the point on the moors where the required specimen 
was likely to be found. 

It was somewhat rare, and not particularly easy to find 
among the masses of the commoner sort; and the search for 
it so completely engrossed her attention that she did not once 
look behind until she had gone a considerable distance, quite 
out of sight of home. When she did, a sight met her eyes that 
for a moment transfixed her with terror. 

Rushing towards her, and apparently right on her track, 
came a great dog which she knew to be Bran the signs of 
his dreadful disease plainly evident, even at a distance, 
hind him, but still a long way off, some men followed at 
top of their speed. 

She could see the broken rope trailing behind the dog, and 



6i6 



THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. 



[Aug., 



knew by this that he had broken loose ; that in a minute or 
two at most he would be upon her, tear her down, mangle her, 
seemed inevitable ; those who followed were too distant, and 
would arrive too late to rescue her. Hiding place there was 
none. To run for her life was her only, yet hopeless, resource, 
for if the dog had seen her she was doomed. 

Uttering a low, fervent invocation to Our Lady of Suc- 
5 )? cor, she fled at right angles to the path 
* ' she had been taking, to where a clump 
of low bushes, at the foot of some ris- 
ing ground, offered the only, and that 
the merest semblance of shelter, in all 
the wide space 
around her. 

In desperate 
hope that the rab- 
id animal would 
be more intent 
upon escaping 
from his pursuers 
than following 
her flight, she 
plunged into the 
little thicket, re- 
gardless of the 
brambles that 
tore her clothes 
and scratched her 
flesh severely, in 
overwhelming ter- 
ror of the danger 
which threatened 
her from behind. 
Her hope 
proved to be a 
most forlorn one. 
She had scarcely 
crouched down 
behind the thick- 
est bush she could 
find when she saw 
the great brute 
making straight 




THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. 



617 




1899.] 

for her poor hid- 
ing place, with 
great bounding 
leaps of furious 
eagerness, awful 
to see. She gave 
herself up for lost, 
and though an as- 
piration as of one 
in deadly peril 
rose in her heart, 
her tongue was 
powerless to give 

it utterance, until across her mind flash- 
ed the memory of the martyrs of -the 
Arena, St. Perpetua and her companions ,' 
and though their glory would never be 
hers, their very names gave her courage 
and calmness to meet her fate. 

Suddenly from the moor, which rose rather steeply behind 
her, there rang the sharp report of a gun, and almost at the 
same instant the great beast stopped short on his headlong 
career, swayed from side to side, and then fell prone and life- 
less within a few feet of the spot where Margaret crouched. 
A sure and most merciful bullet had gone straight to its aim 
the heart of the ravening brute, ending instantaneously his 
sufferings and the agonizing suspense of poor Margaret, whose 
astonishment at her unexpected deliverance now surpassed her 
recent fear. 

Together with wonder, gratitude for her own safety, min- 
gled with pity for poor Bran, filled her heart to the full ; but 
there was scarce time for an ejaculation of thankfulness be- 
fore there came the sound of swiftly striding footsteps, and 
two men sprang from the hillock behind her and ran up to 
the dead animal. There was a brief examination, and then 
one of them, who seemed to be a gamekeeper, said admir- 
ingly : 

" That was a good shot o' yourn, sir. Couldn't 'a' been 
better. He 's as dead as a stone." 

" It had to be," said the other gravely. " Had there been 
need of a second one, the lady wherever has she Margaret ! " 

He sprang forward as he spoke to where Madge, pinned 
down by the briers, was staring into his deeply bronzed face 



618 THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. [Aug., 

with eyes that appeared to doubt the evidence of their own 
sight. 

" Cyril?" was all she could find to say by way of greeting 
and that only in a hoarse whisper to one she but a moment 
before had honestly believed to be thousands of miles away. 

" Myself," he said, as he released her speedily from her 
prickly fetters. "You must have had a terrible fright, my 
poor, dear Madge. Thank God it was no worse ! " 

Cyril spoke with deep feeling, raising his hat while both he 
and Margaret involuntarily made the sign of the cross. 

Soon he drew her away from a scene which was becoming 
more animated every minute by the arrivals in detachments of 
parties of excited villagers, with whom poor Bran, his sickness 
and his fate, was the absorbing interest of the hour. 

" You may well be surprised," he said when, well out of ear- 
shot, they were walking slowly homewards. " I will now answer 
your unasked questions, or part of them, as I read them in 
your eyes. I have had to return from India on unexpected 
business, and I did not write because I found that I could 
bring my news almost as soon as I could write it. Again, I 
wished to verify it, make sure that it was true, before I ven- 
tured to mention it." 

" Is it almost too good to be true, then ? " asked Madge 
archly. 

" It is very good and as equally true. But, as we are so 
near home, if it please you, dear, I will tell you when we get 
there, for it is not only a story, but an event which concerns us 
all. I have not asked after your father yet ? " 

" He is a little stronger, that is all. Yes, tell us when we 
are all together your story, as you call it ; but tell me now 
how you came to shoot the dog. I heard that man say it was 
you." 

" I was finding my way over the moors to Scarfell when 
I met the man, who was civilly showing me the nearest way. 
On mounting some rising ground, we found ourselves over- 
looking a scene which, as you know it already too well, I 
won't describe. Fortunately my companion some gamekeeper, 
I suppose had a loaded gun with him, with which I promptly 
took what you call ' French leave,' my jungle experience having 
taught me to know at a glance when the failure of one bullet 
might render a thousand useless." 

"Your 'jungle experience'? You never mentioned it be- 
fore." 



1 899.] 



THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. 



619 



"Did I not? My station is on the immediate outskirts of 
a pretty well stocked Bengalese ' preserve' where the game is 
occasionally apt to turn tables and hunt the hunter. After all, 
it is fair sport the law of take and give strictly complied 
with. The world is none the loser by an old man-eater or two 
bowled out of it, and old Stripes' skin is a deal nicer to lie 
upon, or look at, than to have old Stripes himself for a near 
neighbor. You look as though you think I am making myself 
out to be a mighty hunter. I am really nothing of the sort. 
I only have had some good practice, for which, again, I thank 
God this day ! " 

Mr. Buncombe forgot his surprise at Cyril's unexpected re- 
turn in listening to the account of the afternoon's adventure, 
his gratitude for his daughter's assured safety absorbing his 
entire interest until Mar- 
garet said : 

" Now let us hear Cy- 
ril's good news. What- 
ever it is, I hope it means 
that 'jungle experience' 
is not to be renewed." 

" I don't think it will 
be," rejoined Cyril. " I 
don't know if I ever men- 
tioned to you, Mr. Dun- 
combe, that I had a half- 
brother a good deal older 
than myself?" 

" You may have done so ; I forget." 

" My mother's first husband was a Mr. Charteris, and John 
was nearly grown up when I was born. He, like myself, was 
in the Indian Civil Service, but at far apart stations, and his 
much the bigger berth of the two. His was at Bombay, where 
a few weeks ago he died. Shortly before his death he came 
into a large estate in England You look! I see I think 
you understand me ! " 

"Charteris!" said Mr. Duncombe slowly. "If I am not 
mistaken nay, I am surf, that was the name of the man to 
whom the Chetwynd property is left. You do not, cannot 
mean to say it was your brother?" 

" It was : though what relationship our mother held to the 
Delameres I have no idea. Some ' Scotch cousinship,' I suppose. 
John died childless, so I, being his only brother, am his heir!" 




-.- 



620 THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. [Aug., 

" You the heir the owner of Chetwynd Abbey ! Incredi- 
ble ! " 

" O Cyril ! " cried Margaret, " is it really true ? It sounds 
like a romance, a dream ! " 

" I must ask you to let me finish my story," replied Cyril 
gravely. " Knowing as I did of your close connection with 
the Delamere family, I wished to be absolutely certain upon 
every point before communicating with you ; so I returned im- 
mediately to England and had an interview with the lawyers 
who had drawn up Sir Walter Delamere's will. I saw it. It 
was just as I had heard. All had been left to John Charteris 
and his heirs, or, in event of his pre-decease, to his next heir." 

" And you have doubtless taken out probate," remarked Mr. 
Buncombe with some stiffening of manner, which Cyril appar- 
ently failed to notice, as also the question, as he went on : 

" I asked one or two questions of the lawyers and then re- 
turned to my hotel for the purpose of keeping an appointment 
with some one who, in a most urgent note, had begged me to 
take no steps, legal or otherwise, until I had seen him. My in- 
terviewer was a Catholic priest, a professor in one of the col- 
leges. And now comes the strangest part of my strange story, 
as told to me in his. 

" He had been summoned in urgent haste to the late Sir 
Walter Delamere's dying bed. In times past they had been 
firm friends, and, in spite of wide differences of thought and 
feeling, the old baronet had at heart a certain reverent regard 
for Father Beaumont, for whom, being in great distress of mind, 
he had sent at the eleventh hour ; the result being that he died 
a Catholic! No one knew of it except Father Beaumont, and 
naturally no one believed it, and consequently he was buried 
as a Protestant in the Protestant family vault. By .his direc- 
tion Father Beaumont hastily drew up a brief will which, 
superseding all previous ones, made his only grandchild, Margaret 
Buncombe, his sole and absolute heiress." 

Cyril paused, but his hearers remained silent. Surprise had 
reached a point which had deprived them of all wish to question. 
He turned towards Margaret as he continued : " Will you be 
greatly disappointed, dear, to know, that before this will could 
be signed your grandfather passed away ? his good intentions 
for ever frustrated by the fatal, irretrievable too late ! " 

" / disappointed ! Why ? " cried Margaret. " I am glad and 
happy beyond expression happier than I have ever been in my 
life, and, for the rest, is it not after all just the same?" 



" No ! it is not the same 
by any means," rejoined 
Mr. Duncombe. " Thankful 
as I am at your grand- 
father's conversion and his 
dying wishes on your be- 
half, I can but view with re- 
gret the fact that it is only 
as Cyril's wife that^you can 
claim a share in what should 
be what is, your own 
birthright. An unsigned, 
unwitnessed will is as worth- 
less as the parchment upon 
which it is written." 

" Just so in law," said 
Cyril. " But suppose no 
other will to exist ; what 
then?" 

" Why Margaret would 
inherit, of course, as nearest of kin. 
Is not that question [superfluous, since 
the case is so different?" 

" There is no\ other ^will ! It is 
destroyed burnt by me in the pres- 
ence of the lawyers who drew up the 
document which would^have bestowed 
upon me a gift I could only take 
from Margaret's own hand. Probate, 
you see, had not been 
taken ! " 

" You did what ? Cyril, 
you are a noble fellow. 
Not one in ten thousand 
would have done the same. 
I am ashamed that I un- 
dervalued your honor even 
for a passing moment. 
Forgive me. Perhaps I 
could not rise to your 
height of purpose, your 
sense of true chivalry being 
loftier than mine." 




622 



THE HEIRS OF THE ABBEY. 



[Aug., 



"No, no, nothing of the sort. I am only a very selfish 
fellow who in giving a present with one hand holds the other 
out, open and empty, to take it back. Did does not Margaret 
say ' it is just the same ' ? " 

"If you outdo me in generosity," replied Madge, "you will 
not do so in the pleasure of giving. To give! Is there not in 
that tiny sentence the whole bliss of wealth, the worst bane of 
poverty? Dad, now that you need no longer to work for money 
but only for the ' love of the working,' will you design the 
Church of Reparation for Chetwynd, which is the first the 
very first thing we must think about, is it not?" 

" That was Father Beaumont's own suggestion," said Cyril. 

" He too is of old North-country family, and knows of the 
sacrifices the old Delameres made for the faith. He says that 
it is by no means a singular circumstance for the descendants 
of despoilers of consecrated property to suffer strange dynastic 
troubles ; and that more than one noble house has to pay, as 
though it were a tax, the hereditary penalty of some ancestral 
sin of sacrilege." 

"And will, most probably, continue to do so until their tardy 
reparation is made," added Mr. Duncombe. " If ' the mills of 
God grind slowly,' they do their work very surely, as not only 
isolated families, but wide-world nations have had woful ex- 
perience of ere now, and may do so again. You are quite in 
the right, Madge. We will set about our own part in the great 
work at once. Give me my charcoal-box, child, and let me try 
my hand a very 'prentice one in this line, I fear at limning 
something spired and pinnacled, with arches pointing heaven- 
ward a sermon in stone." 

" Make it a ' poem in stone,' as well, dad." 

" Nay, Madge, we must wait for that until our own old 
Westminster is ours again ! " 





1899-] THE INFLUENCE OF NEWMAN. 623 

THE INFLUENCE OF NEWMAN. 

BY ANNE ELIZABETH O'HARE. 

'HENEVER I think of the quaint old Oxford 
streets in the gray shadow of the overhanging 
college walls, I see a hurrying figure with bent 
head and stooping shoulders. It is John Newman 
as he was in the years during which the wonderful 
old university was a home to him. To me the same figure haunted 
the dim halls, the narrow doorways, the moss-grown walks a 
very genius of the place ; and as I breathed deep draughts of 
the inspiring Oxford air, with its waftings of age and mustiness 
of centuried lore, or as I stumbled up the worn stairways, marked 
with the imprint of many footsteps, I scanned eagerly the pass- 
ing faces of all I chanced to meet, in some dream-hope, born 
of the magic of the place, of seeing the man who had lived 
through so much there and who had loved the old haunts so 
tenderly to the end. But though I saw many faces, young and 
old, care-free and thought-lined, there was not the one I longed 
to see, with its grave, kind eyes and thoughtful smile nor ever' 
will be again, save in some such whimsical fancy as mine. 
My imagination filled each familiar spot with those who had 
been there more than half a century ago. I like to picture to 
myself a group of those whose names are well known to us, 
with Newman in their midst, gathered in the shade of one of 
the old porches or discussing a knotty point in one of the 
lecture-rooms, in the days when the great religious movement 
that shook England to its very foundation was yet in its infancy. 
What a place was Oxford in those days, with Copleston and 
Keble, Pusey and Hurrell Froude, and those others whom 
Newman's quiet magnetism made friends of in the years when 
he was Fellow and Tutor at Oriel ! 

In following Newman's career through the Tractarian move- 
ment and through his later life as a Catholic cleric, our measure- 
ment of his public influence makes us attach insufficient weight 
to that strong, personal power which bore such fruit of good 
through all his life, and which yet bears fruit when its source 
is quenched. In those quiet Oxford days, before his "Tracts" 
had brought him into the world of religious discussion, the 



THE INFLUENCE OF NEWMAN. L Au g- 

student and thinker had opportunity to show himself, and his 
influence passed from the Common Room at Oriel through all 
the college halls and thence out into the great tide of English 
thought. He was then more of the " literati," though the bent 
of his mind inclined him always to questions of doctrine and 
dogma, and he was known thus early, while scarcely older than 
themselves, as the staunch friend and counsellor of the young 
men of the university, his pupils and others. With his quick 
and patient sympathy, and his habit of feeling and thinking 
with 'them, he helped many over the rough and stony places 
one flounders through at the outset of the thinking life. I have 
lately read, among some fragments of his correspondence, several 
letters to young men written at various times in his life, and I 
have been strongly impressed with this phase of his influence. 
In his words of helpfulness and kindly interest we come very 
near to the man himself a man of so broad and selfless and 
tender a heart that the very memory of him makes one look 
at the world with kindlier and more deep-seeing eyes. He 
appeals always to the best in mind and heart, and his young 
friends, strengthened and girded by his counsel and his sympa- 
thy, could not but go forth to the fight with a larger purpose 
and a more hopeful courage. 

As a preacher, too, in his vicarage at St. Mary's which 
commenced in 1828 we know something of the power that 
began to make itself felt far beyond the precincts of Oxford. 
One of his biographers tells us that his Parochial and Plain 
Sermons, preached at St. Mary's, perhaps influenced the world 
more deeply than it has ever fallen to any Englishman of our 
times to influence it through the instrumentality of the pulpit. 
It was by no great eloquence, moreover, by no grace of manner 
or gesture, but by the simple, habitual earnestness of the' 
preacher himself, that he so powerfully affected his hearers. 
Indeed, Gladstone, who was then an undergraduate at Oxford, 
tells us " that without ostentation or effort, but by simple ex- 
cellence, he was constantly drawing undergraduates more and 
more about him. . . . There was not very much change in 
the inflection of the voice, action there was none. His sermons 
were read and his eyes were always bent on the book ; and all 
that, you will say, is against efficiency in preaching. Yes, but 
you must take the man as a whole, and there was a stamp and 
seal upon him ; there was a solemn sweetness and music in 
the tone ; there was a completeness in the figure, taken to- 
gether with the tone and with the manner, which made his 



1899-] THE INFLUENCE OF NEWMAN. 625 

delivery, even such as I have described it, and though exclu- 
sively from written sermons, singularly attractive." 

Only a very few of those who sat beneath him in those 
days are living now to tell us of their impressions, but I once 
spoke to a man who entered Oxford just when Newman's power 
there was at its zenith, and he said to me : " I was a very 
young man then, a very foolish and thoughtless young man, 
with little capacity and little disposition for serious thought. 
. . . One night, with a crowd of other young fellows like 
myself, I went to hear Newman preach. I do not know what 
it was certainly not any eloquence, properly so-called, on the 
part of the preacher, but something in the directness, the quiet 
ardor, the strength and appeal of the man's soul, which even 
then was struggling, awakened something in me that has made 
me different from that hour. I never knew Newman well," he 
went on, with a little break in his voice, " but I wish I could 
tell you what his life has been to me in those days and now." 

In the Tractarian movement, which began a few years later, 
Keble was the originator and for a time, perhaps, the leader. 
But as it began to gather force and impetus the reins fell 
naturally into Newman's hands. In general, we are apt to 
overestimate the individual influence of the men who have been 
the history-makers in the world's progress. We forget the 
tendencies of the times, the receptiveness of the people. Now 
in England, during the early thirties, the time was certainly 
ripe for some kind of religious movement. The Church of 
England was obviously drifting away from her original position, 
and among some of her greatest minds there was a marked 
tendency towards religious liberalism the forerunner of infidel- 
ity. In the effort to check these tendencies and to get back 
to the definiteness of the Thirty-nine Articles, it was in the 
nature of things that among earnest-thinking men there should 
be, almost unconsciously, a still further backward movement 
towards the firmer dogmatic position of Catholicism. I might 
say quite unconsciously, because the great leaders of the Ox- 
ford movement, Newman foremost among them, while trying 
to define a Via Media, fought vigorously and wrote treatise 
upon treatise in the effort to establish the essential difference 
between their anti-liberal Anglicanism and the Church of Rome. 
Endeavoring to build for themselves an unassailable stronghold 
of Truth, they could not see, and did not wish to see, whither 
their labor was tending. It was as a groping in the night that 
dawned on a day brighter and fuller than they had ever dreamt of. 

VOL. LXIX. 40 



626 THE INFLUENCE OF NEWMAN. [Aug., 

While, then, the current of the great tide of religious thought 
was stirred as it had not been for years, there was need of 
some one to move in advance of this current a man of fear- 
less heart and steadfast purpose, who should accept and follow 
out, without hesitation and without compromise, all that was 
forced upon him in that forward movement. Such a man and 
such a leader was found in John Henry Newman, and laying 
full stress upon the ripeness of the time, it is safe to say that 
the Oxford movement would never have been so radical, so 
powerful, and so far-reaching had it not been for the unswerv- 
ing course of the man at its head. Perhaps there was no other 
in his generation so well fitted for the task, and no other who 
would have found it so hard to do all that it required of him, 
in its trampling upon his early associations and prejudices and 
its opposition to his life-long habit of thought. But the things 
that made the trend of the agitation so painful to him were 
the very things that best fitted him for its leader. In the first 
place, there was his already unquestioned position in the world 
of thought ; secondly, there was no doubt that his conversion, 
when at last it came about, was a true and thorough one, 
sweeping down before it the tendencies and the ideas of half 
a life-time. He had fought long and valiantly for his concep- 
tion of the truth ; he had labored with infinite difficulty and 
infinite pathos to make a strong and sure way out of the Via 
Media; he had struggled, as few men have struggled for a 
cause, to reconcile the discrepancies of an irreconcilable sys- 
tem ; he had done all in the power of any man to find the 
truth and to teach it to others. All this was not without its 
influence on the English people ; nay, it was all this that made 
his influence so great and so widespread. We all know how 
the thought of many others was moulded by his own, what 
hundreds of lives took their shape from his. 

I like best to think of him just at this period of his life, 
after he had taken the final step and had found the fulness of 
truth. There is something very beautiful and very pathetic in 
the sorrowful strength of the figure that stands forth in the 
light of the comment and criticism of all England. No man 
had deeper love for his friends and was more tender of them, 
and yet he must stand by in silence while they turned away 
from him in sorrow at the course he had taken. This estrange- 
ment of those who were dear to him never ceased to be a 
source of pain. But he was not the man to let any personal 
feeling comp in the way of what he thought his duty to him- 
self and to se who depended upon him. His was a hard 



l8 99-l THE INFLUENCE OF NEWMAN. 627 

battle and a long one ; but once he had seen the right, there 
was no question as to the course that was left to him. It was 
a far harder step to take in those days than now, and many of 
his associates in the movement had long since dropped out ; 
many could not bring themselves, at the last, to take it. There 
were those, and great numbers of them, who followed him ; 
there were a few who, led by him, had seen and had come into 
the truth before their master. 

But we know all this the effect of his action on the Eng- 
land of his day. The fact that we do not realize, I think, is 
what his influence has been to those who since have embraced 
Catholicity, not only in England but here in America as well. 
Perhaps one-half of the converts in the last fifty years I speak 
advisedly owe their conversion, in great part, to this one man. 
The very best Catholic I know, the one who, in his own way, 
has done the greatest amount of practical good for the church, 
and who, before his conversion, was the most consistent and 
earnest Protestant I ever knew, speaks always of Newman, 
though he never saw him, with the tenderness of a son for a 
father, and as his guiding star through dark ways and spiritual 
abysses. And from our own narrow experience we know how 
many quiet and obscure lives he has influenced, how his strength 
has made strong many whom the world never hears of, how 
his striving has helped hundreds of struggling souls unto vic- 
tory and peace. No one could have a greater tribute than 
this, and I feel, somehow, that his own heart would be very 
full of joy and thankfulness could he see into how many 
battling souls his life has brought helpfulness and hopefulness. 

Perhaps the greatest and most apparent effect of his influ- 
ence over English thought was in making non-Catholics take a 
more rational and a kindlier view of Catholic doctrine and 
Catholic practice. In the early part of our own century there 
was a very bitter and contemptuous feeling in England for 
every thing and every one Catholic, while now well, only the 
other day I heard an American priest say that England is the 
best country in the world for Catholics with regard to position 
and religious liberty. While I do not fully agree with him, his 
remark shows the state of public feeling at the present day ; a 
state of feeling brought about, for the most part, through the 
influence of Newman and his followers in the Oxford movement. 
I once heard two English statesmen discussing Catholicity and 
giving it no very favorable judgment. " Of course, Newman 
became a Catholic," said one grudgingly, " and he was un- 
doubtedly one of the greatest thinkers of the century. There 



628 THE INFLUENCE OF NEWMAN. [Aug., 

must be something in it, after all, to convince such a man as 
he." The bringing about of this kindlier feeling is a great work 
done for God's cause ; it is the first step towards the spread and 
the reign of truth. 

I need not dwell on Newman's influence as a Catholic and as a 
prelate of the church, when at last the bitter struggle was over 
and the long-suppressed feeling and vigor found scope and out- 
let. His mind was at last free and satisfied ; but there is some- 
thing in the power of God's watchers over souls that is not of 
earth, nor of men, and that is too sacred for human measurement. 
His death was the signal for universal regret in England. 
There could be no greater tribute to his memory and to his 
life-work than these words of a non-Catholic writer (Hutton) : 
" No more impressive testimony could have been afforded to 
the power, sincerity, and simplicity of the great English Car- 
dinal's life than the almost unanimous outburst of admiration 
and reverence from all the English churches and all the 
English sects for the man who had certainly caused the defec- 
tion of a larger number of cultivated Protestants from their 
Protestant faith than any other English writer or preacher since 
the Reformation. Such a phenomenon as the expression of 
heartfelt English sentiment for a good Roman Catholic would 
have been impossible a quarter of a century ago ; and that it 
is possible now is due certainly to the direct influence of Car- 
dinal Newman's life and writings. . . . No life to me, in 
the last century of our national history, can for a moment com- 
pare with Newman's, so far as we can judge of such deep 
matters, in unity of meaning and constancy of purpose." No 
one could have anything but praise for a life so consistently 
true as his. It is a theory of mine that half his power is due 
to his steadfast and unfaltering adherence to his own standard 
of right. If any principle is stoutly upheld in the face of con- 
tradiction, enmity, loss, and death, we learn to respect, not only 
the man but the principle on which he has staked so much. We 
love a soldier who fights bravely and unflinchingly to the end, 
even though he be our enemy, and even they who differed 
from Newman learned to have confidence in him and to rever- 
ence the very strength of his truth and sincerity. 

It is a hopeful thought that our own times could have 
nurtured such a soul. He was a modern type of the Roman 
saint whom he so loved and admired, and I am sometimes 
doubtful if even St. Philip Neri himself was more to those who 
flocked about him than was our own Cardinal Newman to the 
great many whom he helped and influenced. 




l8 99-] THE LABOR QUESTION AND ITS SOLUTION. 629 
THE LABOR QUESTION AND ITS SOLUTION.* 

BY DR. NICHOLAS BJERRING. 



,T is true that poverty increases wofully, especially 
in great cities. Here we find luxury and beggary, 
the rich Dives and the poor Lazarus in close 
proximity. Hence there must be something awry 
about the so-called modern civilization. The 
fundamental evil is not the dearth of this world's goods, but 
their unequal distribution. The portion of the population which 
lives from hand to mouth has increased disproportionately in 
number. For people who, in the literal sense of the word, 
must work and sweat for the daily bread of to-day every 
lost work-day is a deficit ; feast-days are often for them 
fast-days. A small rise in the price of provisions increases 
the deficit ; and if, unfortunately, there ensues a permanent 
dearth, then everything is wanting rent, bread, clothing. As 
a result there is overmuch opportunity for Christian charity. 
The demand on one side is met on the other by duty 
founded on love. The gospel does not defend him who 
turns from the suppliant because that suppliant is to blame 
for his misery. To support laziness, love of pleasure, frivolity, 
would be to share in the sins of others ; but to close one's 
hand to the needy for follies committed in the past, and 
now no longer to be undone, would be to act like the self- 
righteous Pharisee. Only One has the right to leave us to our 
folly. He, however, has forestalled us with his mercy, and 
thereby only could we be saved. Christian charity may con- 
tribute to lessen social misery. But what can it do effectually 
against such extensive poverty ? The answer hereto is : That 
charity shall be an aid, but not the whole and only one ; and 
again, that it shall not be bestowed singly, as it is usually done. 
Single persons who give according to their individual benevo- 
lence may make disproportionate sacrifices and yet help little. 
The Christian principle should be universally applied. " We 
men are all brothers," may with religious seriousness be brought 

*In the July CATHOLIC WORLD MAGAZINE was published an article on " The Labor 
Question and the Catholic Church," by Dr. Nicholas Bjerring. 



630 THE LABOR QUESTION AND ITS SOLUTION. [Aug., 

to signify that we are brothers for Christ's sake. Why was 
there no needy one among the faithful of the first Christian 
community? Because of the almonry dictated by fraternal duty 
and exercised in a just division according to means. It was, 
above all, no distribution of money. Alms has been turned in- 
to money since it is no longer a common affair and exercised 
in a regular way. 

MAKE " CONSUMER " A PRODUCER. 

In most cases the individual can exercise charity only by a 
gift of money ; how this is applied, and whether it proves a 
boon, is no longer in his power to determine. The blessing of 
isolated alms-giving is very doubtful, and this furnishes an ex- 
cuse to many for excluding themselves from it altogether. I, 
for my part, do not believe that the beggar is relieved by the' 
few cents he gets at the doors of the rich. The truly needy 
are ashamed to ask for help in such a manner, and not a little 
of the money thus given finds its way to the tavern. Where, 
however, a community regulates its charity in true religious 
union, the individual will not be able to exclude himself on a 
plea which cannot possibly be founded in all cases. United ex- 
ertion makes it possible to call into life eating-houses for the 
poor ; isolated gifts of money whose sum would reach a like 
amount could never help the needy in like efficient manner. 
It is necessity that eventually leads to the establishment of 
such institutions. Well-regulated Christian benevolence, how- 
ever, would forestall the necessity. The best almonry is to 
force the consumer, as far as possible, to be producer as well. 

Social misery has its foundation in the fact that a part of 
the population is excluded from " production," or not suffi- 
ciently interested therein ; moreover, not all, according to right 
and justice, have part in the "consumption." At times the 
cause is looked for in the great increase of the population, 
but this seems like calling the Lord to account as not knowing 
any longer how to feed his children. Daily bread will no doubt 
always be found, even should the population increase ; only the 
children will have to accommodate themselves to the laws of 
the household. 

ACQUIRED NECESSITIES. 

Another cause for the impoverishment of the masses lies in 
the number of acquired necessities. The poor man lives from 
one year to the other accustomed always only to take in 



l8 99-J THE LABOR QUESTION AND ITS SOLUTION. 631 

in order to lay out again ; therefore, as a rule, he spends all he 
earns. He does not learn to save, not often being in a position 
where it is possible for him to save. What remains after his 
actual needs are covered, he spends very often on drink, tobacco, 
and pleasure. To call the evil by a fitting name, I am led to coin 
the word palate-lust. The inclination thereto is innate, but in this 
country there seems to be an actual desire to inoculate society 
with it artificially. Certain highly superfluous enjoyments of the 
palate are bred in children as, for instance, the habit of candy- 
eating. Tobacco, spirituous drinks, highly seasoned food are no 
longer the prerogative of older people. Over and above the 
moral and physical evils that are plainly visible to all eyes, there 
is the bad result from an economic point of view. The means 
of production cannot suffice to supply the demands of consump- 
tion. The purse does not hold enough money for all these pre- 
sumed necessities. 

HOPE FROM THE CHURCH. 

The Catholic Church is now often looked to for help in 
overcoming dire poverty. She will help, not only by recom- 
mending charity and practising it through her bishops and 
priests, but also by restoring the consciousness of common in- 
terest through which, if one member suffers, all the others 
suffer. in company. To begin with, relief will be gained if 
young men and maidens will respond to the call for modera- 
tion, thriftiness, simplicity, self-restraint. There is at present 
no sign of such a movement among the poor or rich. The 
wealthy ought, from moral causes, to lead in the example of 
self-restraint. A despairing misery eats into the heart of the 
starving beggar who is turned from every door or contemptu- 
ously thrown some paltry alms. This drives him into the ranks 
of socialism, and he bides his time to carry theory into prac- 
tice. Poverty is not in itself an evil, but the evil from which we 
daily pray to be delivered is demoralization. Rich and poor 
are placed beside each other, not that they may go down to 
destruction together, or one through the other, but that they 
may help one another and be together saved. All charity is 
Christian, in so far as by means of giving physical well being 
to the destitute it wins them over to the acceptation of spiritual, 
domestic, and social virtue. 

Another cause of evil in regard to the question of con- 
sumption is that almost all articles of produce are " merchan- 
dise," and hence become objects of trade. Anything that may 



632 THE LABOR QUESTION AND ITS SOLUTION. [Aug., 

be bought or sold can become " merchandise," as by this means 
they are changed into mere objects of barter. The producer 
who strives to advantageously turn to account the products of 
agriculture, or he who speculates with articles of food, does not 
yet stand in opposition to the letter of the seventh command- 
ment. The question, however, is whether it is in accordance 
with the spirit of community and love to treat exclusively as 
merchandise that which is necessary to the life of all, to with- 
draw it from sale in order to increase the price artificially, 
and to prey upon the need of all for one's own advantage. 
How this is done here in America all know. 

THE TYRANNY OF CAPITAL. 

It lies in the power of capital to withdraw from proper 
circulation, without adequate reason, the necessaries of life, 
and to increase the want of countless numbers. Such acts must 
conduce more and more to the enrichment of the one at the 
expense of the many. The small consumer, who needs to buy 
most cheaply, must, according to the present order of things, 
pay the highest prices, as he purchases in small instalments 
from the last dealer of all. The restoration of spiritual com- 
munity would give rise to another system of carrying on busi- 
ness, and might prove a remedy for the evil. 

It belongs, perhaps, to the spirit of our age that property 
is becoming concentrated. No special social misfortune would 
lie in this state of things did the spirit of religious communism 
govern the administration of such fortunes, and by this great 
concentration of property bring about an equally great decen. 
tralization of the profits thereof. How large possessions and 
their administration on the one hand, and the want thereof on 
the other, are compatible with the idea of community and its 
exercise is demonstrated by the example of the Christian 
middle ages. In the Christian middle ages while ownership in 
property was strictly safeguarded, still possession was so in- 
terpreted that it did not solely and in every respect belong 
exclusively to the owner; its use was limited to him, but 
'thers had, by law, many claims to the same thing. Accord- 
ing to the Mosaic law, it was forbidden the owner at the har- 
vest to '< wholly reap the corners of the field and to gather 
every grape of the vineyard ; but he was to leave them to the 
poor and stranger." In the middle ages certain customs in 
of the poor were likewise established, such as the gather- 
mg of straw, dry wood, and the like. Such privileges, though 



i899-J THE LABOR QUESTION AND ITS SOLUTION. 633 

insignificant in themselves, were, in connection with a share in 
the use of the parish grounds, of great importance to the poor, 
as they were enabled thereby to farm a little, keep their own 
cattle, and pursue other ways of obtaining a livelihood. Where 
like privileges are now granted, they are considered quite in 
the light of a charity, and even such are curtailed by the 
selfish spirit of egoistical owners. 

THE SPIRIT OF SELF-ASSERTION. 

One cause of impoverishment is to be found in luxury; the 
latter, therefore, often serves as the excuse for a refusal of as- 
sistance. It is here forgotten that not the poor were the ones 
that caused the evil of luxury. As matters stand a certain 
degree of luxury cannot be avoided under all circumstances, 
nay, it is even allowed by the competition that reigns in every 
field of production. In former times the farmer, tradesman, 
etc., took a pride in belonging to their respective grades ; to be 
recognized they had only to adhere to their wonted garb. The 
display of to day proceeds from the want of that guarantee 
for the respectability of a man that in the middle ages lay in 
his reception by a guild. Next to the greed for possessing and 
enjoying, the third cause of the present social misery is the 
desire for self-assertion. This again must be opposed by the 
spirit of community. 

Authority is established in any association of persons when 
one attaches himself to the other in such a manner as to agree 
fully with his thoughts and actions and make them his own. 
Wife and children thus attach themselves to the thoughts of 
the husband and father; there are servants, also, who thus 
become one with their master; on the whole, however, such 
relations are now rarely to be met with. Why? Because the 
prevailing spirit of religion is devoid of that essential element 
that constitutes all men brothers in Christ. In religion man does 
not obey man as such, but the bishop and priest as invested 
with authority by God. Here authority assumes no overbear- 
ingness but fulfils a duty in the sense of Christ's words: 
" Who among you wills to be greatest let him be your ser- 
vant." He himself, the eternal authority, did not come to be 
served, but to serve. This interpretation of authority has also 
almost wholly disappeared. It would scarcely have occurred to 
our Catholic forefathers to expect the solution of the social 
problem from the state alone. 



634 THE LABOR QUESTION AND ITS SOLUTION. [Aug., 

PRINCIPLE OLD APPLICATION NEW. 

Everything depends on the reorganization of society in 
every particular ; in one word, "on the restoration of religious 
community in all relations of common life. The religious har- 
mony of the community must be extended to the political 
social field. Thus it is from the middle ages we have to 
learn the principles be it well understood, the principles 
for their application must be suited to the present age, accord- 
ino- to the standard of our conditions and circumstances. Now, 

O 

as power and influence are often the cause of the evil of the 
age, it is here that they should be opposed by the spirit of 
religious community. It is principally large property owners 
and factory masters who ought to take thought of the oppor- 
tunity their wealth gives them to do public good. The great 
evil of our times is the fact that industry, dispensing with 
every organic form, such as trades possessed in the guilds, 
plants itself on egoistical disorder, and like a parasitic growth 
draws from the juices of the land without itself undertaking 
any duties. I know of institutions in former times supported 
not alone by trade guilds, but by seafarers, who cared for their 
veterans and invalids, nay, even for their churches and con- 
vents, making them a living and flourishing community. 

Modern factory system has nothing to show like this. It 
knows human power only as it knows horse power, and sees in 
man merely a machine. It buys labor as cheaply as possible, 
and cares little how the laborer fares when he has grown old or 
ill very little, in truth, do the rich factory lords care for that* 
Is it not so ? The results of this entire lack of sympathetic pro- 
tection in industry are to be already found in the frequently oc- 
curring strikes, as well as in the cry of the working-classes for 
self-help. I look upon the restoration of the relations between 
employer and workman according to the old religious principle 
as a great necessity. I have devoted much attention to social 
questions, and believe I may be permitted to say that these 
my views agree with those of the most prominent Christian poli- 
tical economists. Whether they find sympathy here, or whether 
they can be carried out here, I do not know ; but this I know, that 
the temporal welfare of the laborer depends upon their being 
accepted. From the nature of things, a much worse aristocracy 
of wealth has been formed by the present rulers of labor than 
that of the former nobility of Europe. Money imparts political 
influence also to its possessor ; the dependence of the laborer 



1899-] THE LABOR QUESTION AND ITS SOLUTION. 635 

is by no means a matter of economy alone. The master ex- 
ercises an actual character of force more than that of fitting 
authority. The elections for State and city officials are convinc- 
ing proof of this. Relations between employer and laborer in 
accordance with the principles of the middle ages do not mis- 
understand me : I do not say mediaeval relations, these do not 
suit our country nor our age ; I speak of the principles of the 
middle ages, such relations between master and man cannot be 
brought about by the manufacture of laws. It is possible only 
by actions inspired by deep Christian principles. If the factory 
master of the present day were to assume such relations to 
his workmen, then it could not fail that the latter would re- 
spond by quite another feeling than that borne by them at 
present. Proofs for this are offered by exceptional cases, where 
the noble ideas of the master have created approximate con- 
ditions. 

RESTORE THE SENSE OF BROTHERHOOD. 

The principle underlying the formation of such relations can 
be no other than that of religious community. The restoration of 
this sense of brotherhood is, however, not the task of one, but of 
all trades and professions. All must, according to the measure 
of their means, contribute toward this end by applying in their 
respective circles the principle of religious community to every 
condition of work, consumption, and possession. The blessing 
thereof would be universally felt. The immediate fruit of such 
union would be greater thoroughness in work. This union 
might in turn become the starting-point of a greater associa- 
tion in consumption, and thus the handle to great material relief. 
Not alone would working materials bought by such unions in 
large quantities be much cheaper, but the community of busi- 
ness might extend over the province of the necessaries of life 
and result in lower prices for the needs of the individual. 
Moreover, there are arrangements possible by which the trade 
unions, giving mutual credit and thus effecting a certain concen- 
tration of means, might compete with large capital. Such a 
union might partly make up for the impossibility of competition 
in the individual. Hence there would be effected a rational 
organization of work, a great relief in consumption, a greater 
security of work in relation to large capital three points in 
which it seems to me everything is contained that is necessary 
to the present needs. But the single circles in which these 
trade unions must have their foundation and starting-point should 



636 THE LABOR QUESTION AND ITS SOLUTION. [Aug., 

be in the sense of brotherhoad. In such a one the fellows of 
profession can unite for a definite end. The question how such 
communities and unions of trades can arise and subsist leads 
me back to authority. I do not think that a community, in 
order to lead a sound existence and become socially developed, 
is less in need of particular government than the state. I do 
not allude to authority in the sense of the officials of the day, 
but to such as would be in lively harmony with its subjects. 

The time when social reorganization will begin is, I hope, no 
longer distant. Such a reorganization, however, cannot be 
effected suddenly. Not only outwardly but in heart as well, 
the spirit of community has become extinguished ; above all, it 
must be rekindled in heart as the first foundation of all politi- 
cal and social conditions. But as there can be nothing in heart 
that will not work its way outward, so no idea can be born 
that will not try to be expressed and seek its development and 
strengthening in action. I believe that even now it would not 
be useless to inculcate the perception of the intrinsic connection 
between political and social and religious matters. A new light 
is cast on earthly relations when they are contemplated in con- 
nection with the higher truth of the Catholic Church. Only the 
Catholic Church can solve the labor question, and only through 
her can the great movement be carried out. 





1899-] THE EVANGELISTS IN SYMBOLISM. 637 



THE EVANGELISTS IN SYMBOLISM. 

BY MARION ARNOLD. 

'ROM time immemorial the church has employed 
for our instruction the use of symbols which 
operate on our souls through the medium of the 
bodily senses. Symbolism has been called "the 
soul, the perfume, the marrow of worship, and 
the nourishment of Christian piety." The word symbol in its 
broadest sense means a visible sign or representation of an 
idea. In a liturgical sense it is a sacred sign which represents 
a mystery above our nature, and the church makes use of this 
sign or thing to embody the idea, that thus the mystery may 
be more easily apprehended. 

The character and mission of the Evangelists have rendered 
these sacred personages the subjects for varied symbolical 
representation, the study of which cannot fail to be most in- 
teresting and profitable. To the casual observer a faded pic- 
ture in some old church will seem fanciful and grotesque in 
the extreme, and possess little or no signification, while in the 
same painting the student of Christian symbolism will find an 
epitome of the principles of our faith. 

The earliest representation of the Evangelists was a -very 
simple type : four scrolls placed in the angles of a Greek cross, 
or four books. The next symbolic idea was that of four rivers 
having their common source in Paradise, the thought being taken 
from Genesis ii.: " And a river went out of the place of pleasure 
to water Paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads." 
At a later period about the beginning of the fifth century 
we find applied to the Evangelists the symbolism of the 
four beasts of the Apocalypse ; or of the four living creatures 
which Ezechiel beheld coming " by Chobar's flood in whirlwind, 
cloud, and fire." Dante makes use of these four living crea- 
tures to typify the four Evangelists in the mysterious proces- 
sion which he beheld in his vision of the terrestrial paradise. 
A brief review of the lives of the writers of the Gospels 
will help us to a better understanding of their significant 
symbols. 

SAINT MATTHEW. 

St. Matthew stands first among the Evangelists in point of 
time, his Gospel being the first written. Little is known of his 



638 



THE EVANGELISTS IN SYMBOLISM. 



[Aug., 




ST. MATTHEW. 

history. He refers to his own call to the apostleship in these 
words: "And when Jesus passed on from thence he saw a 
man sitting in the custom-house, named Matthew, and he saith 
to him : Follow me. And he rose up and followed him." St. 
Mark and St. Luke tell the story of the call of St. Matthew 
in similar words, except that the former calls him " Levi, son 
of Alpheus," and the latter, "a publican named Levi." From 
this simple record we can gather nothing except that he was a 
tax gatherer in the Roman service, an office looked upon with 
the utmost abhorrence by the Hebrews. 

After the ascension of our Lord, Matthew is in Jerusalem 
with the other apostles, and then he disappears from Scripture. 
Tradition tells us that he wrote his Gospel in Hebrew or 
Syro-Chaldaic, ^about six years after the ascension. It is said 
that he peris*"*.] in the persecutions of Domitian. 



1899-] THE EVANGELISTS IN SYMBOLISM. 639 

There are several old paintings representing the call of St. 
Matthew, and a few represent his death. Paul Veronese has 
made the feast given by Levi to our Saviour the subject of a 
scene which he painted for a monastery in Venice. It is now 
in the Academy there. 

In his character as Evangelist, there are few portraitures of 
the saint. He holds a book and near him is a winged cherub 
pointing to heaven or dictating. A curious group in the Cathe- 
dral of Chartres shows St. Matthew borne on the shoulders of 
Isaias, the prophet. The only familiar representation of this 
Evangelist is that in which the emblematical figure is a winged 
cherub under a human semblance, given, according to St. 
Jerome, because he begins his Gospel with the human genera- 
tion of Christ. A fresco by Pifituricchio in the church of 
Sancta Maria del Popolo at Rome represents St. Matthew writ- 
ing his Gospel while the angel, holding the ink-horn, dictates. 

A painting at Dresden, by Francesco Barbieri, sometimes 
called Guercino, reproduced here, shows St. Matthew as an old 
man. While he writes he holds the ink-horn in his left hand, 
and the angel, looking away from the writer towards us, sup- 
ports the book. 

The painter of this picture was a celebrated master of the 
Bolognese school. When yet a child he showed his intuitive 
love for art by sketching on the house-door, with the roughest 
materials, a portrait of the Blessed Virgin of such artistic 
promise that his father, though poor, determined to secure for 
him the best instruction. His masterpieces are an " Aurora," 
in the Ludovisi Villa, Rome, and the famous ''Persian Sybil" 
and St. Petronilla, both in the Capitoline Gallery at Rome. 
He died at Bologna in 1666. 

SAINT MARK. 

The Scriptural record of the life of St. Mark is as scanty 
as that pertaining to St. Matthew. St. Mark was not numbered 
among the twelve Apostles, and it appears that his conversion 
did not occur till after the ascension of our Lord. We know 
from the Acts of the "Apostles that he was the faithful minis- 
ter and companion of Paul and Barnabas. St. Paul, writing to 
the Colossians, says : " Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner saluteth 
you, and Mark the cousin-german of Barnabas, touching whom 
you have received commandments : If he come unto you, re- 
ceive him." In St. Paul's second letter to Timothy he desires 
him to come to him, and says : " Take Mark and bring him 
with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry." 



640 



THE EVANGELISTS IN SYMBOLISM. 



[Aug., 




ST. MARK. 

Tradition informs us that St. Mark was a disciple and in- 
terpreter to St. Peter, at whose command he went to preach 
the Gospel in Egypt. He founded the church at Alexandria. 
He was apprehended and cast into prison for preaching the 
faith of Christ, and was martyred by being dragged along 
over the streets and rocky places till death put an end to his 
tortures. The Christians buried his mutilated body and held 
his sepulchre in reverence. At the beginning of the ninth cen- 
tury his remains were taken to Venice, where the grand cathe- 
dral of St. Mark was built over them. He is honored as the 
patron saint of Venice. His festival is celebrated on the 25th of 
April. It is said that during the pontificate of Gregory the 
Great Rome was decimated by a fearful plague, and in order 
to turn away the divine wrath the pope, on St. Mark's day, 
ordered a procession at the head of which was carried a pic- 
ture of the Blessed Virgin painted by St. Luke. When they 



1899-] THE EVANGELISTS IN SYMBOLISM. 641 

came to the castle of Adrian, St. Gregory saw an angel who 
dried and sheathed a sword that was wet with blood. It was 
a signal of pardon. The plague ceased, and every year, on the 
25th of April, the church renews the ceremony known as "the 
Procession of St. Mark." 

Devotional pictures of this saint, especially those in which 
he is represented as the patron of Venice, are very numerous. 
The arms adopted by the republic of Venice were a lion winged, 
or sejant, holding between his fore-paws a book upon which 
were inscribed the words : " Pax tibi Marce Evangelista meus." 

In his character of Evangelist he may always be recognized 
by his emblematical animal, the lion, given, according to St. 
Jerome, because this Evangelist "sets forth the royal dignity 
of Christ." The lion of St. Mark is generally winged, and this 
will distinguish his pictures from those of St. Jerome, whose 
symbol is also a lion. In the accompanying illustration, which is 
reproduced from a painting by Guercino in the gallery at Dres- 
den, St. Mark is cutting a quill preparatory to writing his Gospel 
in the book which is held by the lion above and to the right. 

Another illustration, from a painting by Gerini in the church 
of San Francesco at Prato, represents St. Mark standing, full 
length, and draped in a white tunic. He holds a book display- 
ing the inscription. Below and to the left is the lion. 

SAINT LUKE. 

St. Luke was a native of Antioch, in Syria. He was con- 
verted by St. Paul, and became his faithful disciple and com- 
panion. He wrote his Gospel in Greek about twenty-four years 
after the ascension. He was also the author of the Acts of 
the Apostles. He was a physician by profession, as we learn 
from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians : " Luke, the 
most dear physician, saluteth you." Tradition says that he 
was most skilful in painting, and several pictures of the Blessed 
Virgin are ascribed to him. 

The Fathers of the Church agree that it was from Mary 
that St. Luke received his account of the wonderful and par- 
ticular circumstances of our Lord's infancy. He died at 
Bithynia about the year 74 A. D. His relics were brought to 
Constantinople, and afterwards were translated to Padua. His 
feast is celebrated on October 18. 

In Greek and Byzantine art, St. Luke, the Evangelist, is 
represented as a young man who holds in one hand a picture 
of the Blessed Virgin and in the other the book of his Gospel. 
VOL. LXIX. 41 



642 



THE EVANGELISTS IN SYMBOLISM. 



[Aug., 



In nearly all other paintings the evangelical symbol is the ox, 
winged or unwinged. St. Luke in his Gospel dwells particu- 
larly on the priesthood of Christ ; therefore, says St. Jerome, 
his symbol is the ox, the emblem of sacrifice. 

St. Luke painting the Blessed Virgin's portrait has been 




ST. LUKE. 

made the subject of art by many old masters. Guercino repre- 
sents him as an old man. His left hand, resting on the book 
of his Gospel, holds a palette and brushes. His head rests 
upon his right hand, while he looks with loving devotion, that 
is not unmixed with sadness, at a picture before him, the 
subject of which we cannot see. To the upper right is the 
symbolic animal, the ox. 

A fresco by Pinturicchio shows St. Luke seated upon the 
back of an ox. He is painting Our Lady's picture, which rests 
upon the animal's horns. 



1899-] THE EVANGELISTS IN SYMBOLISM. 643 

SAINT JOHN. 

Of all the Evangelists the one whose personality is most 
distinctly conveyed to us is St. John 

" He who lay 

Upon the bosom of our Pelican ; 
He unto whose keeping, from the cross, 
The mighty charge was given." 

His father was Zebedee, a fisherman of Galilee, and his 
mother was Salome, she who came to Jesus with her sons 
adoring and asking that they might sit the one on his right 
and the other on his left in his kingdom. He was born at 
Bethsaida, and until called by Christ to be his disciple, he fol- 
lowed the occupation of his father. He, the "virgin disciple," 
seems to have been singularly favored by his Divine Master, 
and he is called " the disciple whom Jesus loved." He lived 
in constant companionship with the Redeemer. He was present 
at the transfiguration ; he leaned on the bosom of Jesus at the 
Last Supper ; he was with him in the Garden of Gethsemani ; 
he stood beneath the cross ; he laid the body of his Master in 
the tomb; and it was he who "did out-run Peter and came 
first to the sepulchre" on the morning of the resurrection. He 
is said to have been of a peculiarly affectionate nature, and 
this is strongly confirmed by his epistles. Tradition asserts 
that in his later years his constant admonition to his dearly 
beloved people was: "Little children, love one another." 

After the ascension of Christ John devoted himself to the 
care of the Blessed Virgin, who had been confided to his care. 
She accompanied him in his missionary career, and there can 
scarcely be any doubt that it was from his frequent interviews 
with the mother of Jesus that he derived much of the beauty 
and sublimity of his Gospels. Aided by her whose knowledge 
of the heavenly mysteries transcended that of all other crea- 
tures, and replenished by the clearest revelation from heaven, 
the fisherman of Bethsaida could burst forth into that sublime 
prelude : " IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD." 

After the death of the Blessed Virgin he resided chiefly at 
Ephesus. During the cruel persecutions of Domitian he was 
sent in chains to Rome, and there cast into a cauldron of 
boiling oil. Being miraculously preserved, he was banished to 
the Isle of Patmos in the ^Egean Sea, where he wrote his 
Revelations. He returned to Ephesus under Nerva, and there 
lived to a great age. It is believed that he was the only one 
of the Apostles who died a natural death. 



644 



THE EVANGELISTS IN SYMBOLISM. 



[Aug., 







ST. JOHN. 

The personal character of St. John and the prominence 
given to him in all the Gospel narratives have made him popu- 
lar as a patron saint, and consequently representations of " the 
beloved disciple " are very numerous. The emblematical animal 
of St. John is the eagle, the symbol of might and power. Its 
extraordinary strength of vision fittingly typifies the divine 
insight into heavenly things revealed in the Apocalypse. The 
vast heights to which the eagle soars, and the grandeur of the 
scenes amid which it loves to dwell, signify the heights of 
wisdom to which St. John was raised and the heavenly won- 
ders upon which he had attained to look. 

One of the earliest representations of St. John is the figure 
of a man with the head of an eagle. Another symbolic figure 
is a man seated writing, with the head and feet of an eagle. 
These representations are very rare. In the Cathedral of 



1899-] THE EVANGELISTS IN SYMBOLISM. 645 

Chartres, in the group of Evangelists of which we have spoken, 
the prophet Ezechiel bears St. John on his shoulders, signify- 
ing that the New Testament rests on the old. Ezechiel was 
chosen to bear St. John, probably on account of the points of 
similarity between the vision of the one and the Apocalypse 
of the other. 

In Greek art St. John is always represented as an old man. 
The later Italian painters have nearly all represented him as 
a young man. A picture in the Academy, Bologna, shows the 
Evangelist as an old man with flowing hair and beard. He is 
attended by an eagle, and is looking up at the Blessed Virgin 
in glory. 

Correggio has a beautiful picture of St. John seated writing 
his Gospel. At his feet is an eagle pluming its wing. St. 
John is frequently shown with a group of saints. A familiar 
group is Raphael's St. Cecilia. Here the Evangelist stands to 
the right of the principal figure. Near him is St. Paul leaning 
on his sword, and between the two is the eagle, the ever- 
present symbol of the Evangelist. 

Perhaps the most familiar of all the symbolical representa- 
tions of this saint is the beautiful picture of Domenichino. 
This artist was one of the most celebrated of the Eclectic 
school. The Louvre contains many of his works. His master- 
piece is the " Last Communion of St. Jerome," in the Vatican. 
During his whole career Domenichino suffered much from the 
jealousy of his rivals, and it is supposed that he was poisoned 
by them in 1641. 

His St. John is shown as a beautiful young man with an 
abundance of curling hair. In his hand is a scroll, and he 
looks upward as one who beholds "the vision of the throne of 
God." His perfect face is expressive of love, wonder, and 
reverence. Behind him is the attendant eagle with a pen in 
its beak. Near by is a chalice from which a serpent raises its 
head. There are many legends to explain the symbol of the 
chalice and the serpent. One, related by St. Isidore, is that a 
hired assassin placed poison in the cup which the saint used 
in celebrating the Holy Mysteries. St. John drank of the 
same and administered it to the faithful without injury, but 
the murderer fell dead at the feet of the Apostle. 

Whatever explanation is given, the most probable one is 
found in our Lord's reply to the sons of Zebedee : " My 
chalice indeed you shall drink." 




COVENTRY PATMORE. 
After a Painting by J. S. Sargent, A.R.A. 



COVENTRY PATMORE. 

BY REV. HENRY E. O'KEEFFE, C.S.P. 

OSSIBLY the triumvirate Pusey, Keble, and 
Newman gave the impetus to the present sense 
of reaction against the Reformation a feeling 
which has taken captive -the artistic mind of 
modern England. Nevertheless there exists to- 
day in that country a constituency which can have been influ- 
enced only very indirectly by these three great spirits of the 

NOTE. Patmore's place among Men of Letters was discussed at the sessions of the 
Summer-School of 1898 by Father O'Keeffe, but at the request of many who heard his lectures 
he has amplified his work, and presents it here in published form. EDITOR OF CATHOLIC 
WORLD MAGAZINE. 




1899-] COVENTRY PAT MORE. 647 

Catholic revival. If the Preraphaelite movement was born in 
Oxford, it was not bred there. Its representatives are artists 
like Watts, Millais, Burne-Jones, Hunt, and Dante Gabriel 
Rossetti. There are others both in art and letters who differ 
more or less from these. Others, like Algernon Swinburne or 
Walter Pater, who, if they be neo-pagans, are at times mediaeval 
and Catholic. To say this of Swinburne is perhaps unreasona- 
ble, for there are critics who contend that his ethics is drawn 
not from the wholesome but the poisoned fountain of Greek 
sensualism. Others, like Wilde and Grant Allen and Richard 
Le Gallienne although differing from each other are Hedon- 
ists, loving the beautiful for its own sake and making it the 
sum and end of life. If Swinburne's theory of passion be that 
sung by Anacreon, what shall we say of the loves of these 
lesser lights ? Yet to say that Mr. Patmore is part of the Pre- 
raphaelite movement needs some intelligible explanation. That 
movement aimed to bring back the romantic days of Cimabue, 
and Giotto, and Fra Angelico, and that array who painted 
bodies with souls and flesh all spiritual. The new disciples in 
their enthusiasm copied even the crooked anatomy and blind 
perspective of their Catholic masters. Rossetti, in his unique 
poems, drew his inspiration from Dante, but in imitating that 
mighty genius he lingered perhaps too much in the realm of 
sense, and so is Dantesque only up to a certain degree. Pat- 
more has charged him almost with sinning against the light, 
and prostituting the gift of a holy mission. Nevertheless he 
remains, as much or more than Tennyson or Ruskin, a living 
expression of that mediaevalism which is golden even in the 
eyes of the modern world. 

Patmore in quite another fashion has unearthed from the 
tomb our ancient glories and taught us that the blood of saints 
flows in our veins ; that that spiritual power is not to be disre- 
garded which created the poetry, architecture, painting, and 
sculpture of mediaeval Europe. We have no details of Patmore's 
conversion to Catholicism, but it is easy to see how the aestheti- 
cism of that religion could provoke from him not only love 
but obedience. Yet he was philosopher enough to know that 
culture is but a faint manifestation of the high spirit that 
dwells within that beauty is but the splendor of the true. In 
this limited sense is Patmore a Preraphaelite, since he longs 
for that immortal time, loves its saints and dreamers, and rever- 
ences the hearts who would bring it back again. In a more 



6 4 g COVENTRY PATMORE. [Aug., 

limited sense still is he a classicist not, of course, as William 
Morris or Alma Tadema would be but a classicist who, if he 
exchanged the Sistine Madonna for the Venus of Milo, would 
nevertheless be careful to explain that the worst charge you 
can hurl against Christianity is to call it a new religion and to 
deny that it is but a quality added to the religion of the past. 
Doubtless there are some who would not accept the theory 
that there is a principle of continuity running through all the 
religions. Patmore, it would seem, believed that there was. 
He has said in his essay on "The Language of Religion": 
"How 'natural,' for example, it would be that King Humbert, 
if ever he thinks fit to assume possession of St. Peter's and 
the Vatican, should regard the erection of an Egyptian obelisk 
in the forecourt of a Renaissance church as a monstrous sole- 
cism in art, and so abolish one of the boldest and most im- 
pressive symbols ever devised to teach man that the ' Lion of 
the Tribe of Juda ' (with this title the obelisk is inscribed) 
came out of Egypt, that the 'great Serpent Pharao, King of 
Egypt ' (or Nature), ' is become Christ by His assumption of 
the body which without Him is Egypt'". 

Coventry Kearsey Dighton Patmore died December I, 1896, 
and was buried from the little Catholic church at Lymin-gton, 
Hants, England. He was born at Woodford, in Essex, on 
July 3, 1823. His father, Peter Patmore, was a friend of Haz- 
litt and Lamb, and there are letters addressed to him in Hazlitt's 
Liber Amoris. Mr. Edmund Gosse is responsible for saying 
that Peter Patmore was painfully mixed up in the Scott duel 
of 1821 and the Plumer Ward controversy, and that it was for 
this reason that Thackeray refused to meet the then young 
man, Coventry Patmore, even though he bore letters of intro- 
duction from the distinguished Robert Browning. His early 
youth was spent in comfortable circumstances. His father 
had a house in Southampton Street, Fitzroy Square, and a 
country house at Mill Hill, not far from London. From the 
beginning the lad was a great reader, and he had many books 
at command. When about fourteen or more he was sent to 
Paris. He lived with a family in the Faubourg Saint Germain, 
and went to lectures at the College de France. He remained 
there for one year, and in a very unhappy mood. Such, in- 
deed, is the recorded impression he left with Mr. Gosse, to 
whom we are indebted for almost all that we have of a very 
scant biography of the poet. 



1899.] COVENTRY PATMORE. 649 

- It must be fifteen years or more since Mr. Aubrey de Vere* 
wrote a letter to Father Hecker, accompanying a copy of the 
Unknown Eros, recommending its author as a man who struck 
deeper and flew higher than many a mortal around him. From 
that time forward Father Hecker never ceased to read and mark 
passages in that volume. This is to be noted, for he was a priest 
who read in later life but little poetry, and that only of the 
supremely best. 

While in Paris, Patmore fell in love with a beautiful English 
girl. Although she rejected him and married another, he con- 
sidered her as the very first " Angel in the House." At the age 
of sixteen he published The Woodman s Daughter and The 
River. In 1844 he again gave to the world a volume of Poems. 
It was attacked on all sides, Blackwood" s Magazine being most 
violent in the charge. To add to his misfortunes, just at this time 
his father lost everything speculating in railroad stocks. To 
get away from his creditors he fled to the Continent, leaving 
his son Coventry behind him in a penniless condition. He went 
through fifteen months of severe poverty. Browning was kind 
to him, so were Barry Cornwall and his wife. This couple, now 
known as Bryan Waller Procter and Mrs. Procter, at a dinner 
introduced Patmore to Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord 
Houghton, who made some flippant remarks on Patmore's 
shabby appearance. Mrs. Procter made it the occasion of plac- 
ing Patmore's poems in the hands of Milnes, and the next 
morning she received a note from that gentleman offering to 
Patmore a post in the library of the British Museum. This, 
with the kindly friendship of Leigh Hunt, buoyed up the spirits 
of the poet. In 1846 he met Tennyson, and for more than three 
years they were fast friends ; but both being positive characters, 
there came an estrangement. About 1847 ne met Rossetti and 
probably Millais. At the invitation of Rossetti he contributed 
the lyric called " The Seasons " to the Preraphaelite magazine 
The Germ. Mr. Gosse tells us that Patmore was instrumental 
in bringing Tennyson and Rossetti together. In the same year 

CURRAGH CHASE, ADARE, IRELAND. 
* MY DEAR FATHER HECKER : 

I am sending you a book which seems to me a very remarkable one, The Unknown Eros, 
etc. this by our Catholic Poet, Coventry Patmore. Notwithstanding that many things in it 
are certainly obscure (the result in part of the abstruse themes discussed in the poems), many 
parts of the book seem to me both to ascend higher and descend deeper than almost anything 
we have had for a long time. Such a book ought to be, if well known, a help to the Catholic 
cause. I hope you will be able to have it well reviewed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. 
I trust your health is improving, and that you do not overwork yourself. 

Yours very sincerely, 

AUBREY DE VERB. 
(Copy from original in fly-leaves of" The Unknown Eros" p. 27.) 



650 COVENTRY PATMORE. [Aug., 

he became intimate with Mr. Ruskin. Then suddenly he with- 
drew from the world and married Miss Emily Augusta Andrews, 
the daughter of a prominent Independent minister. This was 
in the fall of 1847. This spiritually-minded lady was painted 
by Millais. She must have been beautiful. Mrs. Carlyle 
accused her of looking like a medallion, so immobile was her 
beauty. She suffered with great calmness the poverty of her 
husband. She bore him six children. She loved him, she pro- 
tected him. In 1862 she died, being only thirty-eight years 
old. He has recorded her " Departure " in lines tremulous with 
pathos : 
" It was not like your great and gracious ways ! 

Do you, that have naught other to lament, 

Never, my Love, repent 

Of how that July afternoon 

You went. 

" But all at once to leave me at the last, 
More at the wonder than the loss aghast, 
With sudden unintelligible phrase 
And frightened eye, 
And go your journey of all days 
With not a kiss or good-by, 

And the only loveless look the look with which you passed : 
'Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways." 

Three years after the death of his first wife Patmore married 
again a woman of high virtue and large fortune. Stricken with 
heart-hunger, he sought and captured responsive companionship 
in the delightful personality of Miss Mary Byles. Chilled with 
the fear that he may have violated the sanctity of his first love, 
he explains to her his brooding loneliness in a poem of ex- 
quisitely shaded feeling, entitled " Tired Memory." 

Patmore's second wife relieved him of all financial diffi- 
culties, and some have said that it was she who made him a 
Catholic. This cannot be true, for his mystical aspirations had 
already and unconsciously made him a Catholic. He was of 
too independent and candid a mind to be influenced either by 
Puritanism because his first wife was a Puritan, or by Catholi- 
cism because his second wife was a Catholic. Yet it would be 
wrong to deny that these women must have indirectly mellowed 
his heart and soul how could so susceptible a character as his 
resist them ? Father Cardella, the Italian Jesuit, who is known 
as being something of a philosopher and theologian, is rumored 



1899-] COVENTRY PATMORE. 651 

to have said, after meeting with Patmore in Rome, that he was 
Catholicism itself before he was received formally into the 
church. The mental processes by which Patmore worked him- 
self into becoming a Catholic would be a most interesting 
psychological study. There is no one to tell us about it but 
Mrs. Alice Meynell, the poet and consummate essayist, who 
was his sympathetic friend and admirer. She may not be 
versed in mystical theology, but she has subtlety and strength 
and feminine intuition, and a rare capacity for analysis. 

It was somewhere near the year 1877 that Mary Patmore 
died, leaving the poet for the second time a widower. In 
1883 his youngest son, Henry, died a youth of twenty-two, and, 
like Emerson's dead son, he was a hyacinthine boy of rare 
promise. 

There remains one sad story which Mr. Edmund Gosse has 
repeated in an article on Patmore for the Contemporary Review. 
With a pure heart and wonderful daring Patmore undertook 
to give to this suspicious modern age the candid Christian in- 
terpretation of human and divine love, as we find it in the 
forgotten volumes of mediaeval saints and Catholic mystics. 
The very title he gave his essay" Sponsa Dei " " The Spouse 
of God " would startle the pietist who is narrow and the vul- 
garian who is unclean. Alas ! perhaps it was better that he 
should have suffered melancholy by burning on Christmas Day, 
1887, this extraordinary manuscript, which has been classed as 
a masterpiece by the distinguished critic who read it. They 
who- know The Unknown Eros, and The Rod, the Root, the 
Flower, must know the truth he strove to teach. If it is 
not formulated distinctly in the writings of St. Bernard, it 
certainly is in The Ascent to Mount Carmel, whose author 
is St. John of the Cross. Indeed the two Spanish mystics, 
St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa, gave him much matter 
for his daily practice of meditation and spiritual reading. His 
second wife has shown the culture of her spiritual sense by 
her translation of St. Bernard's work on The Love of God. 
Once, when Patmore was writing of his verses " Scire Teipsum," 
he said : " They may be taken ... as expressing the re- 
wards of virginity attainable even in this life in the super- 
natural order." 

It was Patmore's heavenly gift to have met early and in 
this life his "predestinated mate." This carried him with- 
out blemish through that perilous adolescent period of the 
heart's history. With single eye and calm vision he looks 
upon truths and tells them to us with the ingenuousness of 



652 COVENTRY PATMORE. [Aug., 

the saint the truths which, if we could see, would nevertheless 
be unlawful for us to utter. Fortunate, doubtless, it is at 
times that he talks for the many in a " Dead Language," 
though in the poem thus entitled he regrets that it should be 
so. All his studies, his introspection, his reading of the Fathers 
of the early church like St. Augustine, his dabbling in physical 
science, his explorations into what he calls " that -inexhaustible 
poetic mine of psychology " all these are used but to sound 
his three mysteries, the three motifs of all his music : God, 
Woman, Love. Throughout the procedure his intentions are 
as limpid as crystal. He is 

"proud 
To take his passion into church." 

He writes of women as if the horrible fact never came to him 
that the world can corrupt all things, even so fair a thing as 
a woman. 

In his essay on Woman, entitled " The Weaker Vessel," he 
ridicules the French writer who classifies woman into twenty- 
five species. Patmore seems to perceive that not only is every 
woman a species in herself but many species. In his " Angel 
in the House " he has sublimated domestic love to a high and 
holy pitch. With wondrous delicacy he attaches a sacred sym- 
bolism to a tress of hair and the flutter of a ribbon. 

What does that young genius Mr. Francis Thompson mean 
when he accuses Patmore of having stalked through hell like 
Dante, and of having drunk 

" The moonless mere of sighs, 
And paced the places infamous to tell 
Where God wipes not the tears from any eyes " ? 

These verses may possibly refer to Patmore's later days 
when, in depression of spirit, he could no longer sing aloud 
that 

" Sadness is beauty's savor, and pain is 
The exceedingly keen edge of bliss." 

If melancholy encompassed Patmore towards the end when his 
life was consumed, it never touched his poetry. Nor can it be 
said that this "black humor," as Mrs. Meynell calls it, ever 
found entrance into his essays. Religio Poetce, an extraordinary 
volume published in 1893, manifests, if you will, a petulance 
and aggressiveness betokening the advance of senility. Yet in 
how masterly a fashion it suggests, in a few brief essays, thoughts 
that are too tender and too glorious to be amplified ! He sees 
so clearly himself that he has nothing left but divine contempt 



1899-J COVENTRY PATMORE. 653 

for those who doubt. With grave impoliteness he assaults 
Protestantism as a moral system radically defective, and loses 
his temper because it is narrow, extreme, and vulgar. He 
proves himself conversant with occult regions not only of dog- 
matic but also of ascetic theology. He is in no sense what- 
ever (for he lacked the learning) a theologian, but he is de- 
voted to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, and in a 
felicitous English style he reveals beauties long since hidden 
in the writings of Sts. Catharine of Genoa and Siena, St. 
Teresa, St. John of the Cross, St. Bernard, and St. Francis de 
Sales. 

Curious it is that for the most part the modern propagators 
of the Catholic Renaissance in art and letters and spiritual 
science are English Protestants or converts to Catholicism. We 
know nothing of our treasures until they are opened by eager 
hands like Pugin or Patmore. They were both sick at heart 
because we lacked devoutness for our fathers in the faith. In 
the pressure of our untoward history we have become only half- 
educated. We have lost the great soul and broad culture 
which created the music, the literature, the architecture which 
for largeness of conception has not yet been equalled. For 
our chaste, majestic, plaintive chant God's own music, once 
sung by saints and kings we have substituted tones out of 
keeping with the sacrifice and the incense of prayer. Our 
aesthetic sense has become un-Catholic. In 1889 Patmore pub- 
lished a little book entitled Principle in Art. He displayed a 
keen observation of lights and shadows he has an eye not so 
much for the styles in architecture as for the philosophy in it, 
its cause, ideal greatness, substance, purpose, and "symboliza- 
tion of sentiment," an expression used by Mr. Ruskin. His 
sighs for the forgotten past are frequent ; yet they come not 
from acute despair, that disease which furrows the brow of 
sensitive genius. He has no belief that the future is rich in 
golden promise, yet he has said : " I have respected posterity ; 
and should there be a posterity which cares for letters, I dare 
to hope that it will respect me." He has dubbed the nine- 
teenth century 

"O season strange for song!" 

If in verse execution and technique Patmore be defective, 
his vitality is so imperious that we yield out of sheer weakness 
to his mannerisms. As with his compatriot, the histrionic 
artist Sir Henry Irving, we are pressed to give way to his 
magnetism even when he misuses his marvellous voice to grunt 
and snort, and distorts his divine face to misshapen attitudes. 



COVENTRY PATMORE. [Aug., 

Art loses its perfection when it reveals the least vein of eccen- 
tricity. Yet some weaknesses sit well upon and actually seem 
eminently proper to some individuals. The wondrous simplicity 
of dramatism, as personified by the Italian actress Duse, can 
never touch the point of classicism, yet it is the most finished 
representation of passion. Patmore roughly exposes the sta- 
tuesque composure of Emerson ; he flashes all his cruel light 
upon the veins of clay and forgets the comeliness of the statue. 
The American's stoicism irritates him ; he brands him for ring- 
ing the changes upon a few themes, a fault common to himself, 
for he repeats ideas both in his prose and his verse. Yet if 
truths be new and startling, why not resurrect them into a 
thousand different forms? We accept almost totally the judg- 
ments of Matthew Arnold and Patmore concerning Emerson. 
That they studied him proves that he .has made an impression. 
No man is closer to Patmore in manner and method than Emer- 
son, and, strange to say, even many of the prophecies that they 
uttered would seem to issue from the same lips. We cannot 
afford to be always smelling out the grave sins of our only two 
original geniuses, Emerson and Poe. Emerson had the mysti- 
cal tendency, and were he a contemplative of the ages of faith 
he might have given us a book- just this side of inspiration a 
work like the Imitation of a Kempis or of Tauler the German 
mystic. Yet this may be on a plane with saying that if Kant 
were an integral Christian he might have left us a Summa like 
that of St. Thomas Aquinas. Excepting Isaac Hecker, Emer- 
son is the only American who manifests any high interior ex- 
perience. These two men differed vastly, and told each other 
so with honest openness when they knew each other in youth. 

Take him all in all, Patmore has but " A Pessimist's Out- 
look " for the fresh phases of civilization which are blossoming 
in this Republic of the West. If the United States has a pro- 
vidential purpose to complete in the reconstruction of the na- 
tions, then Patmore can find no shadow of such a mission in 
our present history. Concerning the theory of the Anglo-Saxon 
predominance over the history of the future he has written 
nothing. He greets with keen delight the artistic and search- 
ing sarcasm of Mrs. Meynell on the New-Worldling, who, if he 
be not a barbarian or a savage in her eyes, is certainly a de- 
civilized type of society. 

Indeed, it may be said of Patmore that to him all lovers 
of the people were beside themselves, and the advent of rich 
hopes was but the symptom of an overwrought and decadent 
civilization. .He despised the rabble, and made it the visible 



1899-] COVENTRY P ATM ORE. 655 

organization of the " amorous and vehement drift of man's herd 
to hell." It had nailed Christ to the Cross and it was not wor- 
thy even of sociological analysis. In his essay on " Christianity 
and Progress " meaning material progress he contends for an 
opinion which, so far as I can learn, is theologically correct, 
that there is only a distant relationship between the one and 
the other. To his thinking, if Christianity has not sensibly 
affected progress a thesis which, by the way, he does not up- 
hold but suspends judgment, if it has not, then by no means 
can it be called a failure, for the reason that it never professed 
to promote material amelioration. In the same pages he par- 
ries ruthlessly with the distressing question of the number of 
the elect, and although he would reason logically, he is too 
impetuous to detect that sentiment apart from logic has its 
own argument an opinion illustrated in Newman's very origi- 
nal Grammar of Assent. An example like this goes to show 
Patmore's extremism, his inability to view the field from all 
points. He lacks mental poise, and even while he advocates 
repose of manner he does so in words that tremble like leaves 
in an unseemly blast. It is because of such violent Christian 
teachers that we wax frightened at those words of music and 
of magic, " Progress," " Liberty," words which the enemies of 
Christianity have stolen from us while we slept. 

Yet it must come at times to the most unreasoning op- 
timist, as it came with vehemence to Patmore, that all this 
forward social movement may be but another bitter jest, illus- 
trating the mere impossibility for anything in this or any other 
planet to be at rest. In that strong poetic utterance, "Crest 
and Gulf," he leaves us with the impression made by Tenny- 
son in " Locksley Hall Sixty Years After" that that prophet 
is wisest and taught by heaven who confesses that he can but 
see nothing ; that this fresh stream of advance is only another 
fitful heaving in the sea of history. It shall mount to the 
crest and slop down ingloriously into the trough of the billow : 

" Crest altering still to gulf 
And gulf to crest, 
In endless chase 
That leaves the tossing water anchored in its place ! " 

This sober thought tinged his patriotic poems ; even while 
they breathe a fierce love of country, they are never joyous. 
So, too, with his political poems (if I may call them such) ; 
they are unhappy to a degree. He is peevish and ill-tempered 
with those who prate about equality and social rights : 



656 



CO VENTR Y PA TMORE. [Aug., 



"Yonder the people cast their caps o'erhead, 
And swear the threatened doom is ne'er to dread 
That's come, though not yet past. 
All front the horror and are none aghast ; 
Brae of their full-blown rights and liberties, 

o 

Nor once surmise 

When each man gets his due the Nation dies; 

Nay, still shout ' Progress ! ' as if seven plagues 

Should take the laggard who would stretch his legs. 

Forward ! glad rush of the Gergesenian swine ; 

You 've gain'd the hill-top, but there 's yet the brine. 

Forward! bad corpses turn into good dung 

To feed strange futures beautiful and young. 

Forward ! to meet the welcome of the waves 

That mount to 'whelm the freedom which enslaves. 

Forward ! God speed ye down the damn'd decline, 

And grant ye the Fool's true good in abject ruin's gulf, 

As the Wise see him so to see himself ! " 

If he is intolerant and aristocratic in his politics, so too 
can he become of very narrow gauge in matters of religion. 
His Catholicity is very often unmannerly and aggressive. He 
tries to introduce a species of ultra-Toryism into it which is 
out of harmony with its very name. If a series of hypotheses 
were constructed purporting to give the percentage of the 
elect, it would probably have suited his cast of mind to choose 
the one that sent most souls to damnation. One has but to 
read the essay on " Distinction " to learn his opinion of Modern 
Democracy: "I confess, therefore, to a joyful satisfaction in 
my conviction that a real Democracy, such as ours, in which 
the voice of every untaught ninny or petty knave is as poten- 
tial as that of the wisest and most cultivated, is so contrary to 
nature and order that it is necessarily self-destructive. In 
America there are already signs of the rise of an aristocracy 
which promises to be more exclusive and may, in the end, 
make itself more predominant than any of the aristocracies of 
Europe ; and our own Democracy, being entirely without bridle, 
can scarcely fail to come to an early and probably a violent 
end. ... In the meantime, ' genius ' and ' distinction ' will 
become more and more identified with loudness ; floods of 
vehement verbiage, without any sincere conviction, or indica- 
tions of the character capable of arriving at one ; inhuman 
humanitarianism ; profanity, the poisoner of the roots of life ; 
tolerance and even open profession and adoption of ideas which 



1899-] COVENTRY PATMORE. 657 

Rochester and Little would have been ashamed even remotely 
to suggest ; praise of any view of morals provided it be an un- 
precedented one ; faith in any foolish doctrine that sufficiently 
disclaims authority. That such a writer as Walt Whitman 
should have attained to be thought a distinguished poet by 
many persons generally believed to have themselves claims to 
distinction, surely more than justifies my forecast of what is 
coming. That amazing consummation is already come." 

Mr. Patmore is best in the serener ether of contemplation. 
It is here that he proves himself a man of deep religious in- 
stinct. He revels in the most abstruse problems concerning 
the being of God. He approaches the mystery of the triple 
Personality in one Being as the only condition by which he 
can apprehend the Deity. What, after all, is the Trinity but 
the relation between Subject and Object that which in theo- 
logical terminology is called divine immanence ? He has grasped 
this truth with unusual facility. In " The Three Witnesses " 
the poetry is defective but the thought is clear. How wonder- 
ful to think that Greek philosophers earlier than Plato, and 
that wise men from Egypt and India more or less obscurely, 
apprehended God under what Patmore calls " the analogue of 
difference of sex in one entity " ! To Orpheus is attributed : 
" God is a beautiful Youth and a Divine Nymph." Plato 
divined that there are three sexes in every entity. With Chris- 
tian theology the Holy Spirit is the " amplexus " of the First 
Person and the Second of the Ever-Blessed Trinity. So, too, 
is this living triplicity somewhat shadowed forth in the animal, 
vegetative, and mineral kingdoms. The grossest atom in this 
universe is the " amplexus " of the two opposed forces, expan- 
sion and contraction. All being is the harmony of two oppo- 
sites. That which exists is the result of a process of conflicts 
thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. All entity has a unity in trinity. 
That which is natural and human takes the form of sex. 

To be sure, it were useless to imagine that such proposi- 
tions can arouse conviction at the first presentation. The mere 
reading of Patmore's essay " The Bow set in the Cloud " is 
valueless unless it be studied and prayed over. He who would 
rend the veil must have clean hands. His eyes must be of 
the spirit to discern Wisdom when she is unveiled. As St. 
George Mivart recently remarked, the sensuous images which 
are used in one age to express God, who is unimaginable, may 
be quite repellant to the eyes of another age. There is no 
irreverence or lack of faith in passing by the non-essential 
VOL. LXIX. 42 



658 COVENTRY PATMORE. [Aug., 

Hebraicisms which appeal to peopjes of the Orient. That 
tender intimacy tempered with fear the agony of desire be- 
tween the soul and God bears in " the unitive way" an analogy 
between the affection of bride and lover. In the days of King 
Edward III. of England an anchoress of Norwich named 
Mother Juliana wrote charming revelations of divine love. 
There are several passages relative to what she expresses in 
old English as: " Three manners of beholdings of Mother-head 
in God." Take private revelations for what they are worth, 
but if the term " Motherhood of God " seems strange to us it 
is because we do not know how to express the element of 
femininity which exists in God, and in Woman as she is the 
reflection of some of the attributes of God. Christ as a man, 
and also as the literal manifestation of God in history, com- 
bines in their proper proportion the tenderness of the woman 
with the strength of the man. "... The anthropomorphic 
character which so universally marks the religion of the simple 
and is so great a scandal to the 'wise' may be regarded as a 
remote confession of the Incarnation, a saving instinct of the 
fact that a God who is not a man is, for man, no God." The 
Church represents Christ as the glory of the Father who is 
His Head. Man is the glory of his head, Christ, as Woman is 
the glory of Man, who is her head a fact which Milton 
gained through his power of intuition and without the aid of 
Catholic theology : 

" He for God only, she for God in him." 

With wondrous skill Patmore traces these thoughts in the 
essay " Dieu et Ma Dame " ; in the verses also, " De Natura 
Deorum," " Legem Tuam Dilexi," " Deliciae Sapientise De 
Amore," and several others. No one but Patmore could take 
our gross English speech and weave of it a white raiment to 
shroud the bliss of the soul, the secret between the divine 
Psyche and the diviner Eros. But if we be of " The People 
of a Stammering Tongue " who have not been told of such a 
vision, let us remember that divine teaching is almost always 
gradual. 

The new visions looming up in the vast fields of modern 
knowledge present our God in new shadows of Transfiguration. 
Science, physical, critical, and historical, will doubtless create a 
new and more profitable symbolism to represent conceptions of 
a God who is inconceivable. Patmore, true to his poet nature, 
selected his symbolism from the domain of emotion, and not 



1899-] COVENTRY PATMORE. 659 

from nature. He has, however, deprecated all art and life 
which is subject only to emotionalism. The music of Handel, 
the poetry of ^schylus, and the architecture of the Parthenon 
are to him sublime appeals because they take little or no 
account of the emotions. Yet it would be unfair to say that 
Patmore does not concern himself with the material world. 
He does indeed, but as genius always does: he pierces through 
it and attaches a divine signification to its changing aspects ; 
as, for instance, when he represents the fulfilment of the posi- 
tive and negative powers in the electric fire as being a faint 
reflection of the " embrace " existing in the essence of the 
Deity. He gives science its proper place it is but a means 
to an end. Scientific men are of all men the most illiberal 
they are at best but specialists. The theologian who is worried 
about them does not know his books. His worst indignity is 
to sniff around chemicals and animalculae. Let him take his 
nose out of the dust and hold his head erect in his own sphere. 
The economy of the material universe has no relation to the 
fold of the spirit. 

" Not greatly moved with awe am I 
To learn that we may spy 
Five thousand firmaments beyond our own. 
The best that 's known 

Of the heavenly bodies does them credit small. 
Viewed close, the Moon's fair ball 
Is of ill objects worst, 

A corpse in Night's highway, naked, fire-scarr'd, accurst. 
And now they tell 

That the Sun is plainly seen to boil and burst 
Too horribly for hell. 
So judging from these two, 
As we must do, 

The universe outside our living Earth 
Was all conceived in the Creator's mirth, 
Forecasting at the time Man's spirit deep, 
To make dirt cheap, 
Put by the Telescope ! 
Better without it man may see, 
Stretched awful in the hushed midnight, 
The Ghost of his eternity. 

Give me the nobler glass that swells to the eye] 
The things that near us lie." 



660 COVENTRY PATMORE. [Aug., 

In an essay of three or four pages, entitled "Ancient and 
Modern Ideas of Purity," Patmore shows how the jaundiced 
eye of heresy has weakened our visual power, and, because it 
is the most mortal of sins, has colored with sickly hue things 
that are fair and good in themselves. In times past moralists 
were wiser : their methods for the cultivation of virtue were so 
prohibitive and negative ; they taught chastity not so much by 
the suppression of desire as by the presentation to the will of 
a pure object and the proper direction of the tide of passion. 
Consequently modern life knows nothing of the ardor that is 
virginal. Yet ancient and mediaeval Catholicism gave us saints 
thrice-widowed, who their 

"birth-time's consecrating dew . . . 
For death's sweet chrism retained, 
Quick, tender, virginal, and unprofaned ! " 

From the ancient day when Cecilia so charged the air with the 
ozone of her moral presence that Valerian could no longer look 
upon her, to the mediaeval time when Henry, king as well as 
saint, knelt a slave to the virtue of his queen, it was a familiar 
doctrine which Patmore has tried to revive in the ode " To the 
Body." It was a 

" Little, sequester'd pleasure-house 
For God and for His Spouse ; 
Elaborately, yea, past conceiving, fair, 
Since, from the grace decorum of the hair, 
Ev'n to the tingling, sweet 
Soles of the simple, earth confiding feet, 
And from the inmost heart 
Outwards unto the thin 
Silk curtains of the skin, 
Every least part 
Astonished hears 

And sweet replies to some like region of the spheres, 
Formed for a dignity prophets but darkly name, 
Lest shameless men cry ' Shame ! ' " 

Ideas such as these were faintly suggested by the best of 
Romans before the period of decline, and with the nobler con- 
ceptions of the Greek. You will bear with me if my memory 
does not serve me correctly in repeating a scene, possibly from 
the " Hecuba " of Euripides, where the tragedian paints 
Polyxena with her throat cut, falling upon the altar, and how, 



1899-] COVENTRY PATMORE. 66 1 

conscious even in death of her modesty, she carefully folds 
the snow-white raiment over her bosom. It was not until the 
advent of Christ's Mother that the high dreams of the pagans 
were fulfilled. With vestal grace she combined in her virginal 
maternity the dignities of the matron with the honors of 
the virgin, and, as Patmore puts it when writing of how she 
missed corruption, 

" Therefore, holding a little thy soft breath, 
Thou underwent'st the ceremony of death." 

An admirable quality in Patmore is his independence of 
spirit. He does not argue. He assures you that " Christianity 
is an Experimental Science," and says, by way of passing : 
" Try it and see." The saints when they talk understand each 
other. To Mr. Huxley and Mr. Morley their parlance would 
be like the hooting of owls. If I may not be abused for say- 
ing it,. I would intimate that Patmore is an impressionist in his 
apprehension of the mysteries behind religion. To the many 
who see not he will ever be an impossible colorist. If you can- 
not see, then so much the worse for you, he would seem to 
say. The tones that linger on purple hill and upon skies of 
gold have impressed, themselves upon the painter's eye. Almost 
all modern impressionists are dishonorable and pictorial liars. 
They paint, but they do not see. Not so with Patmore. He 
has safeguarded " The Point of Honor," and sees more than he 
can write about. He is too honest to be influenced by the 
hypocrisy so rife in modern religion, art, and letters. Patmore 
is a true impressionist. He beholds and points out views 
visible only to the finished artistic eye. 

I have tender scruples that in the beginning I put my finger 
on what he defines as "The Limitations of Genius" those 
moods of impatience that are congenital with rare intellectual 
power. If so, I send a message to wherever his bright spirit 
reigns that he may deem me fit for absolution. Sargent has 
painted him long and lean, thin-fingered and weak-chested, with 
a face eager and crowned with the broad brow of the visionary. 
It may be noted that nothing has been said of the things that 
constitute his form of art : the involved clause, colloquialism, 
symmetry, metre, and rhythm ; but such discussions are at best 
but tedious. Infinitely more interesting is the man, his work 
and his life. With resolution he bore his last agony. Having 
received the Holy Viaticum, he was anointed with the sacrament 
of Extreme Unction. Then having left us, he went to face Death. 




662 REMINISCENCES OF A CA THOLIC CRISIS [Aug., 



REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS IN 
ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 

BY REV. C. A. WALWORTH. 

V. 

NOTABLE ECCLESIASTICS. INTERVIEWS WITH NEWMAN. 

personal recollections of men and things in Eng- 
land coincide with my first years in the priest- 
hood, namely, from August, 1848, until near the 
close of January, 1851. I was ordained by Mon- 
seigneur Paredis, Bishop of Ruremonde, in the 
Dutch Limbourg, August 27, 1848. I soon after was assigned 
to go to England, with my three companions, Father Teunis, 
Father Lefevre, and Isaac Hecker. We arrived in London Sun- 
day, September 23, 1848, and retired at once to the Redemp- 
torist House in Clapham. Later on, I was assigned to another 
house of the order, at Hanley, in Worcestershire. 

The first time I ever saw John Henry Newman was in the 
early part of 1849. It was on a visit to Birmingham in order 
to meet two old friends and acquaintances whom I had known 
in America, namely, Baron Schroeder, a German Catholic, and 
Rev. Dr. Finney, of Oberlin College. I profited gladly by the 
opportunity of making acquaintance, at the same time, with Dr. 
Newman at his Oratory. I spent a happy evening there with 
him and his companions in religion, in their recreation room, 
before a genial fire, which smiled upon us from the hearth. 
I was placed directly in front of the fire-place, and close to me 
on the right hand side sat Newman, hugging his knees not very 
gracefully, and watching the fire during much of the time, with 
a glow on his face not inferior to its own. He was in a happy 
mood that evening. Directly opposite him sat a young Ameri- 
can, in whose presence he manifestly took great delight. This 
was Robert Tillotson, a son of Tillotson of Barrytown, on the 
Hudson. Tillotson was at that time very young, scarcely out 
of his boyhood. He had sailed from New York to Liverpool 
on one of his father's vessels, and made his way at once to Dr. 
Newman, who was his chief and almost only attraction in Eng- 
land. It was a short process to make a convert of this young 

" 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 663 

American, who soon also made up his mind to remain in Bir- 
mingham and connect himself with the magnetic circle which 
he found at the Oratory. Tillotson's youthful frankness and 
vivacity, and a certain something peculiar to our western world 
and known abroad as Americanism, was evidently very attrac- 
tive to the great Oxonian, who delighted in drawing him out. 
I also felt very much at home. 

The rest of the company present were, so far as I remem- 
ber, all Oratorians. They constituted a moving background en- 
gaged for the most part in conversation amongst themselves. 
This larger group, however, was easily broken up and gathered 
nearer to the fireside when any interesting topic was started 
there likely to draw out the sentiments of their venerated Supe- 
rior. A topic like this came up in regard to Dr. Pusey. I do 
not remember what led to it, but Newman's opinion was asked 
as to the probability 'of Dr. Pusey 's conversion to the faith. 
He showed no anxiety to avoid the question, but took time to 
answer and expressed himself slowly and with a marked caution 
to say no more than the question called for. I do not pretend 
to give his exact words. " Of course," he said, " while there is 
life, there is room for hope. I must say, however, that I do 
not see how any one who knows Dr. Pusey intimately can 
found any special probability of his conversion upon that knowl- 
edge." 

It was some time before this that Dr. Pusey had occasion 
to express his opinion upon the conversion of his old friend, 
John Henry Newman, not a matter of hope, nor of probability, 
but an accomplished fact. He did it publicly and without any 
expression of regret. He looked upon Newman's conversion as 
an interesting game known to boys as the u tug-of-war," the 
party pulling the hardest winning the victory. " It is all right," 
he said. "The Roman Catholics prayed for Newman harder 
than we did and God has given him to them." When the news 
of this conversion was announced in a circle of the Redemptor- 
ist Convent at St. Trond, in Belgium, our novice master was 
less astonished at the conversion than at Pusey 's comment. 
"What baby-talk is this?" he said. 

Another visit to Birmingham and to Dr. Newman at the 
Oratory was in company with a foreign priest. We sat down 
to the table with the whole community and their Superior. 
Silence was observed by all except by one of the company 
who, seated on a bench at the desk and upon an elevated 
platform, read aloud in English. Later on all joined in an in- 



664 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [Aug., 

teresting discussion which need not become a part of these 
reminiscences. It might be interesting in some other book, 
but I do not wish to lug it in by the ears in this article. 
My friend had a conversation with Newman himself, his part 
being necessarily all in Latin. The difference in the pronun- 
ciation of that language made the conversation slow but per- 
fectly intelligible. It was all about Newman's position and the 
work of conversion. He could not answer definitely to many 
of the questions put him, but was always very kind and very 
gentle. When, at last, one was put about which he could 
speak as definitely as it was possible to think definitely, he 
did not hesitate. Will Englishmen follow up this tide without 
allowing it to stop? Will men in this land so listen to the 
grace of God that now one and now another, now more, now 
more, now more will enter the church, until at last the country 
may fairly be called Catholic, and truly, looking back from 
some point in the future, will it look like a single thing in 
history? Gathering all such questions into one single issue, as 
a lawyer would say : Will all England be converted, and will 
that happy time come soon ? Having thus cautiously got the 
whole question into a proper shape, Newman was prepared to 
make his reply. The reply was : " SPERO FORE." 

As he said this a sweet smile took possession of his lips 
and his eyes brightened with joy. At some moments of pain- 
ful fear since then, moments, nevertheless, of joyous hope for 
the conversion of Americans to the Faith, I have taken refuge 
in these same two golden words of Newman, Spero fore. It 
is an old and well-known saying that " Rome was not built in 
one day," nor is it likely that any man in this western world 
already born will live to celebrate the jubilee of America's 
conversion. There is a great deal of work to be done to bring 
this about. There is a great deal of opposition to be encoun- 
tered. But it is no burst of childish enthusiasm for a Catholic 
heart that bounds with hope to look far forward, to say, and 
say joyously: SPERO FORE. 

The work to which God called John Henry Newman and 
to which he devoted his whole heart and soul was the conver- 
sion of England. He loved Englishmen. If his love amounted 
to something more than an instinctive preference for one's 
own native land, it was this divine interior calling which, in 
him, lifted love up into the supernatural. By a reverse action 
this accounts for the prevailing love of Englishmen for him. 
Setting aside some undoubted and very natural exceptions, 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 665 

this great man's name was honored and dear in England 
during his life-time and will remain so. Love begets love. 
Devotion begets devotion. I saw a great deal during my stay 
in England of this attraction towards Newman, although my 
duties gave me little opportunity to cultivate my own personal 
acquaintance with him. From time to time some religious of 
his order came to make a retreat in our quiet and secluded 
little chapel at Hanley. These retreats were made in silence; 
but before and after them we were always ready and eager to 
draw out such guests into conversation upon their work and 
that of their chief. I do not remember any visit of Newman 
himself to Hanley, or to any of our convents or chapels. But 
reports were spread about more than once in Worcestershire 
and the neighboring counties that he was expected to preach 
for us. This brought letters of inquiry from various quarters 
asking to know the time and what facilities there would be to 
hear him. The writers were almost always Protestants ; some- 
times gentry having country seats in the neighborhood, but 
more frequently Anglican clergymen. It required no little 
nerve on the part of these writers to overcome the difficulties 
and embarrassments which lay in the way of coming to Catho- 
lic services. To hear Newman preach, however, was an affair 
of magnetic attraction sufficient to overcome any ordinary diffi- 
culty, excuse all scruples, and override human respect. 

I do not think that right-minded Protestants are unfavora- 
bly impressed by the thought that Catholics are anxious to 
convert them. In their hearts they know that it ought to be 
so. Gladstone must have been perfectly aware of this burning 
zeal in the friend of his early years, and that his own conver- 
sion was a hope near to that great heart. Could he love 
Newman less for being so valued ? Gladstone was only one 
conspicuous man amongst many others that did not follow 
Newman into the church, but loved him none the less. 

To another distinguished convert, an old friend and ac- 
quaintance at Oxford, when he said, "This is the first misun- 
derstanding," Gladstone replied, curtly, "I think not the first!" 

Is human nature different here in America ? Do Protestants 
in this country feel greater respect for American Catholics, or 
love us more, when they perceive that we manifest little con- 
cern in their conversion? Can we gain their hearts to our 
cause, or accredit our church as the true church of Christ, when 
we are forward to wave their religious flags for them and 
assure them they need no conversion ? No indeed, this cannot 



666 REMINISCENCES OF A CA THOLIC CRISIS [Aug., 

rightly pass for genuine liberality. It finds no model in the 
example of Christ. It is not Christian. It is not apostolic. 

VI. 

REDEMPTORIST CLOISTER AT HANLEY, IN WORCESTERSHIRE. 
ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. CONVERTS OF NEWMAN. 

During the writer's two or three years of residence in Eng- 
land many converts were received into the church at the 
Redemptorist cloister near Hanley Centre, in Worcestershire. 
Their church and chapel, located about twenty miles south of 
Worcester City and four miles east of the Malvern Hills, was- 
built on the grounds of Thomas Charles Hornyhold, Esq., and 
chiefly at his expense. The gateway which opened from the 
public road to Blackmore Park stood close to the convent, with 
its beautiful little church and churchyard. A short walk or 
drive made up the distance to the Hornyhold mansion. 

Although this country chapel, in charge of the Redemptorists, 
was too small to hold any great crowd of worshippers, it was 
advantageously located. Besides the Catholic peasantry of the 
neighborhood, it was easily reached by several families of the 
landed gentry who, like the Hornyholds, adhered to the old 
faith and were generally connected with the occupants of 
Blackmore Park by family ties. Theresa Hornyhold, a sister of 
the squire above mentioned, married John Vincent Gandolfi, 
Esq. Squire Hornyhold dying without issue, the name of 
Gandolfi now succeeds as proprietor of Blackmore and patron 
of the chapel. A few miles to the east across the Severn, on 
the slop.e of Overbury Hill, lay the residence of Mr. Fitz- 
Herbert, whose wife, a Gandolfi, was niece to Squire Horny- 
hold. In the same direction and not far away resided another 
Catholic family, that of Lord Stafford. 

In the city of Worcester Squire Hornyhold found his second 
wife, Lucy Weston. Her name stands recorded with that of her 
husband on a side window of the sanctuary at Hanley Church, 
they being the chief benefactors. 

The last Catholic Earl of Shrewsbury, of Alton Towers, was 
also a large land-holder in the neighborhood, and a km to the 
Hornyhold family. He was, also, not an infrequent visitor at 
Blackmore Park. He came to our chapel one day alone and 
unattended. He walked there from the Park to wait for his 
carriage, which was to come for him with friends. He had to 
wait there about an hour and a half, and as I was the only 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 667 

priest at home, it fell to my lot to show him some new things, 
additions to the vestments in the sacristy and repairs in both 
church and convent, which he had heard of and desired to see ; 
and otherwise to entertain him until the arrival of Squire 
Hornyhold and the earl's party. Of course I did my best, for 
I had the highest respect for his Christian character as made 
known to me by report, and was glad to take his measure for 
myself as far as the present occasion gave me opportunity. 

I was much pleased with him. His manner was that of a 
perfect gentleman, but I thought him somewhat cold and re- 
served. This I attributed to some anxiety about the non- 
arrival of his friends. After being seated together awhile in 
the parlor, he expressed a wish to walk in the garden. We 
went out together, but when in the garden he turned towards 
the gate which led out upon the road and said he would rather 
walk there. It struck me at that moment that he wished to 
be alone. After opening the gate for him I left him to walk 
by himself, and returned to the garden, occupying myself with 
my breviary. When Squire Hornyhold arrived and found he 
was not in the house or garden, he expressed much surprise 
that I should not have followed him out upon the road. On 
mentioning this circumstance afterwards to a friend at Little 
Malvern who was well acquainted with English ways and 
customs, he said : " No, I think you are mistaken about wish- 
ing to be alone, for he is not much given to reserve, but likes 
conversation. I think he took you for an Irishman, and with 
the Irish priests, at this time, he is not very popular." 

This may have been true or, indeed, it may have been 
something arising from my own .manner, for when in Europe 
my American ways seem to have been sufficiently apparent. 
Whatever the truth may be, I mention him simply as a dis- 
tinguished and excellent Catholic and one of the belongings of 
the district. 

I remember that the door of our church, or chapel, had 
posted on it a list of only seven voters, of whom the principal 
three were Squire Hornyhold and two gentlemen of the name 
of Lechmere. These Lechmeres were brothers, one being 
pastor of the parish and also, therefore, in possession of the 
glebe lands ; and his brother, Sir Anthony, having his residence 
westward of us near the border of Wales, and I think on the 
Welsh side of that border. It was on the way to Hereford 
and about half way, the entire distance being only twenty 
miles. I knew of only one Catholic in the family of Lechmere, 



668 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [Aug., 

She was a daughter. She was a recent convert to the Catho- 
lic faith, and at that time a close prisoner in her father's 
family, attended by a guard that is, a lady's maid, who kept 
watch upon the movements of her young mistress to prevent 
all communication with Catholics. We may have more to say 
about this young lady hereafter. 

A name very familiar in our neighborhood and to our little 
community at the Catholic chapel was that of Charles T. 
Bodenham, Esq., of Rotherwas. His residence was near the 
city of Hereford, in Wales. It was not far from the border 
of England and soon reached by any visitor from Malvern. 
This residence had always been regarded as an excellent type 
of the mansion of a first-class commoner of ancient family. Its 
lofty situation above the river Wye, its beautiful and command- 
ing prospect, together with the wonderful antiquities which its 
walls enclosed, has given rise to an old adage often quoted : 

" Non datur cuivis adire Rotherwas." 

Not every one is able to live at Rotherwas. 

The mind of the author, however, remains far more im- 
pressed with the personality of Charles Bodenham, Esq., than 
with the antiquity of his family or the wonders of Bodenham 
Hall. He was a full-blooded Catholic, but not of the ordinary 
mould. The fears excited in the minds of many and, I may say, 
most English Catholics by the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill were 
not shared by this doughty champion of the church. It simply 
excited him to indignation. At one of those conventions called 
in order to arouse the country to a fury he made his appear- 
ance promptly. He took his seat upon the platform above the 
crowd and in the centre of the assembled gentry. When his 
time came to speak, he responded without the slightest hesita- 
tion, and as we say in America, quoting one of our distinguished 
poets, Nathaniel P. Willis : 

" He flung defiance to the ring." 

I am confident that English Protestants respected all the 
more that ancient faith which Bodenham so nobly defended. 
Painters are generally fond of representing our Blessed Lord 
as parting his hair in the middle. That tradition may well be 
doubted. It may equally be doubted whether Catholics in our 
day when in the presence of aggressive adversaries, whether 
Protestant or infidel, gain much by parting their words in the 
middle. 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 669 

What has just been written is intended to be a pen-sketch 
of a locality in England at a stormy time. In this sketch a 
group of prominent Catholics are called to the front consisting 
mostly of men and families connected by religion, by kinship, 
and by constant social intercommunication with the master of 
Blackmore Park. The various individuals collected in this 
group are delineated by the author's recollections, and only in 
such light and color as his failing memory retains. In a group 
consisting of Hornyholds, Gandolfis, Fitz Herberts, Talbots, east 
and west of the Severn, where the author's recollections of 
England chiefly lie, the figure of Mr. Bodenham could not well 
be left out. We have only time to mention him now, but we 
are glad to put him in a strong light. To be sure it is but a 
partial light, but we think it will do him no serious discredit. 

Having spoken sufficiently for the present of the locality of 
our Redemptorist Convent, it is time to speak of ourselves and 
of our opportunities at Hanley to put in good work for the 
Catholic cause. Our most interesting work was that of gaining 
and securing converts to the Holy Church. A prominent father 
from the Convent College of the students at Wittem, or Wilre, 
in the Netherlands, in a letter which gave us great pleasure, 
said : " We look upon Hanley here as a second Thonon, gath- 
ering converts like St. Francis de Sales." Other religious and 
parish priests were doing similar work all over England, espe- 
cially in country places, until the work was badly blockaded 
by the excitement aroused against it by the establishment of 
the new Catholic hierarchy or, as some thought, by the way in 
which it was done. 

The part which I took in this line in our establishment at 
Hanley and in the little town of Upton-on-Severn, four miles 
distant, where a few Catholic families resided, gave me a class 
of catechumens varying, of course, in their number, but averag- 
ing about nine. These I could gather by appointment. Some 
of them came to me at our convent. The larger part gathered 
to me at Upton, where we had built a little chapel, which was 
committed to my care. Our superior, Father Lans, also re- 
ceived many, and generally those of higher rank and influence. 
Father Teunis, a native of Brabant, and Father Le Fevre, a 
Walloon, both did good work in the same way, though com- 
paratively new to the English language. 

One of the most remarkable converts who made her profes- 
sion of faith before our altar at Hanley Centre came to us on 
wings furnished her by John Henry Newman. Let me call her 



670 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [Aug., 

Mrs. Hunter. She was one of a crowd who had listened to a 
course of his lectures. I do not think that he ever knew what 
he had done for her soul. She came to us to be received into 
the true fold of Christ, because her home was in our neighbor- 
hood. She received the necessary practical instructions at the 
hands of Father Lans. She brought with her her three children. 
The two elder children, a boy and a girl, were of sufficient 
age to understand what they were doing very well. They took 
to the catechism eagerly. After the first Mass they heard, they 
walked out with me into the garden. There they danced around 
me with perfect delight at escaping from the dry, sapless cere- 
monies of Anglicanism. The youngest child, Grace, was less 
than five years old. It was not intended that she should be 
introduced into the church by any special formality. When, 
however/ the day came "for her mother and the two elder 
children to make their profession of faith, Gracie insisted upon 
taking her part in the ceremony and doing everything done by 
the others. She added a little variation, however, of her own 
devising. After kissing the Gospel and receiving Father Lans' 
absolution from heresy, and benediction, she turned her beam- 
ing face to the few spectators gathered in front of the sanctu- 
ary, she swung her little hands, and clearing two steps with a 
single bound, she landed triumphantly on the floor. One thing 
only was left out, which she did not know of at first. She had 
not been in the confessional. She made this all right after- 
wards. When in the parlor of the convent her sister whispered 
to Father Lans that Gracie wanted to make her confession 
also, and without caring to lose time about this, without wait- 
ing for surplice, stole, or kneeling-stool, she called out to^ her 
confessor, " I broke my crucifix ! " and then ran away laughing 
into the hall. 

The husband of this lady, the father of these little children, 
was a gentleman not disposed to invest much religious concern 
in religious matters of any kind. He was a sportsman, and 
his heart was devoted to hunting. The next visit this lady 
paid to us he came with her in a handsome carriage, giving his 
attention to the children, while she held the reins. I went out 
to the door to meet them. 

"What!" said I, "do you let your wife do the driving?" 

"Not always," he said, "but she can do it. She can drive 
a four-in-hand, sir." 

I wondered that he should come at all, but his wife ac- 
counted for it to me afterwards. He had become interested in 



1899-] IM ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 671 

me. He wanted to see an American. He wanted to learn all 
he could about our great forests and lakes, and the game that 
abounded in the Adirondacks, a wonder-world which filled his 
imagination. He and I soon became engaged in this kind of 
conversation, while his wife and children were kept occupied 
by Father Lans with matters more congenial to them. I was 
not much of a sportsman, to be sure, but I had near relatives 
to whom the forests of New York were familiar, and what I 
had to tell him in regard to these things was enough to induce 
him to make one of the party whenever his family drove in to 
our convent at Hanley. At last he took a house near us at 
Hanley Centre. Quite an acquisition was this to the society 
of the little village, and an addition to the congregation. 

At the first visit which I paid to this new house, after look- 
ing at the hall and principal apartments, and the attractions 
contained in the garden, Mrs. Hunter led me back to the par- 
lor and made me sit down in a very comfortable chair. 

" Now, father, look around you," she said, " and tell me 
how you like this room and its furniture." 

" It is all very fine," I replied. " I admire it very much." 

"But is it not very comfortable?" she persisted. 

" Very," was my answer. 

" But look again, father. Is there nothing which reminds 
you of your own home in America ? " 

I was much puzzled, and remained so, until she explained 
to my dulness that I was sitting in a veritable American rock- 
ing-chair, a thing so familiar to me in my own country that I 
had not thought of its oddity in England. 

It does not seem to me that I need give an excuse for re- 
membering so well the advent to Hanley of this Hunter family. 
I think I ought, however, to assign a reason for introducing 
so much of detail in regard to this new dwelling house, the 
new furniture in its parlor, and myself so unconscious of the 
rocking-chair in which I was seated. Full of a native inde- 
pendence as I was, I know of no time in my life when I was 
so little conscious of being an American. This Anglican attack 
upon liberty of thought in Christian worship filled me with in- 
dignation like that of Mr. Bodenham, none the less keenly 
because the obscurity of my position in England deprived me of 
the privilege of letting off steam. No wonder, therefore, that I 
sat quiet in a rocking-chair without thinking of it, mindless 
also of home ! The only pleasure at hand was to witness the 
new-found joy that beamed out from the heart of this convert 



672 REMINISCENCES OF A CA THOLIC CRISIS [Aug., 

lady, so near to a Catholic church, with her dearest friends 
around her. No wonder that the woes awaiting English Catho- 
lics, and already thickening in the air, were absent from her 
thoughts in a moment so full of new sweetness ! No wonder 
that her smiles and those of the little planets that revolved 
around her were so catching to me, soothing my sorrows and 
helping to calm my indignation, but drowning at the same time 
all thoughts of America and American wares in presence of 
their joy. It made me, however, proud indeed to help in the 
work of England's conversion. 

I give my account of this Hunter family as a type of a 
number of converts from the educated and cultivated class of 
Englishmen to whom Newman and his Oxford followers had 
preached the Faith, while it was left to us foreign priests at 
Hanley to finish the work begun by him and introduce them 
into the true fold from which their ancestors had departed- 
The town of Hanley, and other towns and villages which clus- 
tered around the Malvern Hills, furnished us, however, with 
something besides converts. They gave us dangerous adversa- 
ries, both residents and visitors. They brought us into hostile 
contact with Anglicans who did not belong to the Oxford 
Movement, but were hostile to it. Many of these had minds 
well stored with scraps of learning gathered fiom Protestant 
sources. They carried about with them small-arms of contro- 
versy, which could be used with much effect in social life, where 
verification of authority could not readily be called for, but 
strong assertion could be made to supply the want of proof. 
My memory furnishes me with a good example to show what 
influence this kind of brow-beating often has. 

Among the visitors to Malvern Hills one summer was a 
French Catholic of noble family, a Breton count. One Sunday 
morning, after High Mass, he came into our convent parlor and 
asked to see some priest of the community. Father Lefevre 
and the author were sent to wait upon him. After introducing 
himself to us, he told us that he had been very much annoyed 
and his conscience disturbed by some Protestant acquaintances 
of his, with whom he had become very intimate at Malvern and 
who were very agreeable people to know. They had shown him 
some work of an Anglican divine in which a letter of one of the 
early fathers, St. Gregory the Great, himself a Roman Pontiff, 
was quoted, showing him to have abandoned all idea of Papal su- 
premacy and to have claimed no higher authority in the church 



1 899.] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 673 

than any other bishop. This letter was addressed to John, sur- 
named the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople. Fortunately 
the whole of this letter is still in existence and given at full 
length amongst the works of St. Gregory. This letter we had 
in Latin, and when the count said he understood Latin, we 
took the book down from a shelf in the parlor and asked him 
to read the letter through and through. In doing this the 
count found, to his astonishment, that it constantly asserts the 
superiority of the See of Rome to all other bishoprics. What 
St. Gregory objects to, is the form of the title (Ecumenical 
Bishop, which the Patriarch of Constantinople claimed for his 
patriarchate, and which the Emperor Phocas, himself a resident 
of Constantinople, would not allow to be used in his empire. 
The reason assigned by the emperor for forbidding it was, that 
such a title could only be used by the Bishop of Rome. 

St. Gregory objected to the use of this title by any bishop, 
even by himself, as being equivocal. He claimed in preference 
a better and clearer title, namely, that of " Bishop of the Uni- 
versal Church." 

When our French visitor had finished reading the letter he 
was completely disgusted, and laying down the book, he said : 

" That will do. I have had enough of this. I'll have no 
more discussion with these English friends of mine on points of 
controversy. I never knew of anything more unfair than such 
suppression of the truth. They use the Fathers as they use 
the Scriptures. It is only a new form of the old trick. I was 
foolish to let myself be worried by it." 

Many years later, when living at Baltimore in Maryland, 
the same letter of St. Gregory was made use of in the same 
way to prevent a young lady of a distinguished family in that 
city from uniting herself to the ancient church. The chief 
agent of the deceit in this latter case was not a Protestant lay- 
man, but a prominent clergyman, and one who afterwards 
stood high amongst Episcopalians as a talented bishop. As the 
young lady in question did not understand Latin, I took the 
trouble to translate the whole letter into English and publish 
it in the Baltimore Mirror. It had the same effect as before, 
and the young lady made her profession of Faith without any 
further anxiety of conscience. 



VOL. LXIX. 43 




674 THE URSULINE NUNS AND A NORMAL COLLEGE. [Aug., 
THE URSULINE NUNS AND A NORMAL COLLEGE. 

BY ISABEL ALLARDYCE. 

the year 1730 a prominent citizen of Lille, 
France, wrote in his memoirs: "The Ujsuline 
nuns are held in great esteem here on account 
of the excellent education they give to young 
girls, particularly in religious instruction and fine 
needlework." The reputation so justly earned has in nowise 
diminished in our own day; on the contrary, the sisters of St. 
Ursula have always advanced with the times, and their latest 
innovation, the founding of a Normal College for the instruc- 
tion of their novices in the higher branches of the arts and 
sciences, proves that they do not mean their pupils to be in 
any way behind those who attend the most advanced secular 
colleges. 

St. Angela Merici, when she drew up the rules for her in- 
stitution, inserted a clause to the effect that the members 
should always conform to the exigencies of time and place, 
and make the changes that differences of situation might re- 
quire. This clause was specially approved by Pope Paul III. 
in the bull which he published in 1544, and that it was worthy 
of the notice and approbation it then received has been proved 
by the effect it has since had upon the progress and work of 
the order. 

The first community of Ursulines was founded by St. 
Angela Merici in Brescia, her native place, in 1537, and the 
same year she established another house at Rome. The mem- 
bers at first made no vows, but consecrated themselves entirely 
to the gratuitous education of children, visiting the poorest 
parts of the city daily, teaching them in their own homes, and 
giving young girls a means of livelihood by a thorough train- 
ing in the various branches of needlework. This community 
was known as the Company of St. Ursula until 1572, when 
Pope Gregory XII., at the earnest solicitation of St. Charles 
Borromeo, raised it to the dignity of a religious order under 
the rule of St. Augustine. A convent was established at 
Milan under the personal direction of the saint, the vows of 
religion were taken, and instead of going out to teach, the 



I.899-] THE URSULINE NUNS AND A NORMAL COLLEGE. 675 

children were assembled in the convent. The fame of the 
Virgin of Brescia spread throughout Italy, traversed the Alps, 
and penetrated into France, where communities were so rapidly 
formed that in less than a century over a hundred convents 
were flourishing in the " most Christian Kingdom," and before 
the Revolution nine thousand Ursulines, in three hundred con- 
vents, were engaged in the education of young French girls of 
all classes of society, from the highest to the lowest. The 
other countries of Europe followed this glorious example, and 
America did not delay in imitating them. 

During the French Revolution the convents of St. Ursula 
suffered less in proportion than those of more ancient founda- 
tion, and the facility with which they sprang up again after 
the tempest had subsided was surprising. Some of them did 
not disperse at all, even during the most distressing period, 
and as soon as peace was restored and the practice of religion 
again allowed, the Ursulines reopened their schools, and re- 
newed their noble tasks, not, as in the preceding century, 
under the protection of letters patent and royal approbation, 
but with that simplicity of soul and earnestness of purpose 
which are the attributes of those whose sole object is the 
accomplishment of a holy mission, and the fulfilment of a 
sublime vocation. 

Italy, as we know, has not been free from revolutionary 
troubles, and the Ursuline Convent at Rome suffered severely 
through the changes of government. After the invasion of the 
Papal States, although the tribunal recognized the proprietary 
rights of the Ursulines, the king confiscated a part of their 
convent for the use of a public school without religious instruc- 
tion of any kind. In one day fifty rooms, the half of the gar- 
den, and a terrace were appropriated for this purpose, and the 
nuns were driven to the necessity of turning their cells into 
class-rooms in order to keep their pupils. 

At the same time the funds of the convent were sup- 
pressed, and a pension was granted them by the government. 
Towards the end of the year 1875 they were commanded to 
give up the best part of their grounds for the building of 
an Academy of Music, which was not opened until twenty 
years later ; in the interval the nuns were continually disturbed 
and annoyed by the untimely visits of officious inspectors and 
contractors, who comported themselves like victors in a con- 
quered land, and by the noisy operations of the workmen who 
followed to execute their plans. 



676 THE URSULINE NUNS AND A NORMAL COLLEGE. [Aug., 

The Italian law now forbade their receiving new novices, and 
from 1870 to 1877 thirteen nuns died, leaving only sixteen 
choir sisters and ten lay sisters. In 1891 the "pensioners of 
the state" were reduced to the number of nine, most of whom 
were very old, and a cry of distress then went forth from the 
convent which found a sympathetic echo in France. The flour- 
ishing community of Blois decided to respond to this appeal, 
and in September, 1894, three sisters went from this house for 
the purpose, according to their own expression, " of relighting 
near the tomb of the Apostles the almost extinguished lamp 
of St. Angela." 

How well they have accomplished their mission the handsome 
new convent at Rome, completed in September, 1896, eloquent- 
ly testifies. 

The house at Calvi has also suffered from the ravages of 
war, and endured all the horrors of a veritable siege. In 1798, 
during the French invasion, six thousand Neapolitans took re- 
fuge behind its strong walls, and thus protected, held out for 
some time against the enemy ; but the French troops finally 
effected an entrance and installed themselves in the convent, 
and the sufferings of the nuns during the stay of these un- 
welcome visitors are a matter of history in the order to this 
day. 

The funds of this house also were confiscated, and there 
was not a single profession within its walls for thirty years ; 
but the convent of Blois came forward once more, and in May, 
1895, sent three of their nuns to Calvi, where they were received 
with the greatest joy and enthusiasm, and escorted to their 
new home amid the acclamations of the whole population. The 
heart of the people had not changed with the laws of the 
country. 

Blois has given new life to the two convents of Rome and 
Calvi, but up to the* present each house has been distinct and 
independent of the other. According to the law of Italy, these 
institutions, as independent monasteries, have not the right to 
exist, and are menaced with extinction if the arm that pro- 
tects them should be for an instant withdrawn. A closer union 
was considered desirable and necessary to the welfare of the 
order, and after serious reflection it was decided to unite the 
three houses under one superior-general, resident at Rome. 
The Pope was consulted on the subject, and not only con- 
sented to the new departure but highly approved of it as being 
in perfect accordance with the spirit of the foundress, who, 



1899-] THE URSULINE,NUNS AND A NORMAL COLLEGE. 677 

when she made her famous clause, must have foreseen that the 
changes of time would necessitate change of rule and regula- 
tion. 

As soon as the union had received the approbation of the 
Holy Father, Cardinal Satolli, who was closely associated with 
the order during his stay in the United States, was appointed 
Cardinal Protector of the Congregation of Ursulines, and was 
requested by the Pope to make known to the Ursuline con- 
vents of the whole world that they would be for the future 
all united under a superior-general residing at Rome. 

Beneficial results are already apparent as the fruit of this 
union. A project that has been contemplated for years, but 
which would have been impracticable had the houses remained 
independent of each other, is now under consideration, and will 
be put into execution with as little delay as possible. This is 
the establishment of the Normal College at Blois before men- 
tioned, for the advanced instruction of the novices in the higher 
branches of education. 

It is necessary that communities of an educational order 
should have teachers equal to the demands of modern systems 
of education, and the object of the college is to accomplish 
this satisfactorily, and keep each community supplied with an 
adequate number of fully qualified teachers. It will be con- 
ducted by those sisters who have gained their experience by 
many years of teaching in different countries, assisted by eccle- 
siastical professors who have taken their academic degree. 

The greatest encouragement has been given to the promo- 
tors by the highest dignitaries of the church, and it is expected 
that all the convents of the order will aid the enterprise by 
sending those novices who show special talent for teaching, 
and taste for the arts and sciences, that they may receive the 
advantages here offered them, and so become competent to 
train the minds and develop the tastes of the brightest intel- 
lects placed in their charge. 





678 WOMEN AND THE DRINK PROBLEM. [Aug., 

WOMEN AND THE DRINK PROBLEM. 

BY M. E. J. KELLEY. 

fOCIAL problems are to the fore just now. It was 
the fashion, up to a few years ago, to insist that 
America was signally blessed in not having any 
such thing to worry her and hinder her onward 
and upward march. Of late, however, the labor 
problem and the drink problem, the problems of the factory 
and workshop and tenement and saloon seem to have multiplied 
themselves until they are a very plague of gnats, compelling 
attention because they make life uncomfortable for every one. 
One of the intenser problems which has hitherto been rather 
ignored is that of the increase of drunkenness among women. 
It seems likely to compel attention in spite of the desire 
to ignore it and to refuse to believe in its existence. Sev- 

o 

eral very sad scandals in high life which have culminated in 
the courts recently have drawn particular attention to the 
problem in this country. In England the question has been 
frankly discussed for several years, but in America there is a 
popular tradition that women are not given to tippling, and 
that only men and boys need to be guarded from the evils of 
the saloon. Women are usually given credit for being the 
great influence which is making for temperance and total absti- 
nence, and certainly the Women's Christian Temperance Union, 
the Veronica Leagues, and similar organizations have made 
themselves felt in various ways. It would be very interesting, 
and perhaps a bit disheartening, if social reformers were not 
usually prepared for such things ; if, in spite of the efforts of 
these earnest women to rescue men drunkards, it were found 
that drunkenness were really on the increase among women 
generally. Some of the facts seem to point that way, and to 
indicate that while, on the whole, temperance seems to be gain- 
ing, there is a decided increase in the consumption of intoxi- 
cants among women. 

THE PREVALENCE OF INEBRIETY AMONG WOMEN. 

At several conferences of women's associations, held recently 
in Great Britain, the development of drinking habits among 



1899-] WOMEN AND THE DRINK PROBLEM. 679 

women was discussed at length. In papers read at these meet- 
ings, and in the medical journals, it was asserted that the 
excessive use of stimulants is on the increase, not only among 
fashionable women, exhausted by the excitements of social life, 
but among the staid and sensible matrons of English villages. 
Causes and remedies are the burden of the discussion in Eng- 
land. The facts are no longer disputed. 

In Great Britain, however, the problem of drunkenness has 
always been more troublesome than in America, where there 
seems to have been a respectable leaven of total abstainers 
from time out of mind. The traditional position of American 
women is different too. As a result of the newness of the 
country, and the scarcity of women, the sex has been set, theo- 
retically, on a pedestal and regarded as an ideal, something very 
much better and finer than the average man. It was not a 
matter of surprise, therefore, that women should form temper- 
ance societies and fight the saloon with all sorts of unreasona- 
ble feminine weapons. The typical American man looked on 
with tolerant good nature. He might drink too much himself 
occasionally, and smoke and swear, but the idea of his women- 
folk doing anything of the sort would fill him with horror. And 
so it has come about that when a woman has developed a dip- 
somania, the matter is hushed up as much as possible ; excuses 
of illness and weakness are made. Unless among the very poor 
in the foreign section of the larger cities, most people seem to 
prefer to ignore the evidence before their eyes. It is a sort of 
American conventionality to believe that drunkenness is so 
much worse for a woman than for a man that it is impossible 
that an American-born woman in her right mind would commit 
such a breach of decorum, or that a sufficient number of them 
could ever so far forget themselves as to make the matter a 
sociological problem deserving of investigation and remedial meas- 
ures. Certainly the women who are drunkards are much fewer 
than the men, on the street and in the police court at any rate, 
although the disproportion is not so great as is usually sup- 
posed. In New York City last year one woman was arrested 
for drunkenness to every three men. Eight thousand drunken 
women appeared in the police courts in one twelvemonth, and 
this by no means represents the entire number of women who 
are given to the excessive use of intoxicants, because women 
are less given to drinking in public places than men, and 
consequently are in less danger of falling into the hands of the 
police. 



68o WOMEN AND 7 HE DRINK PROBLEM. [Aug., 

It is a matter of course, say the students of this phase of 
the evil, that women who lead unchaste lives should drink to 
excess. It is doubtful if they would or could continue such a 
state of existence unless constantly stimulated by drink or 
drugs. In their case drunkenness seems to be a result not a 
cause. It does not necessarily follow because they drink to 
excess that they become " women of the street," but rather 
that they drink because of the loose lives they lead. Many 
women who drink immoderately at times are still otherwise up- 
right and virtuous. In a complete state of degradation, where 
she can no longer work or get money otherwise, a woman 
drunkard will doubtless sell her body as quickly as any other 
of her possessions ; but this happens only after she has passed 
through many stages of intemperance. That the outcast adopts 
her evil life and her drinking habits at the same time, or else 
the latter follow as a matter of course, seems to be a reason- 
able conclusion. This abnormal side of the question, however, 
has little to do with the problem of the more recent develop- 
ment of the drinking habits of ordinary women. 

Notwithstanding the tenacity of the old ideals and senti- 
ment, the growth of sanitariums and homes for the treatment 
of female alcoholic cases, some shocking scandals which have 
come to light of late, and the police court statistics, have at 
last drawn public attention to what may be called, without ex- 
aggeration, a growing evil. For growing it is among three dis- 
tinct classes of women : the very rich, who devote themselves 
almost entirely to the amusements of society, the theatre, the 
dinner party, the ball, the afternoon tea, the charity entertain- 
ment, and the host of other wearying activities which make up 
the daily routine of the society woman ; the middle-class wo- 
men, who live in comparative ease and comfort, but whose lives 
are monotonous; and the poor, who live in tenements in large 
cities. 

DRINKING IN FACTORY TOWNS. 

As seems to be the case with most problems, while they 
present many similar features in England and America, they are 
inclined to develop along dissimilar lines. While in England 
the most notable increase of drinking among women is reported 
to be in the villages, and is believed to be due largely to the 
monotony of life there, ordinary country women in America 
are for the most part total abstainers. In the inland villages 
there may be saloons and the men may drink, but public opinion 
is quite opposed to drinking on the part of women. A woman 



1899-] WOMEN AND THE DRINK PROBLEM. 68 1 

seen entering a saloon would almost forfeit -her good name. 
Intoxicants are used as a treat to guests at the home only on 
the rarest occasions. What the neighbors will think or say is 
a powerful force in shaping conduct in the country communi- 
ties, particularly among the women. This rule does not hold 
good of manufacturing villages populated by foreign-born 
operatives, nor of those occasional communities whose inhabi- 
tants are well-to-do people of leisure. Generally speaking, in 
these cases the city problem is simply transplanted. Two ad- 
joining New Jersey towns, populated largely by English and 
Scotch workers employed in the thread mills, furnish a typical 
example. Most of the inhabitants live in detached cottages. 
There is plenty of fresh air and water. Cleanliness and an 
approach to a wholesome hygienic life would seem possible were 
it not that the tenants have brought with them the standards 
of the old-world cities where they lived, without choice, in 
squalid density. There is a saloon to every two hundred in- 
habitants. Drunkenness and wife-beating are every-day offences. 
The saddest of sights, a little boy coaxing his drunken mother 
to come home, is not uncommon. Occasionally a woman is 
discharged from the mill for coming drunk to her work too 
often. Children may be seen at all hours going to the saloon for 
pails of beer. The spinner's wife who stays at home to do the 
housework- very often drinks to brace herself for her hard work, 
or sends for beer to treat the women friends who have called. 
The man who brings the groceries or the meat must be treated 
too, with the result sometimes that after he has delivered a few 
tenement-house orders things get mixed. All this is merely a 
repetition of the state of affairs in the densely crowded quarters 
of the large cities. It is simply the result of bringing the 
customs of the city to the country village. The causes are the 
same. In villages where the majority are mill operatives and 
where they live in one exclusively mill-people's section, the 
problem of raising the standard of life is almost hopeless. 
Where the majority are engaged in a variety of occupations 
and are old-established natives, and the homes of the mill- 
workers are scattered about among the other workers, the 
younger generation strives to reach the village ideals established 
by the older inhabitants. Even in the most hardened type of 
American mill village the younger women seem to rise above 
the life. There is not so much drinking among them as among 
the older women, though there is always the probability of a 
retrograde movement as they grow older and marry. 



682 WOMEN AND THE DRINK PROBLEM. [Aug., 

COUNTRY IDEAS YIELD TO CITY WAYS. 

One of the factors in the problem of the increase of the 
evil is the migration of the younger country folk to the cities 
where there is work to be had in the mills and shops. These 
young people do not force their simpler and purer ideals upon 
their new surroundings the young desire most to be like other 
people they adopt the customs of those among whom they are 
thrown. The party or dance which was such a harmless amuse- 
ment held at some big, roomy house in the country becomes a 
promoter of the drink habit in the city. The girl who in the 
country never heard of such a thing as serving anything 
stronger than coffee finds that her comrades think nothing of 
beer or wine being served at the hall where the dance is held. 
Of course when one lives in a tenement one cannot have a 
party or a dance in one's tiny parlor if one is fortunate 
enough to have a parlor the family down-stairs would object to- 
the noise. Any way, nobody gives a dance at home in the city. 
Even the fashionable Patriarch's Ball is held in a hired hall, 
And so the custom extends downwards, and for the great 
majority's accommodation big halls have been built which are 
given at a nominal rent to societies or parties. The bar is 
always an adjunct, and the proprietor depends upon the in- 
creased patronage for his profits. In the very poor quarters 
five-cent dances are held in the room back of a saloon. The 
dance music is furnished by the saloon-keeper, and girls and 
men pay five cents each. Sometimes admission is confined to- 
members of a society, but more often any one who can produce 
a nickel is admitted. The girls who go to these dances are for 
the most part decent working-women. They go for the ex- 
citement and the exercise, and comparatively little harm comes 
to them except whatever results from breathing the very bad 
air in those back rooms, and that they very quickly come ta 
look upon the use of intoxicants as a matter of course. The 
old village notion that it was " horrid " for a woman to drink 
at all, and that the use of intoxicants even by men was apt to 
lead to misery, wears off very quickly. They find that it is 
the custom among their acquaintances to offer beer to their 
callers, and presently they fall into the line with a feeling that 
they are no longer the countrified "jays" they were when they 
first came to the city. A striking instance of this process of 
evolution was furnished by two sisters who came from a little 
place in Western Pennsylvania to do housework in New York. 



1899-] WOMEN AND THE DRINK PROBLEM. 683 

They brought with them some strong convictions that it was 
shocking for women to drink. In a year they had reached the 
stage where they kept a bottle of whisky and some quaint 
little glasses in their own room to treat their friends who came 
to see them. They regarded the country visitors who had 
known them in their old home, and who pointed out the dangers 
of the practice, as "awfully countrified and bigoted." 

OCCUPATION SOMETIMES PROVOKES DRINKING HABITS. 

It is sometimes asserted that a woman's occupation has 
some relation to her drinking or non-drinking habits. Certain 
it is that a large proportion of cooks and general houseworkers 
drink to excess, particularly those who work in large boarding- 
houses. Women who work by the day doing cleaning, washing, 
and such similar work are also much given to the use of in- 
toxicants. A majority of this class of women are working to 
keep their little homes together and their children out of insti- 
tutions, or else they do a few days' work a month to pay the 
rent and eke out their husband's small wages. The matron at 
one of the New York day nurseries, which cares for the chil- 
dren of that class of women, says that the mothers are fre- 
quently under the influence of drink to such an extent when 
they call for the babies at night that the nurses are afraid to 
trust the little ones with them. 

However, it is doubtful whether the occupation in itself has 
anything to do with the matter, except in so far as the work 
is hard and exhausting and the hours of labor many. It has 
been said that the heat and tasting many highly-flavored foods 
and sauces provokes thirst in the case of cooks, but, on the 
other hand, such men as engineers and firemen, who are con- 
stantly exposed to heat and hard work, are not given to drink- 
ing, while on duty at least. It would be dangerous, and they 
would lose their jobs. The chief of the Brotherhood of Loco- 
motive Engineers points out in a recent report that drunken- 
ness among railroad men has decreased from twenty to one 
per cent, in the last twenty-two years. Neither are housewives 
in the country who do housework given to the use of stimu- 
lants. It might be nearer the truth to attribute the resort to 
intoxicants to their accessibility, the hardness of the work, the 
want of outside interests and innocent amusements, the lack of 
real religious feeling, and the almost animal plane on which 
such lives are kept. 

Actresses are notoriously given to drink, perhaps because 



684 WOMEN AND THE DRINK PROBLEM. [Aug., 

of the wandering, Bohemian character of the occupation and 
the lack of home restraints. Actress is a very convenient term, 
however, and it would be hardly fair to credit to the profes- 
sion all the women who give their occupation as "on the 
stage " to the police court statistician. Cases of intoxication 
are not unheard-of among saleswomen. A visitor to a cigar- 
shop or a tailor-shop in one of the larger towns is quite likely 
to meet a boy with half a dozen pails strung on a broom-stick. 
These pails are sent out every two or three hours to be filled 
with beer at the nearest saloon, and the women as well as the 
men drink steadily all day long. So it can hardly be said that 
excessive drinking is characteristic of any particular trade. 

WAYS TO DRUNKENNESS. 

Beer and whisky are the staple intoxicants of women of the 
working-class. The middle-class woman that is, the woman 
whose husband or father provides her with a fairly comfortable 
home usually starts with something less aggressively intoxicat- 
ing. It may be beef, iron and wine, used as a tonic, or, possi- 
bly, as a matinee girl she fills her bonbonniere with the brandy- 
drops and absinthe candies sold so freely in the up-to-date 
candy-shops. Or, it may be that she takes paregoric or pep- 
permint frequently when she doesn't feel well, and Jamaica 
ginger at the slightest excuse. All these have helped many 
women to acquire an insatiable appetite for intoxicants. Of 
late years the soda-water fountains, which were thought to be 
diminishing the consumption of intoxicants, have added a num- 
ber of tipples much indulged in by women. The great depart- 
ment stores have opened wine and liquor departments which 
make it easy and respectable for women to get all the drink 
they want. Grocers, too, in the larger towns, have of late 
added liquor departments, which indicates the extent of the 
growth of "at-home " drinking and the quantity of liquors pur- 
chased by women. The frequent taking of headache powders 
is another way in which middle-class women develop the most 
awful form of drunkenness, making themselves slaves to mor- 
phine or opium. They do not take sufficient exercise in the 
open air, and when the inevitable headache comes on they re- 
sort to some patent headache powder for relief. The basis of 
most of these powders is morphine or opium, and gradually 
the victim takes them to relieve any little pain. It is only a 
question of a very short period until the victim feels that she 
is in pain if she has not had her powders. 
* 



1899-] WOMEN AND THE DRINK PROBLEM. 685 

Among fashionable women the fatigue from keeping up 
with the multifarious engagements of the society woman is 
chiefly responsible for the craving for stimulants. The custom 
in fashionable society of drinking wine outside of one's meals, 
and wines and champagnes at dinners and banquets, and 
punches at receptions and teas, places stimulants easily at 
hand for the woman who feels the craving. 

Occasionally a fashionable woman is found who is a slave 
to cologne ; she drinks cologne or any sort of toilet water for 
the stimulus of the alcohol which is the basis of all such liquids. 

INFLUENCE OF CUSTOM AND HEREDITY. 

In all these cases the element of heredity probably plays a 
more or less important part. Many of the victims of the drink 
habit no doubt have inherited weaknesses from ancestors who 
drank too much. They ought never to have tasted a drop of 
liquor, but the accessibility of the intoxicant and the custom 
of social drinking have proved too much for them. 

Custom seems to be the great factor in the development of 
the habit among all sorts of women. It is the custom to offer 
intoxicants to one's guests everywhere in the larger cities ; 
consequently there is much drinking. Women and men alike 
fall victims, or come out of the ordeal unscathed according to 
the extent to which they modify the custom and their own 
strength. In the country villages social drinking is not the 
custom outside the saloon, and drunkenness among women here 
is almost unheard of. 

Among the very poor custom is one of the first causes : 
the custom of offering drink to one's friends at home, the 
custom of drinking at parties and dances, the custom of drink- 
ing at meals. Next to custom, or perhaps the custom is a 
result of this cause, is the smallness of income which, combined 
with ignorance, makes it impossible for the very poor to buy 
wholesome food. Ignorance of the best methods of cooking 
makes the food still more unattractive, and beer is resorted 
to as a more palatable substitute. Then there is a current 
superstition that beer is good for you ; it will make you strong 
and healthy. On that principle it is fed to babies- and little 
children. In one case that came under my observation a little 
girl, three years old, was given beer every day because she 
cried for it when she saw her parents drinking it, although 
the doctor had warned the mother that her child had a dis- 
ease of the kidneys. All her other children had died of the 



686 WOMEN AND THE DRINK PROBLEM. [Aug., 

same trouble, but the mother was sure beer would not hurt 
any one, and that it was good for the little girl. The want 
of rational amusement, of anything to take them out of them- 
selves, the animal level of their lives, are other reasons for 
drinking to excess among very poor women, and in turn these 
are to some extent due to want of sufficient income to pay 
for amusements and comfortable homes, though want of 
knowledge of how to make the most of opportunities or means 
at hand plays a large part. 

Next to custom among the moderately well-to-do, the causes 
seem to be a complete lack of any feeling of responsibility to 
society, a want of sufficient healthful and absorbing occupation, 
and, to a certain extent, ignorance of the needs of the body 
and mind. 

Among the rich the causes are much the same. The lack 
of a high ideal of life and the feeling of social responsibility ; 
in some degree the breaking down of the old beliefs and con- 
sequently of religious restraints; the fatigue resulting from a 
constant round of social activities. In other words, the basis 
of the drink problem among the well-to-do lies in a physical 
need for a stimulant due to unhealthy ways of living, com- 
bined with the accessibility of intoxicating drugs and liquors, 
and the dissatisfied, though perhaps unrecognized, longing for 
a fuller life which must be always present with those who 
have no strong purpose in life or strong religious feeling. 

REMOVE THE CAUSES. 

The only real remedy for an evil lies in the removal of its 
causes. In the first place, it seems necessary to arouse a sense 
of social responsibility. Women are responsible not only for 
their individual lives, but for the effect which their lives. have 
on the community. Women more than men are the makers of 
custom. If women were to have their sense of responsibility 
so developed that they would believe it to be the duty of the 
strong never to put temptation in the way of the weak, they 
could easily revolutionize the custom of social drinking. 
Fashions are followed in layers, and once social drinking were 
unfashionable among the fashionable it would gradually grow 
obsolete in the under strata. 

What is needed most just now is right thinking on the sub- 
ject, less intolerance, more investigation and common-sense re- 
cognition of the facts. The maudlin sentiment over the re- 
formed drunkard needs to be replaced by the serious con- 



1899.] * WOMEN AND THE DRINK PROBLEM. 687 

sideration of the physical as well as the mental and moral as- 
pects of the trouble. Rejoicing over a cured drunkard ought to 
be very much of the same character as that indulged in over a 
cured consumptive. It is now generally conceded that after a 
certain stage in the use of stimulants has been reached, medi- 
cal treatment is a necessity. The irresistible desire for stimu- 
lants becomes a disease, or at least a symptom of disease. The 
W. C. T. U. might profitably leave off some of its less useful 
departments and establish sanitariums where those who wish to 
reform, and have no money to pay the high prices of the 
private sanitarium, may secure the needed medical treatment. It 
is a question whether some of the morbid teaching about alcohol 
introduced into the schools is productive of the good aimed at. 
A bright little fellow, son of a college professor, is reported to 
have come home quite filled with the idea that alcohol would 
do all sorts of interesting things to his kidneys and liver, and 
he was quite determined to prove it by trying the experiment 
on himself! Instead of teaching the children things of which it 
might be better to keep them in ignorance until they have 
grown to years of discretion, the end desired would probably 
be reached much sooner if the temperance societies would 
devote more attention to the investigation of" the social and 
economic sides of the problem. Still, the argument taken from 
the physical effects of alcohol may be powerfully used. While 
keeping Temperance on the proper basis, they might also 
profitably use their influence to make cooking and housekeep- 
ing mandatory studies in the public schools. The longest way 
round is often the shortest way home, and organizations like 
the Household Economic Association will materially assist in 
the elimination of drunkenness. 

An economic philosopher discoursing on the subject says: 
" We have only just begun to realize what a change of diet, or 
a change in the standard of living, may mean to a people. 
To make lemons, bananas, oranges, and similar fruits cheap 
enough to be within reach of the poorest housekeeper, and to 
improve canning processes so that fruit and vegetables may be 
had all the year around by the poorest, or to increase their in- 
come so they may purchase these things, will revolutionize 
the mental and moral as well as the physical character of a 
nation. It is likely that reform of the drinking habit will be 
brought about not so much by agitation or religious enthusiasm as 
by changes in diet and habits of eating." The housekeepers of 
the land in the last analysis are always the most important factor. 



688 



MARKHAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. 



[Aug., 



MARKHAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. 




BY REV. GEORGE McDERMOT, C.S.P. 

R. EDWIN MARKHAM* has thought fit to -give 
a poetical interpretation of a picture by Millet. 
In the picture a French agricultural laborer is 
represented pausing for awhile at his work, his 
hands resting upon the hoe with which he had 
been breaking the clods until a moment past. The face is 
purposeless as it seems to us or, as Mr. Markham puts it, is 
that of 

" A thing that grieves not and that never hopes." 

Altogether a heavy, dull face indeed, but by no means the em- 
bruted one on which Mr. Markham has woven his rhapsody 
against society personified in the 

"... Masters, lords, and rulers of all lands." 
With a print of the picture before us we look to judge how 
Mr. Markham endeavors to tell in song the thought embodied 



*"THE MAN WITH THE HOE." 

( Written after seeing Millet's world-famous 

painting.} 

" God made man in His own image, 

in the image of God made He him." 

Genesis. 

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans 
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, 
The emptiness of ages in his face, 
And on his back the burden of the world. 
Who made him dead to rapture and despair, 
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, 
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox ? 
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw ? 
Whose was the hand that slanted back this 

brow ? 
Whose breath blew out the light within this 

brain ? 

Is this the thing the Lord God made and gave 

To have dominion over sea and land ; 

To trace the stars and search the heavens for 

power ; 

To feel the passion of Eternity ? 
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the 

suns 

And pillared the blue firmament with light ? 
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf 
There is no shape more terrible than this 
More tongued with censure of the world's 

blind greed 
More filled with signs and portents for the 

soul 
More fraught with menace to the universe. 



What gulfs between him and the seraphim ! 
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him 
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades ? 
What the long reaches of the peaks of song', 
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose ? 
Through this dread shape the suffering ages 

look ; 

Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop ; 
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, 
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited, 
Cries protest to the Judges of the World, 
A protest that is also prophecy. 

O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands, 
Is this the handiwork you give to God, 
This monstrous thing distorted and soul- 
quenched ? 

How will you ever straighten up this shape ; 
Touch it again with immortality ; 
Give back the upward looking and the light ; 
Rebuild in it the music and the dream ; 
Make right the immemorial infamies, 
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes ? 

O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands, 
How will the Future reckon with this Man ? 
How answer his brute question in that hour 
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the 

world ? 

How will it be with kingdoms and with kings 
With those who shaped him to the thing he is 
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God 
After the silence of the centuries ? 



Oakland, Cal, 



EDWIN MARKHAM. 



1899.] MARKHAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. 



689 



in the painting, the story of the life of that peasant resting, as 
we see him, his lips parted, or rather the mouth slightly opened 
as any one's might be in an idle revery, though the painter may 
have intended the outward facial curve and the loose jaws to 
indicate not much more than animal intelligence, and that such 
a type might be found here and there in remote places, the 
type of one 

" Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox " 

' 

at the peasant appears in Mr. Markham's reading. But he pro- 

mises to tell the mean- 
ing of that figure in 
the picture, that heavy, 
loutish-looking man 
shaped by the unalter- 
ed daily toil into a sort 
of man-brute, doing ap- 





" Of all that frightful frenzy innocent." 



"The mysteries of budding flow- 
ers, of growing fields, 

Confiding nature has revealed 
to him." 

pointed work ; he is to 
give the story that lies 
under the hulking 
frame, to write the tran- 
script of the passions 
and the needs of that existence. This is what we wish to learn 
from Mr. Markham, who is generous in promises. He is disap- 
pointing ; the oracle does not unlock the secret lying in the 
dull brain and moving the currents of that creature's heart, but 
we have much loud talk instead, and are bewildered by the 
war trumpets. If economic laws raged as other forces can, 
this fury might be fairly matched ; but that is not their way. 
They work calmly, seek their ends, as it were, without much 
fuss, though no doubt their moral effects may be immensely 
modified as society realizes its obligations. 
VOL. LXIX. 44 



690 MARKHAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. [Aug., 

It does not appear that Mr. Markham's object is to help society. 
He discovers, through the picture, that a terrible tragedy is 
going on in the midst of it, the greatest of all we read of, 
greater than wars or the blotting out of subject races ; namely, 
the veiling of the light of reason in countless souls tied to the 
wheel of labor. We cannot give him credit for raising the 
veil of an awful mystery. It is true that the putting out of the 
mind's light and the transmission of such rayless minds so as to 
constitute the vast majority of mankind in all the past and all 
the centuries yet unborn would be an awful tragedy, nay, more 
than the word tragedy can express. It would be an evil 
measureless and incomprehensible, arraigning the providence 
which has made society the instrument by which man is to 
work out his life here in preparation for his destiny hereafter. 
But there is no such effect as this on the masses of mankind. 
The decree which condemns man to labor is the title-deed of 
his dignity; but the very statement of Mr. Markham's con- 
ception of the problem exposes it. 

Troubles there have been no doubt, as there are. We can 
well conceive that in the cycles of the long forgotten past pro- 
blems were agitated like those which cause anxiety to-day. 
There is no period of authentic history in which religious and 
economic questions had not sent the fever of passronate 
thoughts into finely touched spirits, no time at which some 
such spirits had not drooped when thinking of the strong forces 
to be overcome. But we deny the riddle of life is insoluble, 
just as common sense must reject the amorphous fantasy of 
horror which finds utterance in the lines of Mr. Markham. The 
"philosophy" contained in them as critics call his suggestions 
of despair any more than the hollow roarings of his voice, could 
not have been derived from any work by Millet. The picture 
in question as it stands may recall the exaggeration of La 
Bruyere; no one says so, yet it is likely; but it could mean, 
in taking that remarkable characterization, nothing more than 
an isolated product of narrow and severe economic conditions. 
The average field life the world over is not only not degrading 
but it possesses, from the very nature of the environment in 
which it is cast, influences that are elevating and refining. The 
paganism of modern American life, of which Mr. Markham is 
the oracle, often thinks that when one puts aside the laundered 
shirt and the creased trowsers he puts aside refinement, intel- 
ligence, and all delicacy of sentiment. It thinks that the laborer 
with hardened hands and heavy boots is the professed enemy 



1899-] MARKHAM . A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. 691 

of civilization and the established order of things. Beneath the 
homespuns of the farm laborer is found the man who of all 
men is most content, and when the whirlwinds of revolution 
come, if come they will, he will still continue to lean on his hoe 
in placid complacency 

" Far from rebellion's shout in cities' streets, 
Far from the smoke of burning palaces, 
Far from the bloody heads held high on pikes, 
His hand unsullied with a brother's blood 
Of all that frightful frenzy innocent. 
The sun shall spread its sheen of golden light 
Across his waving fields, birds sing their songs, 
And gentle zephyrs touch their harp-like chords 
Of harmony amid the ripening grain." 

The peasant is oftener than not the very backbone of a na 
tion's strength, and when great and lofty sentiments have 
stirred the nation's heart the agricultural population have been 
the first to feel their promptings and have been the last to re- 
linquish the struggle for their attainment. Great movements for 
civil and religious freedom, the struggle for a people's rights, 
as well as for a country's liberties, have begun oftener than 
not with the country folks, because their heart is close to the 
great heart of nature and is attuned to noble and lofty senti- 
ments. When there is added to this rectitude of heart an abid- 
ing sense of religion, the peasant becomes the most perfected 
type of an enduring civilization. He is honest, is respectful of 
his neighbor's goods and rights, is sympathetic with him in 
need, is not grasping, nor is he avaricious, but is the embodi- 
ment of the golden rule whereby he does to others as he 
would be done by, and does it first, and though bowed by toil, 
misshapen, and misformed, his life is one of simplicity and con- 
tent, and he goes down to his grave at peace with man and with 

God. 

" The mysteries of winds, of storm clouds massed, 

Of budding flowers, of growing fields, all these 
Confiding nature has disclosed to him. 
All these he understands, and knowing them, 
Is drawn in close communion with his God." 

It is only fair to Millet to interpret the phenomenon of 
the lowest form of French agricultural life by the picture of 
the " Angelus," in which one sees, as in a kind of ecstasy, lines 



692 MARKHAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. [Aug., 

like rays of grace connecting the peasants in the fields with the 
light of a life beyond the grave, the thought of which ennobles 
labor by making it the passport to that higher life wherein in- 
equalities shall be redressed, the only thought to solve the 
problems of the hour. Consequently we put away the soulless 
creature of Mr. Markham, who from his brute mind must some 
time or other see that " whirlwinds of rebellion " shall win for 
him a soul, shall " straighten up his back," and give beauty to 
the shape than which at present " hell to its lowest gulf con- 
tains nothing more terrible." 

Considering this work from a literary point of view, we say 
it consists of forty-nine unrhymed lines rigorously limited to 
ten syllables. It is, then, cast in the mould known as English 
heroic metre, the same as that of the Paradise Lost, but we 
miss the melodious thunder of the latter. Mr. Markham's 
piece is an invective for the passion of which he goes to visi- 
ble and invisible worlds. Against the " masters, lords, and 
rulers in all lands" he summons spirits from heaven, from the 
air, the earth, " the vasty deep." He goes down to hell, and 
though we do not regret his return, we must say it would be 
more in accordance with the law of the place if he had remained 
there. But the allies from visible and invisible realms refuse 
to obey his conjuring ; his spirits, if they come, are words^dying 
with the breath that made them. 

How this production could have roused so much excitement 
is to be explained by its dishonest appeal to the discontent 
seething in the minds of certain sections among the working 
classes. Anything more mischievous than the dressing up in 
the stolid face and shapeless figure of a French laborer, ab- 
normally degraded, the needs and aspirations of American 
workingmen, can hardly be conceived. This is what the 
tyranny of their masters will make their children and their 
children's children hideous shapes with a brute's blind life 
within the brain. This is the purpose to which the picture is 
put to shroud in a shape like that portrayed in Mr. Mark- 
ham's reproduction of Millet the future hopes of American 
fathers. We lay no stress on the misrepresentation of the 
figure's gaze ; and yet even in this there is unfairness in the 
rendering: as though a human shape without the human light 
in open eyes a sort of death in life, matched with the half- 
open mouth, altogether the picture of a man with intelligence 
not above the brutes, stood for the laboring man. This is 
hardly fair; it is, in plain truth, a subtle and wicked libel on 



1899-] MARKHAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. 



693 



the skilled and unskilled workmen who at the late presidential 
election proved that they stand foremost in political education 
of all peoples. We are certain this piece would have fallen 
still-born were it not for a brazen system of advertisement 
without parallel. All that Macaulay lashed in the advertising 
of the poet Montgomery was the self-effacement of modest genius 
when compared 
with the push- 
ing into public 
notice of the 
tirade which 
Mr. Markham 
has flung upon 
this age as his 
poetic testi- 
mony against 
its crime to- 





" The sun shall spread its 

sheen of golden light 
Across his waving fields." 

wards man, its cul- 
minating blasphemy 
of human nature by 
which the crimes of 
every former age are 
crowned in its con- 
firming cruelty and 
greed. Taking the 
picture as his altar 
and his god, before 
the " masters, lords, 



" Is drawn in close communion with his God " 

which the ages are to be immolated with 
and rulers in all lands," the rhapsody begins : 

" Bowed by the weight of centuries, he leans 
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, 
The emptiness of ages in his face, 
And on his back the burden of the world." 



As a matter of fact the figure in the painting does not gaze 



694 M ARK HAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. [Aug., 

upon the ground; moreover, to gaze signifies an act of the 
will manifested by the bending of the eyes on some object, or 
if on no visible object, on some object in the fancy. Gazing 
on vacancy does not at all imply that a person is devoid of 
intelligence, but the sight is, as it were, turned within and ex- 
ternal objects are as though they were not. At the start we 
have an incorrect description of the painter's manner of re- 
vealing himself, and therefore of the thought to be revealed. 
The embodiment of the thought is misrepresented in order to 
give a wrong meaning to the thought. The picture before Mr. 
Markham is not Millet's, but his own conception of an incar- 
nate woe and degradation ; and this is the signal for his attack 
on society under the names of masters, lords, and rulers. If 
the laborer in the picture gazed upon the ground, we are at a 
loss to discover how "the emptiness of ages" could be seen 
in his face. But whether or not the ages may bear empti- 
ness in their urns is a question for grammarians to discuss. 
But putting aside the abuse of words, the absurdity of the 
ages employing all their power to write nothing on a face, to 
carve an invisibility upon it, is something striking. We 
have always understood that the ages carry experience 
with them, that their hands are laden with the knowledge of 
the past, and this they offer to the present. We had a notion 
that the hours which are their ministers were fabled to go 
before them one by one, until that momentous hour shall rise 
which leads in an epoch charged with forces mightier than our 
author's " swing of Pleiades," or his " whirlwinds of rebellion." 
We are sorry one critic spoke of Mr. Markham's philosophy 
as "the veriest twaddle"; it is not so much this as an appeal 
to the most powerful passions of unreasoning men, an appeal 
without honesty because it is pretended that the source of it is 
a great painter's embodiment of the tragedy of life, the testi- 
mony of Christian art to the failure of Christianity. Nor is 
there anything great in this view of life in relation to the 
moral order of the world, in relation to society as the scheme 
for accomplishing the work of preparing man for his true 
destiny, any more than there is genius in the laborer with his 
pickaxe who destroys the finest work of the architect. It is 
jiot the true measure of this piece to call it, as another critic 
<loes, "drivelling nonsense"; it is mischievous nonsense, ex- 
pressed with an emphasis which resembles passion and a bravery 
of words which looks like the clothing of poetic thought. This 
seems to have taken captive a critic who indulges in language 



1 899.] MARKHAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. 



695 




worthy of the theme, 
a critic to whom Mr. 
Markham is "a new 
voice, deep-toned, so- 
norous, singing grand- 
ly," whose work is "a 
piece of virile verse, 
one of the very few 
true poems written 
by Californians." One 
writer, who character- 




izes the teaching as 
" silly," is pleased to 
recognize Mr. Mark- 
ham's splendid endow- 
ments. On the sur- 
face this would be 
criticism which would 
strike one as judici- 
ous, but then the docu- 
ment is before us and 
we fail to see evidence 
of the qualities which 
show the 1 ? poet. Dis- 
jointed ideas, crashing words, unmeasured invective, and con- 
fusion of mind may exhibit the tumults of a soul, but that 
tumultuousness of imagery and rush of passion which may be 
found at times in poetry are never without the control of the 
creative power which marshals while it launches its thoughts 
upon the world. 

No man was so severely taken to task as Shelley for his 
social and political opinions ; every one recognized his ability, 



Far from rebellion's shout in cities' streets." 



696 MARKHAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. [Aug., 

while censuring his principles as subversive of religion and 
public order. With regard to Mr. Markham, it seems there is 
a war about him in which the critics differ in their estimate of 
his talents as much as of his doctrines. We mention Shelley 
not because there can be the slightest literary comparison be- 
tween him and Mr. Markham, but because he serves to illus- 
trate what we said above of the difference between the storms 
raised by genius the wild elemental play or the whirlwinds of 
passion it evokes, and the tumults of words, the stage thunder 
coming from a confused mind, which has vainly tried to 
articulate the emotions it has conjured up. The note of despair 
is an easy one to strike, but real singers, even those most 
affected by the tangle of moral problems, have allowed a gleam 
of hope to shine upon the waves. No light falls on the confu- 
sion in which Mr. Markham rests, or rather swaddles himself 
as though in the old clothes of a patchwork Carlyle. Shelley 
made an issue with all the social forms of his time, yet he led 
oppressed humanity along the way of deliverance by the might 
of ideas, instead of conjuring up a host of monsters, soulless 
brutes with loose-hung jaws, " more terrible " than the most hide- 
ous of the shapes of hell, who rise up in some hour of madness 
and strength to do what ? to take revenge on " masters, lords, 
and rulers." The bathos of this conclusion demonstrates the 
utter poverty of Mr. Markham's mind. He was drawn to attack 
something concrete, as it were, by turning the abstract ideas of 
law, power, and wealth into three offenders masters, lords, 
and rulers. This expedient reminds one of the poetry of a 
placard or advertisement sheet ; for, so far as he has any 
meaning at all in his dithyrambics, masters, lords, and rulers 
are different names for the same idea authority, which he sees 
in its concomitants of wealth, power, and law, and in which alone 
he is able to see it. There are abuses, as we have said already, 
of those elements or incidents of social order, but Shelley in 
his most characteristic work, Prometheus Unbound, has a re- 
deemer; and the history of man has shown that leaders have 
risen in every age to point the path of deliverance. Does Mr. 
Markham think that his 

" monstrous thing, distorted and soul-quenched," 

could unaided work his way upward to the plane where duty 
rules life ? It is this sentiment which guides man in all his rela- 
tions and sustains him in his troubles. Then what is his teach- 



1899-] MARKHAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. 697 

ing? Even the " whirlwinds of rebellion " are inconceivable pro- 
ducts of a soulless thing. His work is a confusion in which he 
seems to have involved critics from whom better things might be 
expected. In other words, he is not only confused himself, but 
he is the cause of confusion in others. The president of Stan- 
ford University, in his palaeozoic mood, recognizes in Mr. 
Markham's creation his old acquaintance, primitive man. The 
" slant brow " is an unmistakable token of the presence of that 
ancestor. In the evolutionary mood the president finds that 
feature the mark of the French peasant ; so we are to conclude 
that the shrewdest people in the world within the area of their 
experiences have not advanced one step from the time the 
facial curve showed man's brotherhood with the ox. The poet 
Landor, on the other hand, makes the " slant brow " the fea- 
ture by which George III. is identified in hell, yet he had a 
hundred potentates among his ancestors. 

If we are to believe Tennyson, the " foolish face " is the 
mark of descent from a long line of " masters, lords, and rulers " 
to employ our author's words but if there be a suspicion of 
meaning in the line 

"The emptiness of ages in his face," 

it must be this very " foolish face " telling of the dulness of 
minds without responsibility, without that sense of duty which 
is inseparable from existence the moment we are in contact 
with our fellow-men. 

Analyzing the words and clauses a little more closely, we 
find the difference between this effusion and true poetry. Mr. 
Markham laments his hero's indifference to "the long reaches 
of the peaks of song." This is not a cause for sorrow, in our 
opinion, for peaks must be taken in connection with the scenes 
in which they stand, and therefore they are without long 
reaches, and the indifference is to a thing that does not exist. 
We know that song gains heights above all peaks, heights ris- 
ing into the infinites of space in which, like flakes of snow, the 
white stars hang ; we know of this, but we know nothing of 
its "unpeaklike" peaks; nor can we sympathize with this 
Hoeman's heedlessness of " the rift of dawn." The dawn has 
not a rift, nor is it a rift itself, either in the azure or the cloud, 
or in anything belonging to the " brave o'er-hanging firmament," 
as Hamlet would say ; but we read that it " mantles in the skies," 
that it is " dappled in the east," it " rises," " it opens the 
golden doors for the Sun "; and many other things which dawn 



698 



MARKHAM : A MISCHIEVOUS PESSIMIST. [Aug. 



does we follow with delight because the descriptions are true. 
Finally, whether we view Mr. Markham s poetry or his despair, 
we have from him nothing but words. Discontent, anger, scorn, 
hate have a ready utterance, the dialect is rich from Billings- 
gate to the sonorous roll of the English heroic lines ; but 
in vain we search for an idea which reflects one truth of 
the past or the future of mankind, its difficulties or ultimate 
hopes. 

The true and beautiful in poetry call for the exercise of the 
highest gifts. There is nothing true here, the philosophy a 
sham ; nothing beautiful because a bedlam rout of words. The 
sweet reasonableness which serves as a lamp to the imagination 
is a divine touch not given to all it certainly is not given to 
those who rush in where angels fear to tread but by the want 
of it we detect the glare of showy words, the false colors of 
earth and sky, the noise of brazen instruments, the clamors of 
the mob ; and distinguish all and each from the words that are 
music, that are full of light, that are instinct with life, that are 
the pulsings of great thoughts, that are the mirrors of the 
earth and sky, the echoes of the wind and sea. Tried by this 
standard, Mr. Markham is not a poet ; tried by the judgment 
of almost all his critics, he does not possess one scintilla of so- 
cial philosophy; tried by the rules of rhetoric, he does not even 
write good English. 





THE question of the religion of Shakspere has 
been pretty well threshed out, and we are about as 
near the definite conclusion as we shall ever get. 
There is something to be said on one side as well 
as on the other, and we find the best Shaksperian 
scholars agreeing to disagree. In Mr. Sydney Lee's recently 
published Life of William Shakspeare the biographer says em- 
phatically that Shakspere was a Protestant, but Father Sebas- 
tian Bowden of the Oratory, in a dignified volume* of four 
hundred pages, in which he closely follows the elaborate and 
exhaustive studies of the late Mr. Richard Simpson, M.A., 
makes a very good case for Shakspere's Catholicity. This much 
is certain, that had Shakspere been a Catholic he would have 
been obliged to conceal it very carefully from the public. The 
Catholic religion was proscribed during the Elizabethan period, 
and any one professing it openly not only acquired no pro- 
minence but lost place, position, wealth, prestige, and very often 
his head. A second thing is certain, that if he were not a 
Catholic, he would have had a very choice opportunity in his 
plays to chime in with the popular clamor against the monks and 
nuns as well as against the practices of the Catholic Church. If 
there is anything that differentiates the plays of Shakspere, apart 
from their genius, from the ordinary run of plays of the day, it 
is the very absence of this fling at the church. He might have 
made splendid capital out of the many plots which he derived 
from continental sources by holding up to popular ridicule the 
cardinals and bishops of the times, but he has carefully ex- 
punged all this satire from his derived plays. The fact that he 
was buried in the chancel of a Protestant church loses all point 
when we remember that Trinity, Stratford, was really a Catholic 
church, and through the parish foundations that still perpetuated 
themselves William Shakspere was entitled to sepulture in the 
chancel. Father Bowden edits and arranges all the vast amount 

*The Religion of Shakespeare. Chiefly from the writings of the late Richard Simpson, 
M.A. By Henry Sebastian Bowden of the Oratory. London : Burns & Dates ; New York, 
Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Brothers 



7 oo TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug., 

of material which has been placed at his hand by Richard 
Simpson, and for completeness and research the book, as near 
as may be, says the final word on the much mooted question 
of Shakspere's religion. 

Since the publication of the Life of Cardinal Wiseman by 
Wilfrid Ward the opinion is rapidly becoming a settled one 
with the students of those times that the way in which the 
restoration of the hierarchy was announced in England did not 
a little to set back the tide of conversions tending towards 
the church through the Oxford Movement. Whether this re- 
vulsion would not have occurred anyhow, as all these popular 
movements have their ebb and flow, and whether had the 
hierarchy not been established the work of conversions could 
have been taken up again with such energy, are matters of not 
a little question. However, with scarcely less energy than that 
which pervaded the movement in Newman's time is the work 
being carried on by the present incumbent of the See of 
Westminster, as well as the clerical and lay forces of the realm. 
In France, in the United States, in Australia, in Germany, 
there are keen-eyed watchers of the struggles between the re- 
viving church and the forces of an expiring Protestantism, and 
not a few in these many countries are gaining courage for their 
own battles by the successes of the brethren in England. Paul 
Thureau-Dangin, of the French Academy, has written in French 
a comprehensive review* of the situation, in which he care- 
fully estimates at their real value the many forces that were 
combined to bring about the results. 

A compilation from Spanish novelists f by which the scenery, 
the appearance of the towns, the manners and customs of the 
people, their religion and their politics, are offered to the reader 
as might be extracts from the diaries of travellers, is just now 
full of interest. The idea is not altogether new ; the pamphlets, 
the broad-sheets, the lampoons, and the plays of all kinds were 
employed by Lord Macaulay when writing his history to supply 
the local coloring which gives to his pictures of the condition 
and costume of England and Ireland in the seventeenth century 
their vivid character. We think he could have trusted to his 
own imagination for many of the effects. 

* La Renaissance Catholique en Angleterre an XIXe Siecle. Premiere Partie. Newman 
et le Mouvement cfOxford. Par Paul Thureau-Dangin de I'Academie Frangaise. Plon, 
Nourrit et Cie, Rue Garanciere 10, Paris. 

1 -Contemporary Spain. By Mary Wright Plummer. New York and London : Truslove, 
Hanson & Co. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 701 

Miss Plummer in her selections has evinced remarkable im- 
partiality when we learn her object was to throw light on the 
present religious, political, and social condition of Spain. The 
severest invectives against the belief of the people, their honesty, 
their courage, their morality in any way, may come in as a 
happy choice, albeit the speaker might have intended to re- 
present only his own discontents. It would hardly be fair to 
rely upon the speeches of Satan in the Paradise Lost for 
Milton's opinion as to the justice of his rebellion against 
"heaven's mighty King." The reader will agree with the fair 
editor in admiring the ability of the writers from whom she has 
drawn her materials. The crowded amphitheatre where the 
people sit to witness a bull-fight is admirably described by 
Benito Perez Gald6s, and whether it be our fancy or not, we 
contrast it with the descriptions given by writers who were 
never in one, while the expectation and excitement were surg- 
ing upwards as the spectacle drew to its close. 

The bustle of the Congress of Deputies, the stir and agita- 
tion reigning in the committee room, are familiar to us all in 
other legislative and administrative bodies. This we think good : 
" A host of laborers, in high hats, were going and coming, en- 
tering and bowing, elbowing each other ; their faces bore the 
imprint of the deep cares that agitated them." " Some were 
sitting in front of desks and feverishly writing letters and more 
letters." " Others would cluster around the entrance and anxi- 
ously wait for some minister to pass" to press upon him the im- 
portance of some family interest. The place occupied by cara- 
mels in Spanish politics and in the relations of representatives 
of the people to members of the fourth estate has its value. 

This is an extract from much that is objectionable in the 
last degree in the extracts marshalled under the heading 
" Religion " : " Spanish priests . . . when they are really 
good men are the most priestly priests in Christendom, true 
ministers of God, pious, affable, without affectation, and full of 
sound and healthy wisdom." 

The very vivid and at the same time calmly sensuous draw- 
ing of the landscape round Madrid is finer than anything we 
have read since we looked at Mr. Stoddard's Voyage tinder the 
Crescent. It is " Lion Roach " from which most of the cita- 
tions given above are taken. There is a touch of Cervantes in 
this : " A certain boarding-house, where the Evil One tempted 
me to take up my abode." We think it is Cervantes who says 
the highwaymen of his time had given up their old life and 
taken to the business of inn-keepers ; and we remember Swift's 



;0 2 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug., 

marvellous mode of accounting for the appointments to the 
bench of bishops in Ireland at the beginning of the eighteenth 
century. Well, any one who says a thing which brings sunshine 
to the dulled brain is a benefactor ; and so we part with the 
selections made by Miss Plummer in a better temper than we 
thought we should, judging from those we came upon at first. 

Most readers of Catholic literature are more or less well ac- 
quainted with the stories of Lady Georgiana Fullerton, nor is 
the esteem in which she is held as a writer confined to Catho- 
lic circles. In this, as well as in more strictly and peculiarly 
religious ways, she had the privilege of being of service to the 
truth ; it is mentioned in this volume, as an instance of this 
usefulness, that it was to her story Mrs. Gerald's Niece that the 
Marquis of Ripon attributed the final conviction which led him 
to join the church. 

Some time after the death of Lady Georgiana a memoir 
of her life was written by the late Mrs. Craven, and was 
translated into English by Father Coleridge. This memoir 
dwells chiefly upon her exterior life, writings, and good works. 
Her friends have been so impressed by the holiness of her life 
that they propose to bring before the Holy See an account of 
her holy example and rare virtues with a view to her canoniza- 
tion. The present work* is written in furtherance of this de- 
sign. Nearly half of the book (which was written and printed 
in Rome) is devoted to a sketch of her inner life by an inti- 
mate friend, who remains anonymous. The larger part consists 
of notes made during Retreats and extracts from a Diary kept 
for many years, which were meant exclusively for her own use, 
to be seen by no other eye. 

The object in view explains the form of the present publi- 
cation. It is not attractive as a literary work ; in fact, it can 
hardly be said to be a literary work at all. It is, in fact, a 
statement written for the purpose of being laid before the 
judges of the ecclesiastical tribunals, in order to open the in- 
quiry into the heroic character of the virtues of Lady Georgi- 
ana Fullerton. It proceeds, therefore, upon the lines of those 
Lives of the Saints which modern taste universally condemns. 
Actions showing the faith, the hope, charity, humility, and 
other virtues are given, together with the impression produced 
upon her friends by her conduct. The result is a most edify- 
ing record, but not one to entertain the seeker for amusement. 

* The Inner Life of Lady Georgiana Fullerton, with Notes of Retreat and Diary. Lon- 
don : Burns & Grt.es, limited ; New York : Benziger Brothers. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 703 

It is not for us in any way whatsoever to anticipate the judgment 
of the church. Two characteristics, however, stand out promi- 
nently in the life so recently ended which may, in God's provi- 
dence, be destined to lead to the bestowal of the highest 
honors of the church. 

The state of poverty of large numbers rests like a night- 
mare on the minds of all who can think or feel. What remedy 
is there ? or is there none ? The present writer feels convinced 
that socialism in any form, and in fact all legal measures, are 
but palliatives at the very best, and that either there is no 
remedy or that the remedy must be found in a far greater prac- 
tical realization of the principles of the Gospel by each and every 
one of the faithful. This has been clearly and forcibly set forth 
in an article in a recent number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD MAGA- 
ZINE by Dr. Nicholas Bjerring ; and is, in fact, the thesis of Catho- 
lic philosophy. Of the Catholic method and remedy Lady Geor- 
giana was a type and example. It is not indeed to be expected 
that every one will go to the length she went ; for, although living 
in the world and in society, she took a vow to practise evangeli- 
cal poverty as far as her condition of life and family duties per- 
mitted. She devoted herself to the service of the poor, visiting 
them, sweeping their rooms, making their beds ; not merely 
herself bestowing her all upon them, but begging of others in 
order to be able to give more ; and becoming if not the founder 
at least the inspirer of a community of women called the Poor 
Servants of the Mother of God, whose work is to live in the 
midst of the poorest. Now, all who have more than what suf- 
fices for the needs of each day may, in any degree they choose, 
emulate this example ; and this, although an easy and a hum- 
ble and a non-pretentious method, will prove, we believe, in the 
extent and to the extent in which it is followed, an efficacious 
remedy, and the only efficacious remedy, for the evils of which 
so many talk. 

The other point brought out by this life which may render 
her worthy of special veneration is the fact that although a 
lay woman she exercised a ministry for souls, and in fact proved 
a guide and instructor in truth, not merely by her writings but 
by her conversation. Under obedience to her director, Father 
Gallwey, she gave up her life of comparative retirement, in 
which she had occupied herself exclusively with her books and 
the poor, in order to carry on by means of social intercourse 
a social Apostolate, in which ultimately she proved singularly 
successful. 

We have said enough to indicate the character of the work. 



TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug., 

It is not likely to afford amusement, nor will it be useful to 
the mere reader. To the student of spiritual things it will be 
of value as the record of a life of sanctity passed under modern 
conditions of life and under the most powerful influences of this 
materialistic age, the very centre and stronghold of their power. 

Father Madden,* the author of Disunion and Reunion, has 
given to the thinking public a cursory review of the world of 
scientific thought from the time when men of science first at- 
tempted to hew their way through the barriers of tradition and 
religious beliefs that had sanctified the tenderest relations of 
life, up to the present reaction from the barren infidelity of 
Agnosticism. 

This review is made in a clear-cut way and with a good 
grasp of his subject. Men are profoundly religious. The belief 
in the supernatural cannot be eradicated from their minds. 
We may invent hypotheses which more or less shut God out 
from an active participation in the affairs of the universe ; we 
may refuse to believe in a miracle whereby God may intervene 
to protect those who look to him for succor; still, as the 
plant daily looks to the sun and turns its leaves to get all of it 
it can, so the soul will place its God near at hand nay, -in its 
very heart. The "scientific method" which casts the doubt 
on anything that it does not certify to, is responsible for not 
a little of the scepticism that marks these times. The theory 
that makes God a Creator in the far-away time, and, as though 
fatigued with the act of creation then, has left everything to 
be evolved since from the first protoplasm, and is no longer 
actively participating in the affairs of this world, is responsible 
for a good deal of the decay of religion in these times. Un- 
doubtedly Agnostic and irreligious scientific men have been 
overboastful of their knowledge. They have been bumptious 
in their assertions. They have claimed too much for their 
hypotheses, and it is a question as to whether some theologians 
have not themselves yielded too much of the revealed truth, or 
at least have not pared and chipped away from the rock-ribbed 
teaching of the church, in deference to the dogmatism of science. 
But the mind of the people has returned to a wholesome con- 
dition. Science has failed to solve for them the riddle of human- 
ity. It has thrown away the key to the problem of evil, which 
alone can quiet the minds of the questioners, with the result 
that the world is threatened by dreadful unrest of the masses 

The Reaction from Agnostic Science. By Rev. W. J. Madden, author of "Disunion 
and Reunion." St. Louis : Herder. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 705 

of the laboring poor, by the deplorable change in women's view 
of maternity, by a loss of respect for the sacredness of the 
marriage bond, by a lack of honesty in public and private life, 
by a blurring of the idea of femininity in women. Little won- 
der, then, that the intellectual world desires to get away from 
the so-called " scientific method " and back to their old religious 
mooring. 

Michael P. Seter, at the American College, Louvain, who 
writes in this current number an interesting account of the 
academic life in the university city, gives us in a neat form a 
treatise on the reasonableness of the fundamental teaching of 
Christianity.* His manual is comprehensive, and securely welds 
the links of the chain of logic that begins with the admission 
of the existence of God and reaches to the portals of the 
Catholic Church. 

Mr. J. Herbert Williams, whose first volumes were reviewed 
last month, has added a third, entitled The Church of the Reve- 
lation^ Mr. Williams's work has been very favorably received 
on this side of the water. There are critics who are not very 
ready to lose themselves in admiration either for an author or 
for a book, yet who have considered Mr. Williams's Protestant 
Belief as the very best review of the state of the religious mind 
in England to-day. They have made comparisons between Mr. 
Williams's work and Newman's, and have said that, while New- 
man reflected the religious mind of his day, still very many 
changes have taken place, and Mr. Williams is a better prophet 
of the new dispensation. 



I. FATHER FOX AND THE UNIVERSITY DOCTORATE.^ 

The Dissertation written by Father Fox for the Doctorate 
in Theology, which was conferred upon him at the end of the 
last term of the Catholic University, after a very severe public 
examination, has been published in book form. This examina- 
tion he passed in such a way as to cover with glory and honor 
not only himself but the University, to which he was largely 
indebted for his success. He thereby greatly contributed 

* Are Catholics reasonable in their Belief? By Michael P. Seter, American College, 
Louvain. Louvain : Polleunis & Ceuterick, 30 Orphans Street ; New York : Benziger Bros. 

t The Church of the Revelation. By J. Herbert Williams, M.A., late Demy of Magdalen 
College, Oxford. London : Catholic Truth Society. 

I Religion and Morality : their Nature and Mutual Relations historically and doctrinally 
considered. By the Rev. James J. Fox, S.T.L. New York : William H. Young & Co. 

VOL. LXIX. 45 



7 o6 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug., 

towards that spirit of larger and fuller hope for the future 
which pervaded the proceedings at the last commencement in a 
degree greater than ever before. The excellence of the disser- 
tation is on a level with that of the examination. Our opinion 
of it is briefly expressed by saying that it is a piece of genu- 
ine and honest good work. It fills, we think, a place in English 
Catholic literature which there was great need of filling ; that is 
to say, a fuller, more profound, and more readable discussion than 
is found in the ordinary text-books of the universally accepted 
and fundamental principles of Catholic moral philosophy as 
contrasted with what we may call the philosophy of the world. 
Father Fox's special topic is not the whole field of ethics, but 
particularly ancient and modern ; the relation between religion 
and morality, and the refutation of the notion, now loudly 
calling for acceptance, that morality is possible, although reli- 
gion is impossible. Father Fox disclaims having made any 
new discoveries in ethics, or having discovered any original 
argument against the opponents of religion. He has, however, 
expounded in a new way the old truths. The historical side is 
more fully dealt with than anywhere else. Great fairness and 
clearness are shown in the exposition of the views of oppo- 
nents, and in his criticism of Kant, Mill, and Spencer. We 
doubt very much whether within equally short limits a more 
complete and judicious account can be found, one which does 
justice not only to the philosophy of the church but to the 
views of those who have supplanted her as the teachers of the 
present generation. What comes out triumphantly is the superi- 
ority in every respect of the philosophy which the church has 
made her own when compared with every other. The former, 
competently expounded, has only to be set side by side with 
the others for this superiority to be seen by all ; and Father 
Fox has expounded it in so magisterial a manner as to deserve 
the bestowal upon himself of the doctorate optima cum laude. 
The general scope of the dissertation may be seen from the 
following extract, which also indicates Father Fox's method of 
treating his subject. It is taken from the chapter on the Rela- 
tion of Ethics to Morals (pp. 156-9): 

"Whilst reason, by its nature and in virtue of its pre-emi- 
nence over the other faculties and activities, dictates a certain 
course of action to be pursued, and authoritatively declares 
such a course to be binding on the agent, a concurrent im- 
pulsi i has carried man to recognize that behind this authority 
f reason, and giving weight to it, lay divine authority. Whilst, 



1899.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 707 

however, the chief sanction of moral precepts has been derived 
from religion, the contents of the moral code have usually been 
defined by reason itself. Another indisputable fact is that 
frequently, owing to the perversion of religious notions, morality 
has been compelled to sustain itself without any assistance 
from actual or concrete religion. In this condition it languished, 
indeed, but it endured. Again, some individuals, dispensing 
with religion, have found other motives sufficient for the ob- 
servance of duty. These facts lead to the conclusion that 
between religion and morality there is not a connection such 
that if the former is withdrawn the latter must completely 
perish. The rational nature of man is itself a guarantee against 
such a contingency, the innate propensity of reason to classify 
conduct into right and wrong, the existence of a moral judg- 
ment affirming some kind of a necessity to embrace the right 
and avoid the wrong, the necessity of observing some rules of 
morality in order to make social life possible, are elements al- 
ways present and, independent of religion, sufficient to consti- 
tute a certain measure of morality. As a rational being, man 
is a moral being ; and he may obey his reason, without looking 
beyond its sanction, and the sanction of his fellow-men. But, 
whilst this is possible, we have already seen that at no time of 
the world's history did such a condition prevail. If the advo- 
cates of a morality independent of religion were content with 
showing that, theoretically at least, the element of morality in 
an imperfect, inchoate condition may be brought into play in 
human life without any religious reference, they could easily 
establish their thesis. But they undertake to prove that the 
moral life can dispense with religion altogether without suffer- 
ing any injury; and that morality, independent of religion, has 
all that is required to constitute its pe'rfection and insure its 
efficacious realization in human life. In order to make good 
this position they must show that duty is invested with such a 
sanctity that its violation is an evil for man greater than all 
other evils ; they must prove that the moral good is of such 
transcendent excellence that not alone are we justified in sacri- 
ficing for it every other good, but that we are bound, not by 
a mere feeling of preference but by a tie which holds us even 
when we should wish to be free, to sacrifice every other desire, 
good, or happiness that is incompatible with moral good. . . . 
It is utterly impossible that any valid system of ethics can be 
constructed by human ingenuity, without recognizing the ex- 
istence of God as the author of the universe and of the moral 



708 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug., 

order. A man may act upon the dictates of his conscience 
and obey the laws of duty without challenging it for its 
credentials. . . . He may be sufficiently enlightened, and 
so little under the influence of his passions that the superiority 
of a life led according to his rational nature will commend it- 
self to him with sufficient weight to incline him to follow 
it. ... Others are so little given to reflection or to question- 
ing their motives that the approbation of society given to the 
moral standard suffices to insure their obedience. . . . 
When, however, morality is made the subject of systematic in- 
quiry, or when an individual who feels the bonds of duty irk- 
some asks himself why he must submit to duty, and for its 
sake sacrifice his other inclinations, then the value of moral 
obligations must be investigated, and, under penalty of seeing 
it vanish altogether, its supreme authority must be vindicated. 
Here we pass from the facts of morality to the science of 
ethics." 

The Introductory Part is expository, treating of the notion, 
universality, and origin of morality and of religion. The Sec- 
ond Part is historical, and is of special value. The Third Part 
is doctrinal, and forms the heart of the dissertation. The 
Fourth Part contains a criticism of the most prominent modern 
leaders, Kant, Mill, and Spencer. In the conclusion the Ethical 
Society and Socialism receive all the approbation which it is 
possible to accord to those movements. Father (or, as we 
must now style him) Dr. Fox recognizes, with many other 
signs, that a conviction of the worthlessness of independent 
morality is forcing itself upon modern thought. 



2. CAMBRIDGE CONFERENCES.* 

The first series, which consists of eight conferences, was de- 
livered on the Sundays of Michaelmas Term, 1898. The Ideal 
of the Christian Man is the general subject, and each conference 
treats of the various elements of that ideal. The first confer- 
ence sets forth the ideal as practically possible, and the subse- 
quent conferences treat respectively of a rational, a spiritual, 
a glorious, an historical, and a social ideal. The last two con- 
ferences have for their subjects "The Likeness of the Son of 
Man" and the Final Realization." The conferences are brief, 



ge Conferences, delivered to the Under-graduates of the University of Cam- 
bridge m the Chapel of St. Edmund's House. Two parts: Michaelmas Term, 1898, and 

Yort R 111 ' " R B l ReV ' J Seph Rickaby ' SJ " L ndon : Burns & Oat <*. limitedf New 
v ork : Benziger Brothers. 



1899.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 709 

and would seem to some to be rather essays than addresses. 
They appeal to those already predisposed to think. They are 
specimens of that easy reading which is the result of hard 
thinking. Father Rickaby is, of course, a master of Catholic 
philosophy and theology, and combines therewith what is 
rarely found, a really good acquaintance with what is called 
modern thought and with the subjects which interest the edu- 
cated men of our times. For those whom he was called upon 
to instruct the latter is as necessary. a qualification as the 
former. Sobriety of tone, a spirit of moderation and reason- 
ableness, freedom from the dogmatic manner of the authorized 
teacher, a large practical experience of men and things, seem 
to be the salient characteristics of these conferences. The 
fifth conference, on an historical ideal, is very opportune. In 
it Father Rickaby refers to the discussion, recently raised anew, 
as to the effect of Christianity and Catholicity on the pros- 
perity and development of nations; and points out the distinc- 
tion, often not recognized, between the empire-making qualities 
leading to greed of gain and territory, to which Christianity 
does not contribute (although it does not conflict with what 
there may be of good in them), and those virtues which Chris- 
tianity has directly impressed by its very nature upon mankind, 
namely, humility, purity, charity, and detachment. These latter, 
so far as practised, necessarily promote the social prosperity 
of nations, which consists in the absence of squalid poverty, of 
brutality, of flagrant public sin, a general level of contented- 
ness, peace, and unity among all classes, a diminution of crime, 
and consequently Christianity directly promotes national 
well-being. As to the remote future Father Rickaby is some- 
what optimistic, or rather he endorses the optimistic expecta- 
tions of Father Cornely. In opposition to what many theo- 
logians hold, Father Cornely interprets the revelation made to 
St. Paul as foretelling not merely that the Gospel shall be 
preached among all nations, but that it shall find credence 
among all and be received by all. The end of the world will 
not come before the fulness of the Gentiles and all Israel have 
entered the church, and the entire earth is subject to the 
Gospel and become Catholic, or at least has been so. This, 
however, is a consummation which we who are now upon the 
face of the earth shall hardly see ; we must be content to be 
a counterpoise to the evil which reigns in the world, and in 
this he agrees with Dr. Newman's appreciation of the relative 
strength and power of good and evil. In fact, as to the im- 



7IO TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug., 

mediate future, Father Rickaby, as appears from the sixth con- 
ference of the Lent Term, looks forward to a loss of faith by 
large numbers of thinking men. This loss, he thinks, will be 
due not so much to intellectual difficulties as to the greater 
power with which the world is ever being borne in upon the 
imagination. 

The second series of these conferences was delivered during 
the Lent Term of 1899. This series has not, as had the 
former series, the unity of plan which makes each conference 
a part of the whole, except that they all contribute to the 
very practical end of imparting to the university undergradu- 
ates elementary religious instruction. Of the first conference 
the subject is, "How a Man should prove Himself"; of the 
second, "The Sacrifice of the Cross;" of the third, "The Daily 
Procedure of Judgment " ; of the fourth, " The Sacrifice of the 
Mass"; of the fifth, "Everlasting Death"; of the sixth, "A 
Religion entirely Spiritual"; of the seventh, "A Religion 
without a Polity " ; and of the eighth, " A Religion without a 
Creed." 

We cannot discuss here the many points of interest offered 
by these conferences. Everything written by Father Rickaby 
well deserves attention. He always presents the old and -fami- 
liar truths in a new setting the setting and atmosphere of 
a thoroughly cultivated mind. While, however, far from being 
rigorists, we cannot but regret the impression left by the first 
conference. There is nothing in it, of course, which is not 
true and good. There seems to be, however, a want of the 
requisite completeness and qualification. It has been said of 
the Society of Jesus that it goes as near to the gates of hell 
as possible in order to save souls. It seems to us that in this 
conference Father Rickaby has gone a little too near, inasmuch 
as the impression left upon a reader may easily be that re- 
lapses into sin and the corresponding repentance may be taken 
for granted as the normal course of things, and, as according 
to the order of God's providence, sure to eventuate, and not 
merely capable of eventuating, in a full and permanent conver- 
sion. If we take his illustration literally, which of course we 
ought not to do, the oftener a man sins, provided he repents 
(a thing which Father Rickaby seems to hold to be as easy 
and as much within a man's power after the thousandth sin as 
after the first), the more likely is it that in the end he will be 
established in the state of grace the polygon with indefinitely 
numerous sides will pass into the circle more easily and natu- 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 711 

rally than the regular polygon with but a few sides. And is it 
true that in case a man sins and repents indefinitely, "the 
habit will die of sacraments," especially if it be a corporeal sin, 
like drunkenness? Do not experience and reason alike show 
that, notwithstanding the acts of repentance, the habit not only 
remains but is strengthened? 

With this exception we greatly admire the way in which 
Father Rickaby has faithfully presented to an audience such as 
for more than three centuries no Catholic priest has had it in 
his power to address, some of the elementary truths of the 
faith. Each conference is weighty, interesting, and instructive. 



3. NOTES ON LEA'S HISTORY OF AURICULAR CONFESSION.* 

Mr. Lea's History of Auricular Confession is a serious work, 
which has deserved and has received the attention not only of 
his fellow-Protestants but of Catholic students in this country 
and in Europe. Mr. Lea has accomplished all that could be 
expected of an amateur, nor is any one fitted to cope with him 
who has not received the training of the Catholic schools. The 
impression his work makes upon the average reader, with its 
array of citations, and studiously careful references to authori- 
ties, is simply overwhelming. To deal with it exhaustively would 
require a book of many volumes and the attempt would defeat 
itself, for no one would think of reading the refutation even if 
it, should find a publisher a thing not so easy for Mr. Lea's 
opponents as it is for him. Father Casey has adopted the 
plan of taking ten pages that is to say, the pages containing 
the history of the keys during the first five centuries of 
Christianity and subjecting every assertion therein to a careful 
examination. He has printed the ten pages so taken in order 
that the reader may be able to compare the original with the 
reply. Although Father Casey indulges in no declamation and 
writes briefly and succinctly yet brightly and clearly, his reply 
fills four times the space occupied by his opponent. To reply 
on the same scale to the whole work would require twelve 
octavo volumes. 

What Mr. Lea's own stand-point is we do not pretend to know. 
From what appears in the matter subjected to examination by 
Father Casey it would seem that he belongs to the class of 

* Notes on a History of Auricular Confession : H. C. Lea's Account of the Power of the 
Keys in the Early Church. By the Rev. P. H. Casey, S.J., Professor of Dogmatic Theology 
in Woodstock College. Philadelphia : John Joseph McVey. 



712 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug., 

intellectual lords who own no teacher and recognize no master ; 
like the gods of Epicurus, he looks down with sublime indiffer- 
ence on the warring hosts beneath. According to him Christ 
made a false prediction, for he foretold the coming of the Day 
of Judgment before that generation passed away. Mr. Lea's 
own opinions are, however, a matter of but little importance. 
The important point is whether his quotations are accurate, and 
whether they represent the full mind of the authors quoted ; 
and whether the inferences drawn therefrom are valid. Mr. 
Lea's arguments also rest very largely on the fact, or alleged 
fact, that reference to the power of the keys is not made when 
he would have expected such reference to have been made, on the 
argument, that is, from silence. Consequently what purports to 
be merely a history necessarily passes into the field of logic, and 
Mr. Lea's weakness in this field is made clear by Father 
Casey in not a few instances. Especially with reference to the 
argument from silence urged by Mr. Lea is Father Casey 
triumphantly successful. But the main question is as to the 
reliability of Mr. Lea's citations, and we feel sure that no 
reader of Father Casey's examination of each and every one of 
Mr. Lea's propositions will be in doubt as to which of the two 
places the whole case fairly before him, so as to enable him to 
form his own opinion of the real meaning of the authors quoted. 
No reader of Father Casey's examination of this sample will 
entrust himself further to Mr. Lea's guidance; if he does, his 
falling into the ditch into which the blind leads the blind will 
be the consummation which he has himself deserved. Father 
Casey has not proved, we think, that Mr. Lea has deliberately 
misquoted ; but what is made evident is, that he went to his 
authors with the full belief that what he took to be Catholic 
doctrine was false, and was by this belief led to seize upon 
anything which seemed to support this false preconception. 
What Father Casey has done has been to correct, where neces- 
sary, Mr. Lea's idea of Catholic doctrine, and to show by the 
context and other writings of each author that nothing incon- 
sistent with such doctrine is to be found in the places in which 
Mr. Lea claimed to have found such contradiction, and in not 
a few instances he has shown that the writer quoted so far from 
emg against is in favor of the Catholic doctrine. A naturally 
iry and laborious work is enlivened by freshness of style and 
by a good-humored setting forth of Mr. Lea's inaccuracies and 
inconsistencies. 

In a very few cases we regret the absence of dignity and 



I8 99-1 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 7I3 

urbanityas, for example, on page 76; this we attribute to the 

lesire of Father Casey to bring the subject down to the level 

the readers of the daily newspaper. This is doubtless a 

necessity, but a hard one. We have, too, noted three instances 

what we look upon as bad grammar; perhaps, however, 

father Casey would not agree with our opinion. 

Small though this volume of eighty pages is, the labor in- 
volved in its preparation has been very great, and for most 
even theological students, it would have been a work too oner- 
ous to undertake. To search through, for example (as Father 
Casey^prevailed upon his pupils to do), some thousand pages 
i order to ascertain the accuracy of a single quotation from 
bt Ephrem is a task which but few modern readers, or even 
students, would enter upon. But great as has been the labor 
involved in the composition of this work, it is chiefly distin- 
guished by the higher excellence of accurate interpretation of 
the texts and of clear insight into their meaning. If we mis 
take not, this will be found the chief characteristic of the work. 
Perhaps we may venture to say that in this we see the marks 
of the theologian rather than of the controversialist, and that 
Father Casey depreciates his own work too much when he says 
that all he has done has been to destroy. On the contrary a 
careful study of the book will impress upon the reader the 
positive conviction that the power of the keys was recognized 
as being m the hands of the church in the first ages, although 
we could have desired a fuller and more explicit discussion of 
elation between the penitential discipline of the church 
and the sacramental pardon which is of divine institution, than 
is found. This, however, would have been to address another 
audience. Perhaps it would have been better, too, frankly to 
have admitted that St. Isidore's words, the power of the keys 
comes from the Holy Ghost, and is not possessed by those who 
are in sin," cannot be defended, and while capable of explana- 
tion, stands in great need of it. 




THE American policy in the Philippines is about 
to be changed. The great giant that so readily 
crushed Spain thought that it had but to turn its 
forces against the Tagalos and they too would be subdued. 
But the contest has not been so easy. The administration, 
however, is determined to pacify the Philippines, and if gun- 
powder alone has failed, a little judicious mixture of diplomacy 
with it may succeed. We always said that it was a mistake to 
have appointed on the Philippine Commission men who had 

no Catholic sympathies. 

* 

It has always been a problem, while preserving intact the 
divine nature of the church, to so conform the human element 
to the genius and character of various nations among whom she 
exists that she may not only affirm her note of Catholicity 
with more emphasis for her own sake, but that she may with a 
glad and acceptable hand bring the gifts of divine comfort to 
the peoples who stand in need of her ministrations. But espe- 
cially is this so in our modern life, when the very foundations 
of society as well as the superstructure are being reconstructed. 

" Democracy is a fact, unbelief is rampant, and the millions 
are awaiting social redemption. Who will bring it to them? 
As we hope and believe, the creation of a new and a better 
world is reserved for the Catholic Church. Therefore we are 
constrained to cry aloud and spare not, to warn those who 
threaten liberty in the name of Absolutism that they are darken- 
ing the dawn of faith and repeating their ancient error which con- 
founded religion with dynasties, as now they would confound it 
with national prejudice and local interests. . . . Let these 
democratic races be assured of freedom under their own laws 
those who for many a year to come will be in the vanguard of 
civilization and tokens are not wanting that they may look with 
favor on the beauty of the Catholic Church, and one day be sub- 
lued by her charm." So Dr. Barry, the eminent English essayist, 
declares in an exceedingly readable article in the latest Contem- 
porary Review on The Troubles of a Catholic Democracy." 



JS99-] 



CATHOLICS IN THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. 




MAJOR MICHAEL O'CONNOR. 



CATHOLIC OFFICERS IN THE ARMY AND THE 

NAVY. 



MAJOR MICHAEL O'CONNOR. 

IT seems difficult to realize that only a year ago this sum- 
mer such accounts as the following formed the subject-matter 
of every issue of the daily press : 



716 CATHOLIC OFFICERS IN [Aug., 

" WITH THE NINTH MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS, ) 
SANTIAGO DE CUBA, August 14, 1898. j 

"The little line of graves where the dead of the Ninth lie 
buried is lengthening. At one time we had four deaths in four 
days a death a day a ratio which promised then to hold out 
until better sanitary, feeding, and sleeping conditions prevailed. 
A change, however, has come about since then. 

" One week ago to-day, about half an hour after midnight, 
Major O'Connor died. He had been quite low for several days. 
An isolated tent had been accorded him, and two Cuban nurses 
were hired to act as attendants. 

"The corporal of the night detail had just posted his mid- 
night relief when he saw the flaps of Major O'Connor's tent 
break open and a Cuban nurse coming across the field in the 
moonlight. He surmised what had happened before the Cuban 
had told him. He immediately notified the commander of 
I company, of which the dead major had been a member when 
he joined the militia ten years ago. 

" At once a detail of eight men was formed to dig the 
grave. It was two o'clock in the morning when we began our 
work, and reveille had been sounded by every regiment on the 
field when our task was done. 

" Then we went back to the hospital and prepared the body 
for burial. We arranged Major O'Connor's uniform about his 
body, placing with it all his private papers. There was one 
letter, evidently from home, which had come too late for his 
reading. Sealed and all we placed it with the others. We 
wrapped him in the gray woollen blanket of an enlisted man. 

"In two relays of our men we carried his body, resting on 
a litter, across the hot field to the little hollow at the foot 
of the old hospital hill, where we had dug the grave. The 
major's last resting-place came just within the shadow of a 
wide-spreading tree. Only five paces away was the grave of his 
brother officer, Major Grady. 

"This was a burial even simpler in ceremony than Major 
Grady's, though at the latter's burial no taps were sounded, 
no volley was fired. 

' Major O'Connor was very popular with the officers and 
with the rank and file of the regiment. The night before he 
died the writer was talking to him in his tent. He asked 
about the welfare of all mutual friends before he discussed his 
own case. He said that the nights seemed so long to him. 
The writer answered that it must seem so to a sick man, add- 



1899-] THE ARMY AND THE NAVY. 717 

ing that this one was nearly over. ' It is already almost dawn,' 
the writer said. ' Yes,' he answered, after a moment's silence ; 
' my last dawn here, probably.' ' 

Brave Major Michael O'Connor was the idol of his battalion. 
Modest, spirited, and true, his death was a sad one. He had 
been indefatigable in his efforts for his men, often prowling 
about among the tents of his companies after taps, with a 
blanket thrown over his shoulders, seeing to the comfort and 
welfare of his command. His men naturally grew to love him. 
He, too, fought against every feeling of sickness until finally 
compelled to give in. He died of the worst case of yellow 
fever known in the army. So dangerous was his condition 
that the poor fellow was not permitted to die in the hospital, 
but was removed to a tent by himself, and there left to his 
God. His was one of the most sorrowful deaths in the entire 
army. 

Major O'Connor was born in Boston, January 31, 1861. He 
attended the Boston schools, graduating from the Bigelow 
Grammar School in 1874, and from the English High School 
in 1877. After several years in trade he, in 1885, entered the 
Boston Dental School, taking a three years' course in dentistry. 
He graduated in June, 1888. 

About the time he left the dental college he joined the 
militia, taking a prominent part in forming Company I of the 
Ninth Regiment. He was soon elected adjutant, and not long 
afterwards became major in the regiment. He was greatly in- 
terested in its work, and labored indefatigably in its behalf. 
When the war broke out he was anxious to go to the front, 
notwithstanding his rapidly growing business. He realized the 
dangers of the war, but never having been ill, and being a 
strong, well-built man, an athlete, in fact, he did not mind 
them. 



THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Aug., 



THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 

AT the opening of the third International Congress of Publishers, Mr. John 
Murray compared the deliberation with which books were prepared in 
former years of the nineteenth century with the present rush and eagerness 
for novelty. In the signs of the times he saw considerable danger of serious 
decadence. By a colossal expenditure the number of readers has been multi- 
plied. How shall they learn how to choose the best reading? The apparent 
demand for the lowest class of journalism is not encouraging. Authors need to 
be incited by fitting compensation to do their best work, and the highest 
function of the publisher is to aid in this elevating tendency. 

It is related of the Rev. Luke Rivington that after his conversion he real- 
ized the conditions of the Catholic book market, and knew well that anything 
he published was likely to be a financial failure. He did not look for any 
money profit from his literary labors. He was contented with the hope that 
readers might be aided' through his writings in their search for truth, and he 
was ready to make sacrifices for such an object. His works have been the 
means, with the blessing of God, of bringing many into the church. 
* * * 

The pioneer Catholic Reading Circle of Mobile, Ala., was established in that 
venerable city last January. It is called the " Aquinas Reading Circle," and is 
composed of nearly a hundred Catholic ladies. The season's study has been: 
"The Women of the Bible." The officers of the Aquinas are: Mrs. M. E. 
Henry-Ruffin, President ; Miss Belle Neville, Vice-President ; Miss Mollie Walsh, 
Secretary; Miss Margery Burke, Treasurer. This Circle gave a public reception 
at the Cathedral Hall in May. Mrs. Ruffin in her address on that occasion out- 
lined the purposes of the Circle as follows : A short while ago I was reading a 
rather severe criticism on the lack of the progressive spirit among the Catholics 
of the South. These censures were especially directed towards the city of New 
Orleans, and we will be generous enough to allow that city to retain all the 
undesirable epithets that the writer applied. We will not ask to have even the 
smallest share. But in the course of her remarks the writer was a woman, and 
women never say sharply-pointed things except at the end of a pen the follow- 
ing remarkable expression occurred : " Now and then (in the South) some 
divinely courageous souls begin a Reading Circle." Divinely courageous 
souls ! I was startled when I read that sentence, for neither my associates of 
the Aquinas Reading Circle nor I would ever dream of applying to ourselves 
such a grandiloquent expression. Divinely courageous souls! But since this 
writer seems to believe that those who give the impetus to such literary move- 
ments are entitled to this description, I repeat it for the benefit of my associates, 
and we will gather what comfort we may from this unsought eulogy. 

The usual charge against women's clubs organizations composed of or 
chiefly controlled by women is that they are vague and indefinite as to their 
purpose; prone to be full of large, wordy resolutions, that resolve into nothing ; 
that in fact they do nothing but talk and talk, and then talk some more. Now, 
as a woman, and a not altogether silent woman,' I would like to walk around that 



l8 99-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 719 

accusation ; ignore it or pass it by as if I had never seen it nor heard of it before. 
But it is just here, face to face with that fact, that I want to speak of our own 
organization ; for I do believe we have worked more than we have talked ; we 
have been indeed doers and not sayers. Later on our efficient Vice-President 
will give you a synopsis of our season's work. We have before us a very defi- 
nite purpose, a very concise intention. In two easily understood words we can 
express our aims : " Profit " and " Pleasure." The profit comes from the acqui- 
sition of most desirable knowledge, the advantage of being factors in the pro- 
gress of a most progressive age. Pleasure from agreeable, congenial association, 
and the stimulus of kindly fellowship in elevating pursuits. 

We will not talk to-night in resounding phrases of " marching in the van of 
advancing progress." We will not resolve in glowing language "to lift up the 
whole human race." We will not even promise to lift up the Philippine Islands 
not an island. We have before us a straight, simple intention. 

Practical life lays upon all of us its burdens. We toil on and on, very often 
weary and disheartened. When we gather together in pursuit of elevating 
knowledge, it is as if we had climbed to a bright, breezy hill, and laying aside for 
awhile our burdens, we grew rested and refreshed, gazing on the wider, nobler 
horizon. Then our burdens seemed lighter when we went down again to every- 
day life. We, as Catholics, have a magnificent heritage of the best thought the 
world has known. When we associate in intellectual efforts, it is to enter upon 
our inheritance, to enjoy the treasures which are ours as children of the world- 
wide, cycle-covering church. It is usual to believe that the intellectual move- 
ments of the day, the formation of organized effort in literary research, are a part 
of the spirit of the times, are contemporary with our resistless progress. But 
if we think a little, just think back awhile, we will remember that just such or- 
ganizations have been a part of the intellectual life of the Church for many ages. 
The profoundest teachers, the master minds, drew around them congenial asso- 
ciates. They read, they argued, they discussed. There you have the Reading 
Circle. True, the subject matters of those days were of a profundity that is 
now rarely attempted. Then knowledge was a deep, precious possession. Now 
it is far-spread, and we have lost in depth what we have gained in expanse. We 
no longer sound the profundities, but the horizon is far-reaching and vast. 

And in those days there were women, too, who drew around them the 
strongest thinkers. There was a Catherine of Siena. There was a St. Teresa. 
Intellectual women, advanced women, strong-minded women, if you will; but 
truly women of stronger mental fibre than even the newest of to-day's " new wo- 
men." We are accustomed to think that our age has left far behind it all the cen- 
turies of the past. Yet there were minds in that past brilliant enough to illumine 
even this twentieth century. The consecrated intellects that lead us up the 
heights of the spiritual life walk in the light that streams down from a mediaeval 
saint Thomas Aquinas. 

* * * 

The Right Approach to English Literature was discussed in the Atlantic 
Monthly by Mark H. Liddell, and The True American Spirit in Literature by 
Charles Johnston. In the first of these articles the writer points out that in ap- 
proaching the study of literature most of the mistakes made are due to a vague- 
ness of our understanding of the word itself, so he begins by giving the following 
definition : " Literature is that part of recorded human thought which possesses, 
or has possessed, a more or less general and abiding human interest," and goes 



720 NEW BOOKS. [Aug., 1899.] 

on to point out that the best way for the student to proceed is by studying the causes 
and nature of human interest. In the second article Mr. Johnston, who, as he 
tells us, has long been seeking an expression of the American spirit, thinks that he 
has found it in two characteristics, positive and negative : the presence of power 
and the total absence of atmosphere. In illustration he proceeds to analyze the 
works of four American writers, chosen " not because they are the only examples 
of the American spirit, but because they are the most remarkable for the absence 
of what Mark Twain calls ' Weather.' " These four are G. W. Cable, Bret 
Harte, Mary E. Wilkins, and Mark Twain himself. He concludes with the follow- 
ing summary of the American spirit, as he finds it in our literature : 

" Floods of light, meagre coloring, no atmosphere at all. The writers of the 
future must give up everything which depends on the atmosphere of the church, 
with its mystery and tradition, and the atmosphere of the palace, the castle and 
the court. All these things will be stripped off, as the mist vanishes before the 
noonday sun ; and we shall have plain humanity, standing in the daylight, talk- 
ing prose. American writers will have to pull their books through without 
weather, in a larger sense than that meant by Mark Twain. Some of them have 
already tried to do so, with very notable results." M. C. M. 



NEW BOOKS. 

AMERICAN BOOK Co., New York : 

Advanced Grammar and Composition. By E. Oram Lyte. Stories of Ani- 

mal Life. By Charles Frederick Holder. 
ART AND BOOK Co., London, England : 

The Catechism simply explained. By Rev. Henry T. Cafferata. 
BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York : 

Are Catholics Reasonable in their Belief? By Michael P. Seter. Close to 
the Altar Rails. By Rev. Matthew Russell, SJ. The Religion of 
Shakespeare. By Henry S. Bowden. The King's Mother. By Lady Mar- 
garet Domvile. 
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, London: 

The Church of the Revelation. By J. Herbert Williams. 
B. HERDER, St. Louis, Mo.: 

The Reaction from Agnostic Science. By Rev. W. J. Madden. Manual of 
Meditations preparatory to the Feasts of Our Lady's Immaculate Concep- 
tion, of St. Joseph, and of the Visitation of the Most Blessed Virein 
Mary. 
P. J. KENEDY, New York: 

Catechism made Easy. By a secular Priest. 
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York : 

History of St. Vincent de Paul. By Monseigneur Bougaud, Bishop of 

METHODIST BOOK AND PUBLISHING HOUSE, W. Toronto, Canada- 
Songs of the Settlement, and other Poems. By Thomas O'Haean 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, New York : 
Richard Carvel. By Winston Churchill 

JOHN J. McVEY, Philadelphia, Pa. 



G. 

Industrial Cuba. By Robert P Porter 
VICTOR RETAUX LIBRAIRE-EDITEUR, 82 Rue Bonaparte, Paris: 

Louts Veuillot. Par Eugene Veuillot. 1811-1841; 
E. PLON NOURRIT ET CIE., Rue Garanciere 10, Paris 

La Renaissance Catholique en An ? leterre au XIXe Szecle. Par Paul Thu- 
reau-Dangm. 




From an original by 
Oliver Lippincott, Los Angeles. 



AT THE RUINED ALTAR OF SAN Luis REV. 



THK 




CATHOLIC WORLD, 



VOL. LXIX. SEPTEMBER, 1899. No. 414. 

SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL. 

BY REV. WALTER ELLIOTT, C.S.P. 

HE Longmans* have given us an excellent speci- 
men of book-making in these two volumes of 
the life of the modern Apostle of the poor. 
His great deeds will, we trust, instil, by means 
of this work, the spirit of Christian charity into 

* many of those kindly souls outside the church 

, who are endeavoring to succor human misery, 

actuated only by human motives. The study of 
St. Vincent's life is an introduction into the very sanctuary of 
the Gospel's wisdom of pity, and if Catholic philanthropists 
are familiar with this holy wisdom their fellow-workers are not, 
or they are only acquainted with the inadequate notions of 
human dignity and divine love saved from the shipwreck which 
Christian truth suffered from Calvinistic errors. 

The origin of this greatest and gentlest man of the seven- 
teenth century is that of a peasant of the Landes, a pastoral 
district of the South of France. He was of such humble 
parentage that his father's Christian name is in dispute. Our 
only knowledge of his mother is derived from the saint's brief 
testimony. One day an old woman begged an alms from him, 
saying she had been his mother's servant. " Oh, my good 

* History of St. Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission ( Vincen- 
tians) and of the Sisters of Charity. By Monseigneur Bougaud, Bishop of Laval. Trans- 
lated from the second French edition by the Rev. Joseph Brady, C.M. With an introduction 
by his Eminence the Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster. New York : Longmans, Green 
& Co. 

Copyright. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE 

STATE OF NEW YORK. 1899. 
VOL. LXIX. 46 



722 SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL. [Sept., 

woman," said Vincent, "you make a mistake; my mother 
never had a servant, she did everything herself, for she was 
the wife of a poor peasant." He was born in 1576, being the 
third of six children, and in his childhood toiled about his 
father's cattle-shed and sheepfold, and learned his prayers and 
his letters like any peasant's son. But the spell of a remarka- 
ble vocation was on him from infancy, and prayer and charity, 
adoring God and communing with the Blessed Virgin and the 
saints, giving away all his little childish treasures to beggars, 
even his simple lunch while out on the commons herding sheep, 
were deeds betokening a spirit whose heroic fire of charity 
was lighted at baptism. It burned ever brighter during the 
four-score years of his life. " He will make a good priest, for 
he has a tender heart," said his father. The father's test of 
vocation indicates that the son's supernatural charity had some 
quality of natural heredity mingled with it. 

Vincent was, therefore, sent to a school kept by the Fran- 
ciscans at Dax. But he had not made up his mind to study 
for the priesthood ; rather the contrary. And when after a 
few years his devout preceptors urged him to do so he was 
startled ; he hesitated, prayed hard, and only reluctantly con- 
sented, although a boy distinguished for proficiency and for 
piety. 

At twenty years of age he was through with the course at 
Dax and had received minor orders. He then went to the 
University of Saragossa, but soon changed to that of Toulouse, 
where he was ordained priest in 1600. He continued his 
studies for several years more, probably attaining to the doc- 
torate. 

For three score years Vincent labored as a priest in the 
highest order of supernatural activity. He was a founder of 
religious communities of both men and women, an institutor 
of gigantic works of charity and religion which yet endure and 
never can perish, an expounder of the laws of heavenly mercy 
to the whole world. Vincent was the strategist and tactician 
of charity's holy warfare, the leader of his age in pacifying 
human passions, the foremost man among men for frankness 
and courage, the most powerful promoter of female activity 
for God and the poor ever known, yet always the simplest of 
Christians. 

Looking back on his achievements, he appears the most 
progressive, and indeed aggressive, of master-men. Yet by the 
witness of those who knew him personally, and, in fact, by his 



1 8 9 9-] 



SAINT VINCENT DE PA UL. 



723 



own self-witness, he seemed to be ruled wholly by sugges- 
tions from others, seemed to succeed only after patient endur- 
ance of failure upon failure, always yielding and humble, and 
always triumphant. 

Bishop Bougaud thus tells of Vincent's singular, even ro- 




ST. VINCENT DE PAUL ACCORDING TO AN ANCIENT AND AUTHENTIC PORTRAIT. 

mantic, novitiate for his public career. Five years after ordina- 
tion, on a little sea voyage between two Mediterranean ports, 
he was captured by the pirates of the Barbary coast. "' At 
first sold as a slave in the market-place of Tunis, brought away 
into the heart of the desert, he was deprived of all spiritual 
aid, and even of ,the happiness of saying Mass, for two years 
(1605-7). Then escaping from Tunis with his master, whom he 
had converted, and crossing to Aigues-Mortes, he went to Avig 



724 SAINT VINCENT DE PA UL. [Sept., 

non. He is next presented to Monseigneur Pierre Montorio, Papal 
Nuncio, who becoming attached to him, brought him to Rome, 
where he remained fifteen months. From Rome he is sent to 
Henry IV., with secret messages not to be risked in a letter. 
He is received by that great king, and then just at the mo- 
ment when he seemed to touch the highest honors, he quietly 
disappears into a small parish in the suburbs of Paris." 

Nothing can be more interesting than Bishop Bougaud's 
narrative of how St. Vincent founded one of our great modern 
orders, the Congregation of the Mission, otherwise known as 
Vincentians or Lazarists. His success was so great that in his 
own life he sent apostolic men of this order everywhere through- 
out France, and into Ireland, Scotland, Poland, Italy, Mada- 
gascar, and the Barbary States. After his death and unto our 
own times his missionaries are everywhere in Christendom, and 
upon and beyond the danger line in every heathen country, 
worthy cross-bearers of Jesus Christ. Besides this the Vincen- 
tians hold a high place in Catholic education, especially the 
training of priests in seminaries. 

Vincent originated and permanently established the won- 
derful order of Sisters of Charity, one of the peculiar glories 
of the Church of Christ in these later centuries, and the work- 
ing model for the making and directing of a multitude of other 
orders. The entire dedication of the female sex to works of 
charity and popular education, it is not too much to say, 
flowed out from God the Holy Ghost through the soul of 
Vincent de Paul. And this is true not only of vast organized 
efforts like the Sisters of Charity, but of little groups of 
women in a single parish, or individuals working indepen- 
dently. 

Vincent's gift was very different from that of most other 
founders, who got it all by special revelation. Vincent, no less 
successful and far more imitable, gained his by close study of 
external providences, and equally close observance of interior 
impulses of the ordinary supernatural kind. He may be said 
to have led the whole Christian world to a higher degree of 
divine and human charity by means which serve common mor- 
tals for no more than ordinary devout living. "At first he 
refused, and afterwards he accepted the plan," is a phrase 
which summarizes the beginning of many of his works, even 
among the greatest. He is perhaps the foremost of those saints 
who were canonized more by their work than their miracles, 
though after Vincent's death these were very wonderful. He 



1899-] SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL. 725 

was not a man of visions. He plainly said that he never had any 
before the death of St. Qhantal, when he saw her soul meeting 
with that of St. Francis de Sales in the heavens ; and this 
occurred in his old age. But no saint ever gave more exam- 
ples of instinctive obedience to the interior impulse of the 
Holy Ghost and the external ordering of divine Providence. 




CARDINAL ARMAND-JEAN DU PLESSIS-RICHELIEU. 

It was only after thirty-three years of patient trial of his 
views (or rather those which Providence gave him) about his 
community of missionary priests that Vincent finally wrote his 
rule and submitted it to Rome. His biographer says that 
"there was one point, however, which (at Rome) retarded 
everything : the unprecedented form in which he wished to 
establish his congregation. He did not wish that his priests 



7^6 SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL. [Sept., 

should be religious. At first he hesitated to require them to 
make vows ; but afterwards he decided that they should make 
simple vows, and not solemn, which would constitute them a 
religious order." Vincent's purpose was to add to the secular 
clergy a body of men near enough to them in spirit to work 
among them very smoothly, as well as to aid them in bringing 
out their own peculiar virtues. "If St. Vincent were asked," 
continues our author, " why he was so determined that his 
followers should not be religious, he would have given, no 
doubt, good reasons ; but the source is to be found in the 
divine inspiration which was then making itself felt throughout 
the church. Adapting itself to altered circumstances, after 
creating in the middle ages such grand and holy religious 
orders, this divine afflatus was now about to meet the require- 
ments of modern times with simple congregations, no less holy, 
no less fervent, and no less fruitful. More exalted in sanctity 
than others, St. Vincent felt before them this divine breath, 
which was only to be felt later on by all." 

And it was by means of Vincent that Rome itself was to 
obtain an understanding of this new allotment of methods and 
new development of spiritual force in the church. For when 
the leading cardinals of the Roman court refused to accept 
Vincent's plan, he, though the meekest of men, declined to 
yield. "At the time," continues Bishop Bougaud, "the older 
members of the sacred college only saw in such a congregation 
of priests an innovation, and therefore they refused to approve 
it. In vain did Father Berthe, who was sent to Rome for the 
purpose by St. Vincent, endeavor to succeed. His successor, 
Father Jolly, would probably have failed also, had he not met 
in Rome Cardinal de Retz, who always remained devoted to 
his old tutor. The cardinal took up the matter and proposed 
it to the Pope himself. The divine inspirations which saints 
feel by reason of their close union with God, are also felt by 
popes on account of their high position and authority. Alex- 
ander VII., by a brief dated September 22, 1655, approved the 
fundamental principle of the constitutions drawn up by St. 
Vincent de Paul, namely, that the Priests of the Mission 
should take simple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, 
but with this express condition, that these vows do not con- 
stitute them a religious order : Atque dicta congregatio non cen- 
seatur propterea in numero ordinum religiosorum, sed sit de cor- 
pore cleri sacularis" 

One is <" r ""Jed and confused in reading of the number and 



1 899.] 



SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL. 



727 



variety of great things done by this servant of God and His 
poor. Vincent put his hand and heart to an interminable list 
of works and institutions of charity of a kind to be called 
minor because more or less local, and dwindling only by compari- 
son with his two great foundations, the Missionaries and the 
Sisters of Charity. But many of these works were in them- 




CARDINAL DE BERULLE, FOUNDER OF THE FRENCH ORATORY, AND ST. 
VINCENT'S SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR. 

selves gigantic, such as the systematic relief of the wounded 
and sick of vanquished armies, and the care of whole provinces 
desolated by the plague, employing in such undertakings 
literally thousands of volunteer or salaried co-workers, raising 
millions of dollars in money and material, distributing all in 
perfect order and accounting for every penny, never failing to 



728 SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL. [Sept., 

win help from all classes alike, no less the haughty noblesse 
than the sordid peasantry. He founded and endowed great 
hospitals, and equipped them with zealous workers both reli- 
gious and secular ; he established homes for poor old men 
and for foundlings ; he made provision for the betterment of 
the condition of the galley slaves, beginning by taking his 
place, wholly unknown to his friends as well as to the officials, 
as a substitute at the deadly toil and shame of the oar-banks. 
He did everything for every sort of human ill, calmly, simply, 
quietly, but irresistibly; and with a love which can be com- 
pared only with that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

In all Europe no miser rated " the value of money " so 
high as Vincent, nor could any angel in heaven spend it more 
unselfishly for the souls and bodies of Christ's brethren. No 
monarch coveted and gained the loyalty of men more eagerly 
than Vincent, and no seraph could command them with more 
gentle and resistless sway to love Jesus Christ and serve Him 
alone. 

He organized a complete system of visitation of the poor 
in their homes by both the men and women of the upper 
classes, including instruction in Christian doctrine. He founded 
night refuges for tramps. He sifted out the various classes of 
the poor, making careful discrimination between the worthy and 
unworthy, and he established this as a permanent work. His 
plans stopped professional begging and yet relieved all distress. 
He opened workshops for poor mechanics and trade-schools 
for poor boys. He himself thus tells of the results : " By this 
means the [children of] the poor are brought up in the fear of 
God, taught to earn their living, assisted in their necessities, 
and the cities are delivered from the pest of sturdy beg- 
gars." 

One of the great works which have in our own day brought 
the name and influence of St. Vincent de Paul prominently 
forward in every quarter of the Christian world began one 
hundred and seventy years after his death. It is that of the 
conferences which bear his name, there being at present more 
than four thousand branches of this society. In 1833 eight 
young laymen of education and social position in the city of 
Paris instituted the first of these societies for the relief of the 
poor, the most notable charter member being Frederic Ozanam, 
who may be called the second founder ; for under God it was 
the soul of Vincent who, from his place in Paradise, guided 
them in their noble undertaking, and it is his genius of organ- 



1 8 9 9-] 



SAINT VINCENT DE PA UL. 



729 




JEAN JACQUES OLIER, FOUNDKR OF THE SEMINARY AND SOCIETY OF ST. SULPICE, AND 
CO-LABORER WITH ST. VINCENT IN THE REFORM OF THE FRENCH CLERGY. 

ization which has enabled their innumerable members to form 
into compact associations, raise funds, carefully inspect the 
poor in their homes, and judge their needs and apply the 
spiritual and material remedies. Each conference is composed 
of a limited number of the best laymen of the parish, men of 
place, and often of wealth. These personally visit the poor 
and personally help them, holding weekly meetings to compare 
experiences and for some brief devotional exercises, all being 



730 SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL. [Sept., 

inspired by a singularly fervent love of the poor and an edi- 
fying brotherly affection for each other. 

In looking over the secular history of Vincent's era one 
narrie is conspicuous above all others. We cannot help com- 
paring two such powerful characters as Richelieu and Vincent. 
The former, priest and prelate and prince of the church, was 
dominantly the builder of the French monarchy, and his is the 
figure which occupies one's attention in reading the civil history 
of France in the earlier half of the seventeenth century. Priest, 
indeed, and prelate, and prince of the church, yet out of 
hatred of Austria he gave Gustavus Adolphus great subsidies 
in his war against the Catholics of Germany, and was ready for 
an alliance with the Grand Turk himself if it could help his 
ambitious schemes. Students of the art of craft and of 
vengeance enjoy reading of Richelieu and his intrigues and his 
ferocious beheadings. All who love God and human kind 
venerate Vincent de Paul. Richelieu in Vincent's day estab- 
lished the modern absolutism by a marvellous combination of 
deceit and slaughter, making despotism glitter with elegant 
literature and shine with high art, but characterizing his whole 
career by terror and violence. Vincent founded in his communi- 
ties the divine republic of love, the synthesis of the freedom and 
the obedience of the Christian. He did not institute the French 
Academy like Richelieu, but he established innumerable schools 
to teach letters and the faith of Christ to the children of the 
poor, and he opened innumerable hospitals for their aged and 
infirm. Who was the greater man, the founder of the French 
Academy or the founder of the Sisters of Charity ? The very 
romance of cunning and cruelty is in Richelieu, made as famous 
by playwrights and novelists as by the spectacular reality of a 
most lurid history. And Vincent is a sweet miracle of love, 
both in his personal well-doing and his everlasting organiza- 
tions of Christian pity for assuaging human suffering. All 
Europe feared Richelieu, his own fellow-subjects most of all. 
All the world loved and yet loves Vincent de Paul. He was 
one of those exceptional beings whom no man feared, not even 
galley slaves and notorious sinners, unless we call fear that 
pain of heart which an unrepentant sinner feels at the reproach- 
ful glance of a man of God. He is the highest glory of France 
since St. Louis. The French monarchy which Richelieu founded 
on the ruins of personal liberty, home rule, and constitutional 
right went out in malediction and blood, and is gone as finally 
as that of the Pharaos. But Vincent's missionaries and sisters 



1 899.] 



SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL. 



73' 



and laymen's conferences are more than ever the glory of re- 
* generate humanity to-day, after two hundred and sixty years of 
fruitful charity. 

It was, therefore, with the applause of the whole church, 




CLAUDE BERNARD, SURNAMED THE POOR PRIEST, AND AUTHOR OF THE " MEMORARE." 

we may add of the whole world, that Leo XIII. made 
Vincent the stated, universal, and liturgical patron of all works 
of Christian charity. The Holy See having many generations 
back canonized him for his heroism of personal sanctity, now 
canonizes his genius of charity organization, his sacred technique 
of brotherly love. The Holy Father in his bull of the patron- 
age calls him " The great and immortal model of Christian 
charity. He left no misery unassuaged by his marvellous charity ; 
he embraced every labor for the relief and advantage of his 



732 



SAINT VINCENT DE PA UL. 



[Sept., 



fellow-men." Such words, and they are but specimens of the 
general tenor of the document, are unique praise. They are* 
echoed by the entire church ; they are assented to by Prot- 
estants and Jews and pagans in the whole world. 

Vincent, in fact, saw Christ in every poor man. He took 
the Gospel literally : " As often as ye did it to the least of 
these My brethren, ye did it unto Me." And in all his carry- 
ing out of this divine process of brother-making Vincent was, 
to use the words of Bishop La Grange in his preface to this 
biography, " a man of superhuman proportions." He was of 




CHARLES DE CONDREN, SUPERIOR-GENERAL OF THE FRENCH ORATORY, AN 
INTIMATE FRIEND AND ADVISER OF ST. VINCENT. 



1 899.] 



SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL. 



733 




ST. VINCENT AT THE DEATH-BED OF M. OLIER. 

the true saintly sort, an amazing embodiment of the divine love 
among men. 

We were once conversing with a learned French priest about 
the sad condition of that people at present, and of the peril of 
dismemberment which the nation so narrowly escaped thirty 
years ago. Our friend said : " Yes, it would be possible to 
destroy France ; but the Frenchman, never ! " Most true. In 
history how many pre-eminently great souls have been French- 
men ! Whether France is up or down, the knowledge that she 
produced men like Vincent de Paul, though doubtless he was 
the greatest of Frenchmen, gives us valid hopes of her future. 

Volumes might be written upon Vincent's relations to the 
priesthood of France and of the whole church in his day, which 
was of so vital a character and so beneficent as to be usually 
called the Reform of the French clergy. In this he was the 
associate of such saintly men as the Cardinal de Berulle ; Jean 
Jacques Olier, the renowned founder of the Sulpitians ; Pere 
Bernard, surnamed the Poor Priest, and M. de Condren, the 
successor of Cardinal de Berulle as superior of the French 
Oratory. 



734 SAINT VINCENT DE PA UL. [Sept., 

In appearance Vincent was of a plain, even homely counte- 
nance, but when closely viewed, and especially when intimately 
known, his face was found to be ennobled by an extraordinary 
expression of frankness and kindliness. He was simple, cheer- 
ful, and gentle-mannered, but of a grave tone throughout, as 
beseemed one whose earnest study was in a book he never 
permitted himself to close that of human misery and guilt. 
" In looking at the true likeness of St. Vincent," says his 
biographer, " what strikes us at once is his resolute aspect. His 
eyes, deeply set, shone with a singular brightness which seemed 
to penetrate to one's very soul, while at the same time they 
clearly revealed a kindly disposition. His forehead was broad 
and clear, denoting an abiding serenity." Portraits of the saint 
are numerous, " but," says Bishop Bougaud, " often his true 
likeness is not reproduced. The resoluteness of his character 
is not sufficiently emphasized, while its tender side, no doubt 
extreme, is unduly exaggerated." The author gives various ex- 
amples of this resoluteness and vigor of soul in Vincent. His 
treatment of the Jansenistic heresy is a good illustration. He 
was very tender of persons infected by that subtle error, over- 
tender almost of the leader of the sect in its incipiency, but 
absolutely solid for the truth and for the only true way of 
testing and holding it : adhesion to the decisions of the Holy 
See, sincere and unreserved, interior and openly professed. The 
author gives a valuable summary of the early history of Jan- 
senism as well as of its errors, and narrates Vincent's instan- 
taneous detection of them and his active and powerful resistance, 
and this though Vincent was the least suspicious of men. His 
test was simple, and as peculiarly Vincentian as it was Catholic ; 
immediate and unfeigned obedience to the teaching of the 
Church and of Rome. " What, sir !" said he one day to Saint- 
Cyran, the co-founder of Jansenism, " will you rather believe your 
private opinions than the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
said he would build his church upon a rock, and that the gates 
of hell should not prevail against it ? " 

We would call attention, in conclusion, to Cardinal Vaughan's 
introduction, in which he points out the use of St. Vincent's 
lessons for solving the social problems of our time. " In the 
long run," he says, " it will be found that the power of capital 
is a miserably inefficient substitute for Christianity, and that it 
will be destroyed by the combination of numbers, and by its 
own corruption, unless there be a pturn among all classes to 
Christian principle." " Charity was made to suppress mendicity," 



Au SABLE CHASM. 



735 



says Bishop Bougaud. His prodigious courage did not falter 
before the unspeakable evils of the penal system of the seven- 
teenth century, and he was a prison reformer of the heroic 
type, with success in accordance with his courage, we might 
say audacity. The accounts of the treatment of felons three 
hundred years ago read like the chronicles of another race of 
beings, a race totally insensible to human pity. 

We regret that neither our ability nor our space allows us 
to do even partial justice to this our great saint of holy pity, or 
to his great society, the Congregation of the Mission. But we 
hope in another article to return to one part of our subject, 
and that perhaps the most interesting : the origin of the Sisters 
of Charity. Meantime here is a book that one must have. It 
is ably written, beautifully printed, and concerns a man whose 
great plans and noble spirit are ours to use for God's works as 
much almost as they were in his own lifetime. 



AU SABLE CHASM. 




BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY. 

hand of power carved deep this mighty 
gulf? 

In what dim aeon of uncounted days 
Fell the swift blow or slowly chiselled stroke 
Cleaving the rocks, as woodmen -cleave a tree ? 
Was it some giant of primeval time 
Smiting the earth in rage of deadly wrong, 
Or making here a plaything for his brood ? 

Tier upon tier the rugged bastions rise, 
Now, stone on stone, so cunningly arrayed 
That skill of mortal hand can only hope 
To humbly follow, now grown grim and sheer 
Like some dark fortress of the castled Rhine : 



736 Au SABLE CHASM. [Sept., 

Here, in the wall's descent, a yawning cave 
Hewn midway in the forefront of the rock, 
As if the spirits that had wrought the thing 
Had cut a place to rest in from their toils. 
In grotto such as this swart Pan, of old, 
Sat sheltered from the burning noontide heat 
Piping sweet ditties to the river sprites. 

Below the rushing of the arrowy stream, 

Gentle, at first, as is a lover's sigh, 

With now a slumber in a sheltered cove, 

Then issuing forth upon the swift descent. 

Down down the legions of the waters come 

With many a shout of battle-breathing joy, 

With many a cry for triumphs to be won ; 

Down down they rush, to throw their foaming steeds 

Upon the rock-ribbed phalanx of the foe, 

Then, with a mighty sweep, the warriors ride 

Into the peace and rest their valor won. 

Oh, thou, who thro' Life's Chasm art rushing now, 
Who, thro' the granite walls of Circumstance 
Hast cut thy way as by a thousand strokes, 
Tho' but a flake upon the swirling tide, 
Tho' over thee may tower the flinty rock, 
Tho' under thee the bed seem adamant 
And round about thee range a myriad foes 
Know that thy course is onward onward still, 
That naught of earth can bar thy forward way, 
That, tho' the cliffs may rise on either side 
And bid thee sink into Oblivion's gulf 
Thyself thyself strong with our Pilot's power, 
Thyself, with Him, can lay the mountains low, 
And, rushing onward thro' the vale of Life, 
May reach thy peace within the Eternal Sea ! 





" WHAT MAGIC is IN THE NAME OF VENICE." 



ON THE LAGOONS. 

BY E. McAULIFFE. 

" The moon is up, and yet it is not night 
Sunset divides the sky with her a sea 
Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
Of blue Friuli's mountains ; Heaven is free 
From clouds, but of all colors seem to be 
Melted to one vast Iris of the West, 
Where the day joins the past Eternity ; 
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
Floats through the azure air an island of the blest I " 

Byron. 

REMEMBER a night in Venice following such a 
sunset ; the moon reigning supreme, and pouring 
her soft radiance over the laughing water, which 
returned her loving gaze, giving back faithfully 
the deep blue sky and the attendant stars. The 
face of heaven mirrored in the deep ; and on every side the 
ear was regaled with the sweet notes of the guitar and mando- 
lino, mingled with the manly voices of amorous cavaliers. 

What magic is in the name of Venice ! In these first warm 
days of summer, as I listen to the noises of the street, my 
VOL. LXIX. 47 




733 



ON THE LAGOONS. 



[Sept., 



thoughts carry me back to that city of the sea where the 
gondola glides through the silent streets, reflecting the palaces 
which line their sides, and the trees hanging over old garden 
walls, and the bridges, where every object that meets the eye 
is an object of beauty, and where every sound is a sound of 
music ! 

I close my eyes, and in fancy hear the soft swish of the 
waves against the walls of the house, as the tide comes in ; in 
fancy I see my gondola waiting at the foot of the steps ; and 
the snowy-vested gondolier waiting, quiet and thoughtful, gather- 
ing the threads of the story which is to beguile our afternoon. 
And that story will live as long as the stones of Venice, for it 
is the story of a noble life, and every day we have a chapter 




A FEAST DAY IN SAN MARCO. 

of it ; it is the story of the virtues and charities of his master, 
the late Cardinal Patriarch, with whom Beppo, the. narrator, 
lived as gondolier for twenty years, until the saintly man, in 
his old age, gave up the luxury of a private gondola in 
order to save the money for his beloved poor, and gave the 
gondola to the faithful servant, so that in losing his situation 
he should not be left to want. I can see the tears in Beppo's 
eyes as in eloquent words he pours forth the praises of his 
generous friend, concluding always : " Si, signore, adesso e in 
Paradiso" 



1 899.] 



Ox THE LAGOONS. 



739 



How exquisitely drawn in the 
mind's eye is the view from my 
windows on the Riva Schiavoni, 
in the freshness of early morn- 
ing ! Some large ships are rid- 
ing at anchor in the basin of 
St. Mark, one of them an Aus- 
trian battle-ship which has come 
over from Trieste ; all along the 
shore are smaller craft of vari- 
ous kinds, from the eastern 
shores of the Adriatic, which 
come into Venice bringing their 
merchandise. Directly opposite, 
seeming to float on the waves, 
are the splendid churches of 
St. Giorgio Maggiore and Santa 
Maria della Salute ; a little 
further off, on the island of 
Giudecca, we distinguish the 
Franciscan church of II Reden- 
tore ; and now all the bells in 
Venice are ringing for the early 
Masses : 

"And then the organ sounds, 

and unseen choirs 
Sing the old Latin hymns of 

peace and love, 
And benedictions of the Holy 

Ghost ; 
And the melodious bells 

among the spires 
O'er all the house-tops and 

through heaven above 
Proclaim the elevation of the 

Host!"* 

In our house there is a tri- 
bune which looks directly on the 

altar of an adjoining church, and we can hear Mass without 
leaving the house. 

To furnish forth our breakfast, rosy- cheeked maidens have 

* All overjtaly the church bells ring during the elevation. 




740 



THE LAGOONS. 



[Sept., 



come down at daybreak from " blue Friuli's mountain " bringing 
fresh-laid eggs, and butter and cream ; the latter in glass flasks 
as thin as bubbles, with long necks into which is stuffed twisted 
vine-leaves, and the butter is folded in a vine-leaf, and so are 
the strawberries. It is an appetizing repast, and Celeste, the 
maid, is as sweet as her name, with blonde hair, delicate pink 
cheeks, and eyes of heaven's own blue ; a string of glass beads 
around her neck accentuates the color of her lovely eyes. 
What an intense pleasure she took in 
waiting on us, and what a pleasure we 
derived from looking at her! I was amazed 
when first Celeste spoke of her husband, 
imagining her to be a great belle among 
the young men of her class in the town, 
but I found out afterwards that there is 
no family poor enough to let a daughter 
go out to service. It would be a dis- 
grace, and for the girl a danger. So 
they are married young, and while the 
husband is working and saving to set up 
a little home, the bride goes out as a 
servant. 

After breakfast we enter our gondola, 

and float away into dreamland. The gondolier knows where to 
take us ; we leave it all to him. The churches monopolize our 
mornings ; they are beautiful beyond expression " beautiful 
each but differing all." No pen, no tongue, could describe them. 
The artistic mind of Ruskin seemed to feel more deeply than 
any other traveller the beauty of San Marco : " A multitude 
of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long, low pyramid 
of colored light, a treasure heap, it seems, partly of gold and 
partly of opal and mother-of-pearl; hollowed beneath into five 
great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with 
sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory 
sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm-trees 
and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and 
birds clinging and fluttering among the 
branches, all twined together in an endless 
network of birds and plumes; and in the midst 
the solemn faces of angels, sceptred and robed 
to the feet." . . . 

" The St. Mark's porches are full of doves, 
that nestle among the marble foliage and min- 





I899-] 



ON THE LAGOONS. 



74i 




"WHERE THE GONDOLA GLIDES THROUGH SILENT STREETS." 

gle the soft iridescence of their living plumes, changing at 
every motion, with the tints, hardly less lovely, that have stood 
unchanged for seven hundred years." 

Of the piety and devotion of the Venetians the same writer 



742 



ON THE LAGOONS. 



[Sept., 



observes: "At every hour of the day there are groups col- 
lected before the various shrines, and solitary worshippers 
scattered through the darker places of the church, evidently in 
prayer, both deep and reverent. . . . The step of the 
stranger does not disturb those who kneel on the pavement of 
St. Mark : s; and hardly a moment passes, from early morning 
to sunset, in which we may not see some half-veiled figure 
enter beneath the Arabian porch, cast itself into long abase- 
ment on the floor of the temple, and then rising slowly, with 
more confirmed step, and with a passionate kiss and clasp of 
the arms given to the feet of the crucifix, by which the lamps 
burn always in the northern aisle, leave the church as if com- 
forted." 

On the same subject I must quote Mr. Howells's impres- 
sions : " The equality of all classes in church is a noticeable 
thing always in Italy, but on this Christmas Eve it was un- 
usually evident. The rags of the beggar brushed the silks of 
luxury, as the wearers knelt side by side on the marble floor ; 
and on the night when God was born to poverty on earth, the 
rich seemed to feel that they drew nearer him in the neighbor- 
hood of the poor. 

" In these costly temples of the eldest Christianity the 
poor seem to enter upon their inheritance of the future, for it 
is they who frequent them most, and possess them with the 
deepest sense of ownership. The withered old woman, who 
creeps into St. Mark's with her sealdino in her hand, takes 
visible possession of its magnificence as God's and hers, and 
Catholic wealth and rank would hardly, 
if challenged, dispute her claim." 

After midday dinner, without any 
siesta not one of the precious moments 
of our Venetian days could we spare to 
sleep again in gondola for long excur- 
sions : gliding down the Canal Grande, 
past the storied palaces, which for so 
many centuries have been gazing at their 
own mirrored semblances in the depths 
beneath ; past the Bridge of Sighs, past 
the Rialto, and out into the great north- 
ern lagoon ; thence to the outlying islands 
of Murano and Torcello. Swiftly the 

hours fly, and the shades of evening are closing before we have 
seen half the wonders of the region. Another day we visit 




1 8 9 9-] 



ON THE LAGOONS. 



743 



the Lido, a long island between the lagoons and the sea. 
There one can inhale the fresh breezes from the Adriatic, and 
buy shells from the very interesting venders of the spoil of 
the sea. 

From Venice to the island of St. Lazzaro is a charming 
sail of about half an hour. This island belongs to tlie Catholic 
Armenians. In the middle 
ages it was used as a leper 
hospital, and since then has 
been abandoned, avoided by 
all. At the beginning of the 
last century it was nothing 
but a heap of ruins ; to-day 
it is an earthly paradise. A 
band of Armenians, fleeing 
from Turkish cruelties, sought 
refuge in Venice. The doge 
gave them the island, and 
with thankful hearts they ac- 
cepted his gift and soon made 
the " desert blossom like the 
rose." The buildings are mag- 
nificent, and contain, besides 
the portion used by the com- 
munity, a fine chapel and several libraries, containing an im- 
mense number of books in every language, and many rare 
and valuable manuscripts. Among the latter is one in the 
handwriting of our own Longfellow, which they prize very 
highly, as he wrote it for them on leaving the monastery: 





744 



ON THE LAGOONS. 

" Oft have I seen at some cathedral door 
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, 
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet 
Enter and cross himself, and on the floor 
Kneel to repeat his Pater Noster o'er; 
Far off the noises of the world retreat, 
The loud vociferations of the street 
Become an undistinguishable roar. 



[Sept.. 




So, as I enter here from day to day, 
And leave my burden at this minster gate, 
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, 
The tumult of the time disconsolate 
To inarticulate murmurs dies away, 
While the eternal ages watch and wait." 

St. Lazzaro is the headquarters of all the Armenians in 
Europe ; they have here a college where Armenian youths re- 
ceive gratuitous education, fitting them for positions of honor 
and profit. Many of them return to their own country bearing 
the true faith to their schismatic brethren. There is a large 



I899-] 



ON THE LAGOONS. 



745 



printing establishment in connection with the monastery ; in 
the different alphabets, it is one of the richest in Italy ; a 
sample of the different characters, in a book printed in thirty- 
three languages, was presented to us on leaving. 

The monks are very courteous to visitors, and cheerfully 
show them everything outside the cloister. 
They are truly pious and unworldly, and 
very interesting with their dreamy oriental 
eyes and their peculiar costume. The views 
from all the windows are perfectly enchant- 
ing ; on one side Venice with all her towers, 
and beyond the Tyrolean Alps forming a 
barrier against the bleak winds from the 
north ; on the other, the Adriatic, with the 
fine steamers passing and repassing by the 
shore, their stately forms a constant delight 
to the eye. 

All the space on the island not occupied 
by buildings is laid out in gardens, so that, 
from whatever side you approach, the flow- 
ery banks reach the water's edge. The fresh 
verdure of the trees and the brilliant hues of the flowers 
make this wave-washed garden an exquisite spot. 

" How far, since then, the ocean streams 
Have swept us from that land of dreams." 

" In fancy I can hear again 

The Alpine torrent's roar, 
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain, 

The sea at Elsinore. 
I see the convent's gleaming wall 

Rise from its groves of pine, 
And towers of old cathedrals tall, 

And castles by the Rhine." 






746 DON JAIME'S HONEYMOON. [Sept., 

DON JAIME'S HONEYMOON. 

BY HENRIETTA DANA SKINNER. 

SON JAIME DE PEDROSO dropped his title of 
Count when he went into business in New York. 
He was a working-man now and could not afford 
such a useless and expensive ornament. His 
Spanish father little dreamed when he died that 
his rich estates in Cuba Would soon be burned and plundered 
by the insurgents, and his wife and children left in comparative 
poverty. If he could have seen his two eldest boys accepting 
with gratitude subordinate positions in a large Jewish-American 
firm in the United States, importers of tobacco, I think the aris- 
tocratic, soldierly old count would have sat upright in his 
grave with horror. But Jaime and Ernesto were only too 
glad to hide their poverty in semi-disguise in New York, in 
order that they might enable their mother and sisters to live 
in comfort in Matanzas, on what little income remained to 
them. Dofla Paz, their mother, had had to consent, or rather 
to submit, for on this one occasion her usually respectful and 
devoted sons had quietly dispensed with her consent. 

The boys' training in the Jesuit colleges of Havana and 
Paris had hardly fitted them for commercial life in the States, 
and they had to begin at the bottom of the ladder ; but it 
was a matter of little time to work their way up, for their 
familiarity with modern languages, their superior intelligence, 
their orderly, obedient habits and courteous manners quickly 
made them invaluable to their employer. They lived with 
pitiless frugality, for their one idea was to reclaim some day 
their devastated plantations on the unhappy island. In the 
autumn of '97 the Captain-General repealed the order concen- 
trating non-combatants within the fortified towns, and at once 
Ernesto threw up his position, gathered together his little 
savings and started for Cuba. 

"What do you expect to do there, my friend?" inquired 
the practical Jaime. 

" I shall go out to the plantation. I shall make the govern- 
ment give me a guard. I shall take some poor devils of recon- 
centrados out with me and we will grind the sugar. I shall 



1899-] DON JAIME'S HONEYMOON. 747 

'invest my savings in guns and powder, and we shall see if we 
cannot manage to hold the estate against the insurgents." 

" Not unless you pay them tribute." 

" Tribute, the rascals ! No tribute shall they get but hot 
shot. I want a free Cuba too, but I propose to be free to 
work our plantations and keep our people from starving, if I 
have to hold freedom with bayonet and dynamite." 

Jaime's cheek flushed. He would have liked to take a gun 
and go with Ernesto, but he was eminently practical. 

"You will need money," he said, "and a lot of money, for 
food and machinery. I will invest my savings in your enter- 
prise, and as I am the eldest son, I will make you my adminis- 
trador and mayoral and pay you a salary." 

" My dear millionaire ! " laughed Ernesto. " Pray, when 
did you come into a fortune?" 

" My salary has been raised to one hundred and fifty 
dollars a month," said Jaime proudly. " I can live like a 
prince on forty and put by ten for a rainy day. I invest a 
hundred dollars a month in my estate through the services of 
my administrador. It is very simple." 

Ernesto was silent for a moment. " I will do my best to 
see that all is carried out as you wish," he then said, with a 
gravity that made his boyish face look ten years older. 

It was very lonely for Don Jaime in New York when his 
brother left. The firm in which he worked openly sympathized 
with the insurgents, the war feeling was strong, the denuncia- 
tions of Spain excited and bitter. Jaime had inherited Carlist 
principles from his father and had little love for the present 
government of Spain, and was ready enough to criticise its 
colonial policy, its military tactics and political morals. Criti- 
cisms of Spanish methods in Cuba he could have submitted to 
calmly, had they not been mingled with insults to his race and 
his religion which were more than flesh and blood could bear. 
He withdrew himself in proud, dignified silence from inter- 
course with his fellow-men, worked harder and lived more fru- 
gally than ever. He had undertaken to do a large part of 
his brother's work in the establishment, and in consideration of 
this his pay was raised, but it entailed twelve or thirteen hours 
of labor a day. His simple meals consumed little time and he 
rarely went to places of amusement. But, in spite of his in- 
crease of salary, there was no increase in the monthly instal- 
ments forwarded to Ernesto in Cuba. 

Not that Don Jaime was lacking in patriotism or charity, 



748 DON JAIME'S HONE YMOON. [Sept., 

but in sending these monthly payments to his brother he was 
making a sacrifice which Ernesto little suspected. The Cubans 
are an intensely domestic race ; they marry and settle young, 
and Jaime's thoughts had long since been turned towards mar- 
riage and settlement in life. 

She was a little seflorita of Matanzas transplanted to New 
York, and very much out of touch with her new surroundings. 
He had known Lolita Frappoli ever since he could remember. 
Her father had been the Count de Pedroso's administrador in 
Cuba, and had managed the estates there during the long 
absence of the family in Paris for the education of the chil- 
dren. Frappoli had no doubt been an honest overseer, for 
he was no richer when he gave up the work than when he 
undertook it. Nevertheless he had quarrelled with the count 
and left under a cloud. Frappoli, unknown to the count, had 
paid tribute to the insurgents to insure the safety of the plan- 
tation. When, at the end of the first year, explanation became 
necessary, the haughty count dismissed Frappoli and refused 
further payment of tribute. The next week the valuable and 
beautiful coffee plantation, the growth of years, was utterly de- 
stroyed, all the buildings burned to the ground, the defenceless 
employees scattered far and wide, their little homes and their 
occupation gone. The count was too ill to be told of the dis- 
aster and died in happy ignorance of it. Frappoli, who was 
now an active agent of the Cuban Junta, had taken his daughter 
to New York, and found for her the position of secretary and 
accompanist to a famous prima donna, then singing in the 
States. There her thorough musical training and knowledge of 
modern languages made her invaluable to her employer ; but to 
the young girl, bred in the modesty, reserve, and seclusion of 
Cuban family life, the abrupt transition to free-and-easy Bohe- 
mia and the glitter of stage life was appalling. She stuck 
faithfully to her duties while the prima donna remained in New 
York, but refused to travel with her. 

" I am only fitted for home life," she said sadly ; so the 
prima donna called her a tearful little fool, and dismissed her 
after deducting part of her salary for breach of contract. But 
the next position, that of daily governess to the invalid daughter 
of a wealthy merchant on Madison Avenue, was hardly an im- 
provement. It was easy to teach the young lady music and 
embroidery, to read the French and Italian classics with her; 
but to the young foreigner, who had never been allowed to 
walk in the streets without the protecting companionship of 



1899-] DON JAIME'S HONEYMOON. 749 

grandmother or maid, it was nothing short of horrible to be 
forced to take a room in a boarding-house, to walk back and 
forth from her lessons, and frequent the shops alone, and ac- 
custom herself to the independence of American young girls 
and the free-and-easy manners of the young men. Lolita had 
been merry and saucy enough in the protection of her own 
home, but under this strange and, to her, unmaidenly freedom 
she became agonizedly shy. She hardly dared to raise her 
eyes as she passed through the streets. Those who tried to 
befriend her, attracted by a certain quaint prettiness, soon let 
her alone, pronouncing her too bashful and stupid for any use. 

After a year of brave fighting against this spiritual martyr- 
dom, Lolita at last found some one to understand her longing 
for familiar conventionalities. Madame Rommel, the Belgian 
singing teacher, had been brought up in the Old World, and 
she could never reconcile herself to the American young girl. 

" You shall leave all this and make your home with me," 
she said imperatively. " I have a little house and studio and a 
a little French bonne at Harlem, and you shall share them with 
me. You can help me by looking after the housekeeping, 
which I detest, and you can earn a little pin-money by playing 
my pupils' accompaniments and teaching them French and Italian 
diction, which I have no patience for." 

This had been a happy arrangement. Constantly with her 
dear old friend, busy with lessons and household cares, Lolita 
felt at home and quickly regained her quaint, saucy brightness. 
Here it was that the young Count de Pedroso found the daugh- 
ter of his father's agent, the playmate of his sister's childhood. 
It both amused and pleased Don Jaime to see her fidelity to 
her early training, and for her sake he was very mindful of 
all the little conventionalities that surround a young girl of the 
Latin races. His calls became frequent, but Madame Rommel 
was always present, and there were often other friends in the 
pretty studio, so Lolita felt thoroughly at ease and none of 
her friends found her bashful or stupid. 

Perhaps we cannot blame Don Jaime that when he ob- 
tained a raise of salary his hopes rose with it, and he went 
home that very evening to write like a dutiful son to his 
mother, and ask her consent to his marriage with the daughter 
of his father's disloyal administrador. We may suppose that 
Dona Paz wept many tears over that letter. It would be 
but natural. Frappoli had been under her husband's dis- 
pleasure, and was now among the rebels who had caused 



750 DON JAIME'S HONEYMOON. [Sept., 

their present poverty and distress. She must give up for ever 
the hope of her eldest son redeeming the family fortunes by a 
brilliant match. Still, she wrote her boy a loving letter of 
consent. Perhaps it was easier to her now than at another 
time, for, surrounded by all the misery and helpless distress 
attendant upon war, the thoughts of worldly ambition and 
success seemed to shrink away and disappear. It was enough 
if her children were safe and happy and had plenty to eat. 
Death and hunger and disease were very near, were all about 
her ; anxiety for her younger son gnawed at her heart. Let 
Jaime love and be happy as he pleased, safe in distant New 
York. As for the mother, she would pray for Ernesto, and, 
taking her young daughter by the hand, would go like an 
angel of charity to minister as .far as she could to the suffering 
around her. All else was mockery. 

And yet two months went by after receiving his mother's 
blessing, and Jaime had not yet offered himself to Lolita. 
Madame Rommel was very ill, hopelessly ill, and the young 
girl was devoting all her time and strength to her dying friend. 
Jaime felt that he could not intrude with his selfish plans and 
desires at such a time. Encouraged, however, by a tender 
whisper from Madame Rommel when he was admitted to her 
sick-room for a few moments, he began to make preparations 
for his little nest in his few spare hours. It occupied him and 
kept up his spirits in these dreary days of public and private 
suspense. 

At last the kind old singing-school teacher drew her last 
breath, and Lolita mourned her truly. Motherless and as good 
as fatherless, she had clung with her whole heart to this friend. 
It was sad to lay her away for ever, and sad to break up the 
dear studio. Everything was packed now, and soon she would 
be obliged to turn the key on her only home in the wide 
world and find work again. She sat down in the salon for a 
last look at everything, feeling very desolate, when the young 
French maid-of-all-work threw open the door and announced : 
" Monsieur le Comte." 

A sudden embarrassment came over Lolita as the young 
Cuban was ushered into the little drawing-room, now disman- 
tled of all that had once made it so home-like and attractive. 
It was the first time in her life that she had received him 
without the protecting presence of her dear old friend, and for 
a moment it seemed a strange, unmaidenly position. With a 
glance at her mourning, and with trembling lip, she bade him 



1899-] DON JAIME' s HONEYMOON. 751 

welcome, gracefully and timidly. He bowed low and remained 
standing till she signed him to a chair, and invited him to put 
away hat and cane. 

Jaime could hardly command himself to look at the slender 
little dark thing in her black frock. For her sake he wished to 
save her all possible embarrassment, so he assumed a very 
business-like air. 

" Sefiorita," he began very gravely, looking away from her 
across the room and earnestly scrutinizing the chimney-piece, 
" I called to see you this morning about a matter of some im- 
portance which should be settled at once. I understand that 
you are of legal a^e, and that you have sole control of the 
affairs of a certain Sefiorita Maria-de-los-Dolores Frappoli ? " 

" I am of age," she replied, reassured by his easy, matter- 
of-fact tone and deferential air, " and I am that lady's sole 
legal representative." 

" Among her other affairs, then, you have the disposal of 
her heart and hand?" he continued, still in grave, business- 
like tones. 

" Ye yes, I suppose so," she stammered. Dear ! what was 
coming next? 

" I have been charged," he continued quietly, sitting very 
erect and still gazing at the chimney-piece, "by a friend in 
whom I take a warm personal interest, whose happiness I 
think I may say is as dear to me as my own, to speak a good 
word for him as a suitor to the hand of this same Sefiorita 
Frappoli. If you know the young lady well enough to believe 
that his suit is hopeless, and that it would be painful for her 
to have it urged, pray stop me at once, for he would not wish 
to distress her. But if I may if there is ever so little hope 
for him, let me speak. Let me say how earnestly, how rever- 
ently, how eagerly he desires what he seeks." 

" How can I tell ? " she whispered demurely. " How can I 
judge of her feelings till I know more about him ? Is he is 
your friend at all like yourself, for instance?" 

" Very much," he replied, and as his head was still partly 
turned from her, she gained courage to lift her eyes and glance 
shyly at him. " He is about my age and appearance. He is, 
like myself, a business-man, and, I regret to say, without for- 
tune. He can offer his wife little more than the bare neces- 
saries of life." 

" And Seflorita Frappoli has always been accustomed to the 
luxuries ! " she observed sarcastically. 



752 DON JAIME'S HONEYMOON. [Sept., 

A slight smile crossed his lips. " It would not be as bright 
a life or as free from care as he could wish," he went on. 

" Perhaps it would not be so very dark or weary if she 
shared it with him," suggested Lolita. 

He started joyfully. " Dolores ! " he cried ; " Lola ! Lolita ! " 
His eyes left the chimney-piece ; he turned towards her ; then 
a sudden humility seized him. He pressed his hand to his 
head. " I have forgotten what my friend wished me to say 
next." 

" I think it is my turn now," she said gently. " You have 
told me about your friend ; now, I ought to tell you some- 
thing about this Sefiorita Frappoli, for whose future you make 
me responsible. I hope your friend does not overestimate her. 
She is neither pretty nor clever, and she is not always amiable." 

"As if any one but you would say that!" he muttered. 

" Her little dowry is pitifully small," she urged. 

" Ah ! And my friend supposed her an heiress ! " 

" And her father's life has been under a cloud," she added, 
very low. 

" Only to her sensitive vision. Her lover saw nothing of 
the sort." 

"But the world knows of it," she said earnestly and trem- 
blingly. " The world thinks of these things and will think that 
she is no match for him. Your friend, I take it, is a noble- 
man, and owes some consideration to his position. He should 
not choose work and poverty when he might easily marry 
wealth." 

"Hang his title!" he exclaimed impetuously. "You know 
that he does not assume it in business life. As for work and 
poverty, perhaps my friend only adores his sweetheart the more 
for her patient endurance of these things." 

" Just as she loves him more for his noble disdain of possi- 
ble fortune and ease ! " 

" Lolita ! " he cried, and suddenly he was kneeling at her 
feet and looking boldly up at her. " Lolita, isn't it my turn 
now to talk?" 

"Have I said too much?" 

"Never enough! But my friend thinks it is time he had a 
personal interview. He wants to tell Sefiorita Dolores that she 
is his life, his hope, his joy ! He wants to take her hand in 
iis, so! He wants to press her to his heart, so! Don't start, 
dearest ! See ! I have released you already. I will not em- 
brace you again till you ask me to do so ! " 



1 899.] DON JA IME ' s HONE YM o ON. 753 

" Don Jaime ! You will not be so cruel as to expect that 
of me ! " 

" Certainly ! It is the only fitting reparation you can make 
for your pretended dislike of me." 

" Pretended ? " 

" Oh, very well ! If I am so disagreeable to you I will rid 
you of my presence at once. Sefiorita, I have the honor to 
salute you ! " And he took up his hat and cane, bowed low, 
and formally made for the door. She ought to have sprung up 
at this juncture and called him back. He slackened his step a 
little to give her time to do so, but she sat immovable and demure. 

He fumbled with the door-handle a moment, then he turned 
and looked at her reproachfully. 

"Lolita! Who is cruel now?" 

Then, indeed, she sprang up and came forward into the 
middle of the room, holding out her hands and smiling shyly. 
He tossed aside hat and cane and came towards her, but with 
both hands held resolutely behind his back. 

" Seflorita, you understand that I can do nothing till you 
ask me. I gave you my word." 

But she remained mute. 

"Do you wish me to break my word to you?" 

" Yes, I do," she replied, blushing but decided. 

" Ah ! that alters the case ! " and laughing happily he caught 
her once more to his breast, and this time she did not start 
nor shrink, though he even went so far as to touch his lips to 
her brow and cheek. 

" This is our marriage contract," he said, " signed and 
sealed. You are now my betrothed, solemnly made over to me 
by your guardian and legal representative. You see you have 
been courted with all the usual Cuban formalities. I hope you 
give me credit for discretion." 

" I do indeed," she said ; " I am very grateful for your con- 
sideration of my dignity. It would have been very mortifying 
to my pride if any of the preliminaries had been omitted in my 
lonely and unprotected position." 

" It shall not be lonely or unprotected a day or an hour longer 
than I can help. Will you marry me to-morrow, my child ? " 

" And when will the banns be published ? Do you forget 
your discretion?" 

" True, I had overlooked that little matter. We must have 
a dispensation, Lolita. To have the banns published three suc- 
cessive Sundays in the usual way would oblige us to wait nearly 
VOL. LXIX. 48 



754 DON JAIME' s HONEYMOON. [Sept., 

a month. There are excellent and urgent reasons why one 
publication should suffice, and no doubt his Grace the Arch- 
bishop will see that and dispense us at once. We may con- 
sider it settled. To-day is Thursday. You understand fully 
that on Monday morning, at eight o'clock, we will go straight 
to the cathedral, where the pastor will say a Nuptial Mass and 
make us man and wife. Monday morning, then, you will lay 
aside black for the day, and as there is not time to prepare a 
white gown, you will wear the little plum-colored suit that I 
have so often watched for." 

'Monday morning! Don Jaime! have you taken leave of 
your senses ? Do you not realize that a woman has many pre- 
parations to make before she marries ? I will do my best to be 
ready in three months, but anything short of that it would be 
utter unreason to consider." 

" My good child, now it is you who are demented ! Three 
months ? Pray when did your reason forsake you ? Indeed, I 
am really worried. Three months ! Let me feel your pulse and 
look at your tongue." 

"No, no! It is your tongue that needs looking after!" 

" My little Lola, sit down quietly for a moment and let me 
see if we cannot find your wits for you. What ! you wilL not 
let me sit by your side ? Must I sit stiffly opposite you, a 
quarter of a mile away, twirling my thumbs ? Why, it is not 
five minutes, seftorita, since oh, the inconsistencies of women ! " 

" I will try not to be inconsistent any more. From this 
time forth you shall always sit a quarter of a mile away from 
me. But, Don Jaime, there are some practical objections to 
this haste which you do not seem to consider. For instance, 
you have apparently not brought your mind to bear on the 
necessity of looking about for a home, for one thing." 

" Not brought my mind to bear on it ? That shows how 
little you know me! My angel Lolita, have I not already 
gone to the extravagance of engaging the dearest little apart- 
ment you ever saw, right near the dear studio in Harlem. It 
was just made for us two. It may not be absolute perfection, 
but it is the best I have seen, though I have hunted for weeks 
and weeks. I hope you will like the furniture, too ; I chose it 
with so much care" But he checked himself in sudden 
terror. What had he been saying? She drew herself away 
from his arm and looked at him with reproachful, troubled 
eyes and quivering lips. 

"For weeks!" she exclaimed. "For weeks! O Jaime!" 



1899-] DON JAIME'S HONEYMOON. 755 

He bit his lips and turned scarlet to the very eyes. Then 
he threw his head back and burst into a loud fit of laughter. 
For his life he could not stop himself, though he was awfully 
sorry to have made such a slip. He laughed till he cried. 
Then he bent forward and buried his face in his hands and 
laughed till he choked. 

"Jaime! Tell me at once what you mean! For weeks you 
have been hunting, and you have it already furnished ! O 
Jaime ! what did I say or do that made you so sure of me ? 
What was there in my manner that made you feel authorized 
to prepare for your marriage weeks before you had proposed 
to me?" She was nearly crying now. "If I was so un- 
maidenly as to betray my great love for you, believe me, Don 
Jaime, I was not consciously so ! " 

" My sweetest ! " he exclaimed, and he was sober enough 
now. " You unmaidenly ! That could never be ! Forgive me, 
dearest, if I have been bold and presuming. Listen, Lolita. 
I would have asked for your hand two months ago, when my 
salary was first raised, but I knew you could not leave dear 
Madame Rommel in her illness and I must be patient till all 
was over. She knew, dear Madame Rommel, how I felt, for I 
spoke to her, and she too hoped you would feel that you could 
turn to me when she was gone, and she gave me her blessing 
and consent. But, dearest, I was very restless in those days 
of waiting, and it comforted me a little to be preparing a 
pretty home for you when you should be free. And you 
would have had to come to it ! Do you think I would have 
listened to a refusal? My dear girl, if you had chosen to be 
very obstinate, what could have prevented me from taking you 
up in my arms and carrying you off bodily to my castle ? It 
was well you took me when you did." 

She did not look much alarmed. " Which do you really 
mean ? " she asked. 

" Excuse me, but which?" he said, puzzled. 

"When you did me the honor to ask for my hand, you said 
that if your suit was distasteful in the least degree to me 
you would withdraw at once. Now you say you never would 
have withdrawn, but would have marched me off into captivity 
without any regard to my feelings." 

" I suppose I felt pretty safe in saying either," he replied 
wickedly. 

" O Jaime, Jaime ! The more you talk the worse you make 
matters." 



756 DON JAIME 's HONEYMOON. [Sept., 

"Very well," he said. "You may do the talking for awhile 
and see if that will mend them." 

Don Jaime had his own way about the wedding, for there 
was no one to support Lolita in the opposition. But, after all, 
he was never to enjoy the little home he had prepared with 
so much love and pride and at the price of such rigid abste- 
miousness. On the night before his wedding, when he returned 
for the last time to his little hall bedroom in the modest 
boarding-house on Seventeenth Street, he found a note await- 
ing him, written in a carefully disguised hand : 

"If you have any influence with your brother, persuade him 
to abandon his mad scheme or to pay tribute to the Cuban 
Republic. There is no hope for him if he keeps on in his 
present course. 4 CUBA LIBRE.' " 

It flashed through Jaime's mind that the warning could 
come from but one source. No doubt Frappoli knew that the 
insurgents were planning a raid on the ingenio, and was trying 
to save the son of his former employer, the brother of his 
daughter's lover. It would be difficult to induce Ernesto to 
abandon his enterprise. He had borrowed several thousand 
dollars for the necessary machinery and constructions ; it was 
now the height of the grinding season, and Ernesto had written 
that in a few days they would be cutting the cane, that the 
fields promised an abundant yield, and he hoped to clear the 
whole of his debt from this first harvest. He could not draw 
back now. Jaime felt there was no time to lose in useless 
regrets. He obtained from his employers a two weeks' vacation 
for his honeymoon ; this would give him ample time to run 
down to Cuba, interview Ernesto and help him wind up affairs. 

" There is going to be war. You had better stay right here 
and take out your papers as an American citizen," said his 
employer when he bade him good by. 

Jaime shrugged his shoulders and smiled grimly. " We were 
prosperous enough under the old Spanish rule before these 
cursed insurrections. I ask you, What would you do in my 
place ? You find fault with your own government, but when it 
comes to war you will forget everything and stand by it right 
or wrong, will you not ? " 

" We don't have any but righteous wars," said his employer 
warily, but with a good-humored wink. "Take care of your- 
self, young man, for we don't want to lose you ; but let me 
tell you, though I am no jingo, you would find this place too 



1899-] DON JAIME' s HONEYMOON. 757 

hot for you if war is declared before you are an American 
citizen." 

" It is understood, then, that if there is war, I lose my 
place," said Jaime calmly enough, but as he walked away there 
was a lump in his throat. It was not pleasant on one's 
wedding day to be confronted with the prospect of being 
penniless. If he took Lolita to Cuba, he must be fully pre- 
pared never to return. That meant that the little flat in 
Harlem must be underlet, if possible, and the furniture sold. 
Some very unmanly tears forced their way to his eyes. 

But there were other things to weep over than vanished 
castles in the air. On their arrival in Matanzas, Jaime and 
Lolita found Dona Paz busily working with the Spanish Red 
Cross Society in its efforts to relieve the distressing cases of 
misery and destitution among the refugees, crowded and starving 
in wretched quarters. The sufferings of war left no class un- 
touched, and it almost broke Jaime's heart to look about their 
once stately, luxurious home and see it stripped of everything 
that could be sold or pawned, and see the scantiness and 
poverty of their once abundant table. 

" I am getting to be an expert cook," said Lolita gaily. 
" Shall I make you a delicious rat-stew to-day, my dear count ? 
I am sorry we can't afford cat, but they have risen to thirty 
cents apiece and are very thin at that. They would not keep 
the wolf from the door." 

" I wish the wolf would come to the door," said Jaime 
grimly, " then I would shoot him and we could at least have 
wolf steaks." 

With all her brave, practical little soul the young bride 
threw herself into the service of charity. The insurgents' policy 
of devastation, together with the former captain-general's policy 
of concentration, had pushed to extremes the horrors invariably 
attendant upon a prolonged state of warfare in whatever clime 
or among whatever peoples, and in fever-ridden Cuba the misery 
seemed doubly accentuated. The government could with diffi- 
culty find provisions for its own half-fed and fever-stricken 
troops, and the refugees were perforce left largely to the 
charity of the towns-people, who, with few resources at their 
command, could do but little to ameliorate the unhappy con- 
dition of affairs. 

It was with infinite sadness that Jaime descended from the 
leisurely train that had borne him from Matanzas into the 
interior, and viewed for the first tine since its destruction their 



758 DON JAIME'S HONEYMOON. [Sept., 

once beautiful coffee plantation and saw evidences of Ernesto's 
attempts at planting fields of sugar-cane. Ernesto had flatly 
refused to stir from the spot. He said he had faith in the 
ability of the troops to guard the estate if only he were sure 
of help from the working-people ; but their awe of the insur- 
gents, their vivid remembrance of former scenes of devastation, 
made them timid and half-hearted, and they needed his con- 
stant presence to encourage them to work. The difficulty of 
getting food was great. Ernesto shared their hardships with 
the men, as his gaunt, wan appearance proved. Jaime pleaded 
with him in vain. 

" That warning is a mere threat, a bit of bravado," Ernesto 
declared. " We have seen absolutely nothing of any insurgents 
so far, and we have been here three months. I have fifty 
soldiers constantly patrolling the outskirts of my plantation, 
and my workmen can be armed in a few minutes at the first 
signal. Stay two or three days with me and you will see how 
peacefully everything is going on." 

Things were fairly under way. Of the former beautiful 
cafetal, where the evergreen coffee-bush grew under the shade 
of fruit-trees of every variety, intersected by broad avenues of 
royal palms and fragrant oranges, no trace remained. Ruins of 
burned buildings and stumps of blackened trees were all that 
was left of the country home of their childhood. Ernesto had 
cleared the fields for many acres and planted them with sugar- 
cane, converting the cajetal into an ingenio. He had bought 
machinery and built an engine-house, the tall chimney of 
which was rapidly being completed. It would be ready in time 
for the late sugar harvest. Hastily constructed shanties sheltered 
the working-people, while Ernesto himself, the mayoral, and the 
engineer in charge of the cane-crushing machinery slept at the 
engine house to guard the valuable plant. 

The second night after his arrival Jaime was sharing the 
watch with his brother. From dark till midnight he paced the 
grounds near the engine-house, his rifle slung over his shoulder, 
pistols at his belt, and a couple of sleuth-hounds following at 
his heels. The night was exquisitely still and peaceful ; the 
crisp, dry, invigorating air of the interior was a tonic to tired 
nerves. The stars in the deep darkness of the sky looked 
wonderfully near. They seemed to all but speak. The moun- 
tain breeze scarcely stirred the atmosphere. A sudden cry of 
alarm rang through the stillness ; the dogs sniffed the air un- 
easily and Jaime strained every nerve to listen to the note of 



1 899.] DON JAIME'S HONEYMOON. 759 

danger. It had hardly died away before he saw a small tongue 
of flame leaping through the distant cane-fields, then another 
and another. Already he could detect the ominous crackle of 
fire, and again the shrill warning of the sentinels rang out. 
Jaime sprang towards the engine-house to rouse the sleepers, 
when one of the powerful hounds made a sudden leap upon 
him and threw him to the ground. The other lay crouching in 
terror by his side whining piteously. Jaime struggled to free 
himself from the dog's grip, calling loudly to rouse the occu- 
pants of the engine-house, but he had hardly regained his feet 
when the hound seized him by the clothes and held him back. 
He was conscious of a terrific glare of light, the air was full 
of flying objects, and a blow on the head knocked him sense- 
less. 

It was a sad awakening for him, the cane-fields a sea of 
flame, the engine-house a burning wreck, and the soldiers 
dragging from the ruins three crushed and mutilated bodies. 
The young Andalusian sergeant had tears of helpless rage in 
his eyes, and was shaking his fist toward the hills. " Oh, the 
mean, cowardly dynamite fiends ! If we could only get at 
them to fight them ! But they do their dastardly work in the 
dark and through traitors, and are gone before you know it." 

Ernesto was still breathing. The anguish in his eyes was 
as much mental as physical. "The warning you were right," 
he gasped. " My poor mother ! It is ruin for you all. My 
debts! Oh! forgive me." 

44 That is nothing ; we can work ; that is nothing," sobbed 
Jaime. "O my darling brother! you tried to do your duty. 
Think of your soul now ; one little prayer " 

" Must I go?" Ernesto gasped again. "I am not suffering 
much ; I should be all right but for this weakness this suffo- 
cation. Oh, support me ! I am falling ! Give me air air ! " 

They could not stanch the wounds in the poor shattered 
body. The gasping, fainting boy looked agonizedly at them ; 
then he grew still and ceased struggling. 

44 Is this death?" he whispered. 4< God is good. O sweet 
Christ ! who hast bled for me, into Thy hands my poor sinful 
soul Thou knowest all! O Jesus! Mary!" 

And so he swooned out of life. Jaime threw himself sob- 
bing on the ground beside his brother and the dogs crept 
whining about him. Then the sergeant touched him compas- 
sionately and helped him to rise. 

44 The flames will soon sweep this way. I can feel the heat 



760 DON JAIME' s HONEYMOON. [Sept., 

from them. We must start at once with the bodies if you 
wish to give them Christian burial." 

The workmen had rushed from their shanties at the first 
sound of the explosion, and seeing the ruin and the advancing 
flames, had scattered in terror, seizing their scanty belongings 
and making for shelter at the nearest point of the trochas. 

In silence and sadness the soldiers tramped along, bearing 
the bodies on hastily improvised litters. Jaime walked beside 
them, one hand resting on his murdered brother's shoulder, 
the other on the head of the faithful hound whose keen scent 
of danger had saved him from sharing the same fate. At the 
turn of the avenue, where the main road skirts the wood, the 
dog suddenly barked, and they caught sight for an instant of 
figures in ambush. There was a short, sharp interchange of 
shots ; the insurgents retired, and the little troop went on its 
way, carrying one more litter than before. 

A few days later Jaime lay on the veranda looking across 
the pretty bay at Matanzas. Lolita sat near her wounded 
husband, sewing quietly. Their deep thankfulness in being 
together again softened the sorrow of these days, but their 
faces were very grave. 

" I ought to be glad at the news from New York that our 
little apartment is let and that the tenants have bought the 
furniture," said Jaime sadly. " It gives us a little ready money 
for the present in case there is war and we cannot return to 
New York. But I am afraid I am more sentimental than prac- 
tical. Think of it, Lola! Before the insurrections our estate 
was valued at $350,000. After a few years of peace it will be 
worth again as much, yet to-day we are grateful to the Ameri- 
can who accepts it from us in payment of debts amounting to 
less than $15,000. We could never have the heart to live 
there again, now," he added by way of excuse. 

She pressed his hand gently. " I think you did right. 
Debts are a fearful burden," she said practically. " Now you 
are independent." 

" But it is so different from my dreams for you," he com- 
plained. 

" Indeed, Jaime," she said, with tears in her eyes, " I am 
almost glad that we have sorrows and hardships to bear. 
There is so much suffering about us that riches and comforts 
would seem cowardly, almost guilty. I could not enjoy them. 
Your dear mother and Primitiva are glad to have you here, 
and offer us their home with hearts full of love. They devote 



1899-] DON JAIME'S HONEYMOON. 761 

their time and strength to the suffering, and I help thenx by 
attending to the household cares. It is better so. Now I do 
not feel cowardly and useless." 

He hesitated. "Lola," he said inquiringly, " the Captain- 
General offers me, when I am well enough to work again, a 
position on the staff for relief work in the interior. I shall be 
doing for Cuba what Ernesto tried to do for our estate and 
people : encouraging the farmers to go back to their farms, 
and to revive industry and agriculture in the devastated 
provinces. The kitchens and stores that are established in the 
cities will be duplicated in the country districts and every 
inducement offered to the people to plant their farms again. I 
shall have charge of disbursing the relief funds." 

"What else does the Captain-General's offer mean?" she 
asked. 

" It means a noble work of true practical charity and hu- 
manity. It also means the sacrifice of my New York position, 
which in case of war I should have to give up anyway. It 
means a beggarly salary, a mere pittance, which may not even 
be regularly paid. It means frequent separation, as I shall 
have to leave you here with my mother and Primitiva and 
make many journeys into the interior, and it means danger, 
for the insurgents are still strongly entrenched on the moun- 
tains." 

" I know you are not afraid of poverty or work," she said 
quietly. "You have proved it, and I love you for it. I do 
not believe you are afraid of danger either." 

"I?" he exclaimed. "I afraid?" He reddened and 
laughed. " I thought I was asking if you were afraid ! " he 
explained. Then his eyes flashed, he drew her proudly toward 
him and kissed the brave little mouth. " I have your answer, 
dear. Now I will try to get well quick." He sighed a little. 
" I did not think you would spend your honeymoon as nurse 
to a poor wounded man !" 

"I am only too thankful to be a nurse," she replied, "when 
I think how near I came to being a widow ! " And she stooped 
to caress tenderly the noble head of the big hound lying at 
her feet. 








JACOB VS TINTORETVS.F. 



THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. 



BY MARY F. NIXON. 

OWELL has said that in the sixteenth century 
geniuses were as common as they have been 
rare before and since, and the atmosphere of 
mediaeval Venice was peculiarly suited to the 
fostering of talent, the growth of genius. A 
republic, healthy and vigorous, the " Queen of the Adriatic " 
was so constantly occupied in commerce as to prevent such in- 
ternal squabbles as rent the heart of Italy between Guelph and 
Ghibelline, Scaliger and Visconti. 




1899-] THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. 763 

To the lovely, rose-hued waters of the lagoons were brought 
all of the luxury and splendor of the Orient to delight artistic 
eyes ; the city itself, with its palaces and towers, seeming to 
float between sea and sky, was a fitting cradle for the artist 
soul, lulled by the dreamy rhythm of the sea, nursed in its 
beauty-loving arms, and attaining full completeness in its tran- 
quil perfections. 

Into this atmosphere of sturdy virtue and artistic refinement 
there came, in the year 1518, Jacopo, son of Battista Robusto, 
a cloth-dyer by trade, and to this fact Jacopo owed his nick- 
name of "Tintoretto" (The Little Dyer). The boy early 
showed a talent for drawing, and his parents placed him in the 
studio of the great master, Titian. Here he did not long re- 
main, for his genius was of too original an order to permit him 
to endure the tutelage of any one. The great colorist largely 
influenced him, however, as is shown by the motto which Tin- 
toretto placed upon the walls of his studio : " II disegno di 
Michel Angelo, e '1 colorito di Titiano ! " 

Years of study followed : study of nature, the cast, anatomy, 
chiaroscuro. So careful was he to be exact that the Chevalier 
Carlo Ridolfi, the great biographer of Venetian artists, tells us 
that he made small clay images, draped them, arranged them 
in various ways and placed them in tiny houses, to study the 
lights and shadows which fell from diminutive windows. No 
detail was too insignificant and his studies looked endless, so 
much so that he seemed mad to the people about him. 

Mr. Stearns, in his admirable life of Tintoretto, says: 
" None of the great artists of Italy suffered so much from lack 
of encouragement, patronage, and appreciation as Jacopo 
Robusto ; this, no doubt, had its influence in determining the 
bent of his genius, which was always more or less serious, and 
often with an undertone of deep pathos." 

The Venetians were not so generous as the princely Floren- 
tines, such as that Duke of Tuscany who presented Benvenuto 
Cellini with a house as a reward for his " Perseus." Tintoretto 
seems to have painted for the love of his art and for the good 
which he might do, content with a bare living, and " there is 
no record of a more unselfish devotion to an elevated pursuit." 

The first mention of Jacopo, by the cognomen which clung 
to him ever after, was in connection with an exhibition of paint- 
ings by the youth of Venice. Robusto's picture was a portrait 
of his brother and himself, done by lamplight in so wonderful 
a manner that a companion wrote: 



761 THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. [Sept., 

" Si Tinctorettus noctis sic lucet in umbris, 
Exorto faciet quid radiante die?" 

The great paintings of the times expressed clearly the trend 
of thought in the various cities. The Florentine works were 
religious in character, homely scenes, Holy Families and Ma- 
donnas ; the Roman paintings were historical, portraying Con- 
stantine and his glories, or the Acts of the Apostles. Each city 
had its specialty, and the Venetians were especially religious 
with a robust piety which to-day her cathedral testifies to, a 




CHURCH OF THE MADONNA DELL' ORTO, TINTORETTO'S FAVORITE SHRINE. 



1899-] THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. 765 

monument to that brave race of seamen who served as a 
breastwork for Christianity against the Mohammedans. 

But lordly Venice was gorgeous beyond compare. Its palaces 
were frescoed inside and out by the finest artists of the day ; 
its nobles were arrayed in purple and fine linen and glistening 
with gold and gems. Therefore it was to be expected that its 
religious paintings should show gorgeous pageantries, feasts, or 
processions. Tintoretto followed the general rule in his choice 
of subjects, but he painted with a spirituality and a deep re- 
ligious feeling which seems more indicative of the Spanish 
school. 

There was, moreover, such intensity and energy in each 
stroke of his brush that he won for himself the title of " II 
Furioso." Vasari said of him that he possessed the " most 
singular, capricious, and determined hand, with the boldest, 
most extravagant, and obstinate brain, that had ever yet be- 
longed to the domain of painting"; but Vasari was so enamored 
of Titian that he was inclined to undervalue the work of the 
man with whom Titian is said to have quarrelled. 

Emerson says that the true artist must be 

"... Musical, 
Tremulous, impressional, 
Alive to gentle influence 
Of landscape and of sky, 
And tender to the spirit-touch 
Of man's or maiden's eye ; 
But, to his native centre fast, 
Shall into Future fuse the Past, 
And the world's flowing in its own mould recast." 

Tintoretto's character seems to bear out this description. 
He was ardent, energetic, eager, devoted to art, deeply reli- 
gious, amiable, generous but not extravagant, neither jealous 
nor vain, sincere, refined, and of a purity of character rare 
enough in the century in which he lived. In all the various 
documents relating to the Venetian .painters there is no slur 
upon the morality of Jacopo Robusto, no blot upon his 
escutcheon. 

A youthful portrait represented the artist as with a long, 
oval face, square chin, short beard, an open countenance, with 
clear eyes and sensitive mouth, and the carrier in his famous 
picture of the " Golden Calf " much resembles him. The Tin- 



766 THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. [Sept., 

toretto with which we are familiar, however, is such as he 
portrayed in his portrait of himself, now in the Uffizi at Flor- 
ence. It is the likeness of a fine old man with the hoary hair 
which is such a crown of glory to the good, and a care-worn, 
deeply-lined face, with that nobility of expression which comes 
to strong souls who have battled and won, and who have 
learned " How much glory there is in being good." 

One of the finest of the master's paintings, one of his first, 
and yet, fortunately, one in which the main figure is still well 
preserved, is a lovely Madonna, now in the Venetian Academy. 

Our Lady stands upon a pedestal, clad in robes of soft- 
hued blue ; clad simply, yet, oh ! the marvellous grace in the 
lines of the drapery which covers her from the modest throat 
to the sandaled feet. Her arms are half outspread, and seem 
to draw the mantle about her, yet extend it to shelter in its 
generous folds the faithful ones at her feet. Upon her simply 
parted hair is a veil which droops upon her shoulders and her 
waist is encircled with a golden girdle. The coloring is per- 
fect, and each line of the figure the soft brown hair, the 
mild blue eyes, the rose-leaf skin, the slender wrists, the hands 
which look as if meant for loving service, the incomparably 
sweet, protecting expression all make us say to ourselves : 
" That is just what I always thought our Blessed Mother was 
like ! " At each side of the pedestal kneel her devotees, no 
doubt likenesses of some of the famous churchmen of the day, 
although their features are well-nigh indistinguishable from the 
lapse of time. A semicircle of bodiless cherubs poise above 
Our Lady's head and a soft radiance is diffused about her. 

Nothing could be more lovely than the spirit and sentiment 
of the picture ; it is an incentive to everything " lovely and of 
good report," and Tintoretto must have lived very near to the 
heights of virtue so perfectly to portray its most complete 
votary : 

" Ere from the chambers of thy silent thought 
That face looked out on thee, painter divine, 
What innocence, what love, what loveliness, 
What purity must have familiar been 
Unto thy soul before it could express 
The holy beauty in that visage seen ! " 

Very different from this simple picture, yet equally as artistic, 
is the " Miracle of Saint Mark," the pride of the Venetians, 
and probably the most famous of Tintoretto's paintings. 



l8 99-l THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO, 767 

Each guild in those early days had a patron saint, a pious 
practice which it is a pity we have not in vogue in these days 
of irreverence and carelessness. Tintoretto is said to have had 
influential relatives in the Guild of St. Mark, and when he was 
thirty-one he obtained an order to paint for this guild a huge 
canvas (twenty feet long) which was to represent the miracle 
of Saint Mark rescuing a slave from torture and death. This 
marked an epoch in the artist's career, for the exhibition of 
his work was his first step into the Temple of Fame, and praise 
poured in upon him from every side. 

The subject of the picture is one of those beautiful tradi- 
tions which are such realities to those of the faith, and so de- 
votional in all their tendencies. A devout Venetian had been 
taken captive, made a slave by the Turks, and upon his refus- 
ing to forsake his faith was about to be put to death. In 
response to his pious prayers Saint Mark descended from 
heaven in a flash of blinding light, shattered the instrument of 
torture and so terrified the Turks that they spared the victim. 

Few subjects could be grander, and the painting symbolizes 
one of the most comforting doctrines of the church : the effi- 
cacy of prayer, and the permission of God to his saints to 
come to the aid of his suffering ones in time of trouble. On 
this canvas are over thirty figures, and it would appear crowded 
were it not for the perfect adjustment of all, so that each 
figure has its raison d'etre. The prostrate Venetian, enslaved, 
bound, and almost despairing, is superbly conceived, showing 
the advantages of the artist's early anatomical studies ; the 
startled figures grouped about ; the tense body of the tur- 
baned Turk holding up the broken hammer to the astonished 
judge, who leans from a dais in amazement all these are 
pregnant with action and life, marvellous with color. 

The saint appears in the air above, like an eagle swooping 
upon his prey, and it is impossible to conceive anything more 
glorious than the action expressed in his figure. Monsieur 
Taine says : " Here is a man, head downward in the air, his 
clothes flying, yet he does not appear unnatural nor more sur- 
prising than the occasion requires." This is due in part to the 
genius of Tintoretto, but still more is it the outcome of the 
fact that the artist realized that this was not a "man, head 
downwards," and hence unnatural ; it was a saint to whom 
were given supernatural powers. The heart of the Catholic 
painter was equal to his head, and it was given to him in a 
rare degree to combine artistic merit with devotion, and the 



768 THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. [Sept., 

religious feeling of this picture shows the true spirit of its 
creator, for 

"... What of beautiful 

Man, by strong spell and earnest toil, has won 
To take intelligible forms of art 
. . . are recognized to be 

Desires and yearnings, 

feelings after Him, 
And by Him only to 

be satisfied 

Who is Himself the 
Eternal Loveliness." 

Tintoretto's attention 
to detail is shown not 
only in the rich habili- 
ments of the actors in 
the dramatic scene, nor 
the study of each pose 
and figure, but in the 
bits of landscape, the 
columns, arches, lattices, 
and the graceful fringe 
of leafy branches which 
break the sky-line, and, 
framing in the vivid scene 
softly, tone in exquisitely 
with the clouds of the 
blue sky beyond. 

An interesting fact in 
connection with this pic- 
ture is that one of the 
two sketches which the 
artist made for it was 
given to Charles Sumner, 
the great slave champion, 
and is now in the pos- 
session of George Harris, Esq., of Boston. 

There are many charming byways in Venice. Indeed, every- 
where is a dazzling beauty of sea and sky ; but it is a rare 
treat to glide in a gondola from Saint Mark's, under the Bridge 
of Sighs, through the narrow Canaletti where palaces old in 
songjand story rise on either hand, and your blue-shirted gon- 




" ONE OF THE FINEST OF THE MASTER'S 
PAINTINGS." 



1899-] THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTOKETTO. 769 

dolier sings dreamily, " O Italia Bella, ti con amore io canto." 
Come hither on a balmy spring day, far away to the north of 
Venice, where the church of Santa Maria dell' Orto looks out 
toward Murano and the Tyrol. What a beautiful old church 
it is ! Built at the end of the fourteenth century, when Gothic 
architecture was in its 
perfection, its quaint fa- 
$ade, with the carven 
portal, exquisite win- 
dows, and rows of stone 
saints, is fascinating to 
the lover of architecture. 
But the interior contains 
treasures such as kings 
have in vain sighed for 
and coveted. Upon the 
walls hang many won- 
derful paintings, among 
them Tintoretto's " Last 
Judgment" and the 
" Worship of the Golden 
Calf." Both of these 
contain lessons which he 
who runs may read ; 
but more beautiful than 
either, though not more 
remarkable, and certainly 
less well known, is his pre- 
sentation of the " Miracle 
of Saint Agnes." This 
painting is a perfect ex- 
ample of the great mas- 
ter's skill and of his en- 
tirely natural method. 

A Protestant writer 
recently said that the 
difficulty which Protest- 
ants, especially Ameri- 
cans, find in placing themselves en rapport with mediaeval art arises 
from an ignorance of the legends of the Catholic Church, and 
adds : " We know enough of the erratic doings of the Greek 
demi-gods, and it is time that we were better informed concern- 
ing these spiritual heroes and heroines to whom we owe sa much." 
VOL. LXIX. 49 




; THE INTEREST OF THE PICTURE CENTRES IN 
THAT SLIGHT MAIDENLY FIGURE." 



770 THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. [Sept., 

The scene which Tintoretto represented in this matchless 
work is one of peculiar interest from a religious point of view 
as well as artistically, and 

"... What at best 
The beautiful creations of man's art 
If resting not on some diviner ground 
Than man's own mind that formed them ? " 

Saint Agnes was a young Roman maiden, living about 290 
A. D., in the reign of the monster Diocletian. Sempronius, the 
prefect's son, desired her for his bride, but she refused him, 
saying, " I am the bride of Jesus Christ, and all thy wealth 
and pleasures cannot tempt me from my heavenly Spouse!" 
The young man falling ill, his father besought Saint Agnes to 
yield, and upon her again refusing she was accused of being a 
Christian and condemned to torture and death. As she was led 
out to execution Sempronius, hoping to force her to yield to 
him, rushed out to rescue her and carry her away by force, but as 
soon as he laid his hand upon her he fell to the ground, dead. 
His father raised his voice in grief, and at this the tender 
heart of the sweet saint was touched. She knelt beside the 
prostrate form, prayed to God to restore him, and with such 
efficacy that he arose to his feet. The prefect desired to save 
Saint Agnes' life in gratitude for his son's recovery, but the 
populace dragged her away and put her to death, like Saint 
Paul, by the sword. 

The picture illustrates the moment when Saint Agnes prays 
for the dead Sempronius. In the background rise in stately 
splendor the pillars, arches, and a grand basilica of ancient 
Rome, while above them is a band of the most perfect angels 
ever painted. They are not impossible, limp creatures, nor 
like ballet-dancers, nor chubby cherubs ; they are airy, graceful 
beings, natural in pose, holding the martyr's crown in readiness 
for the sweet soul who was angelic in her purity. 

About her is a motley group of centurions, noble Romans, 
women, slaves, fierce soldiery, all life-like ; but the interest of 
the picture centres in that slight, maidenly figure, so modest, 
so exalted, so womanly, so Christian ! Beside her is her em- 
blem, the lamb of innocence. The prostrate youth, just return- 
ing to life, gazes upon her with an expression of wondering 
awe and reverence. Well might she inspire it, for although 
almost a _c4iild^rWas~ a marvel of virtue to the fierce spirits 



1899.] THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. 771 




"THE SWEETNESS OF THE LITTLE MAID PRESENTING HERSELF IN THE TEMPLE." 

about her. Plato says : " The creations of the painter's brain 
stand and look as if alive. But ask them a question and they 
keep a solemn silence." 

Not so ; they speak to all hearing ears and seeing eyes, and 
the lesson of this painting is open to all who will learn. It is 
the triumph of purity over passion, of faith over death, of 
Christianity over the heathen world. No one can look at it 
unmoved and without feeling within himself a longing for the 
virtues which so ennoble poor human nature. So much does 
one feel this aspect of the work that one's inclination is to 
leave it uncriticised. Indeed, the most critical could find little 
fault and few flaws. It is a piece of the soul of the great man 
himself, and his finest work as to its technique, depths of feel- 
ing, and intrinsic worth. 

Scarcely less lovely, though less heroic, is another painting 
upon the walls of Santa Maria dell' Orto. 

The " Presentation of the Virgin " was long a favorite sub- 



772 THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. [Sept., 

ject in religious art, and there is something in Tintoretto's ren- 
dering of it which fills the eyes with tears. The sweetness of 
the little maid presenting herself in the Temple as any ordi- 
nary Jewish child should do ; she who was the Queen among 
women, with the weight of a mighty destiny upon her, the long 
foretold of prophecy how purely docile she was! 

The high-priest, in a magnificent costume, stands on the 
steps of the Temple, and the steps themselves are a triumph 
of the painter's art. The walls of the building are shown in 
all the magnificence of carving, and the steps are painted in 
the most remarkable imitation of stone-work and arranged 
semicircularly, giving a fine opportunity to show the various 
figures grouped about. 

Lazy Eastern beggars, such as besieged Saint Peter at the 
Gate Beautiful, sun themselves, oblivious to so every-day a per- 
formance as the presentation of a poor maiden in the Temple. 
Some have even turned their backs ; but others look dully on, 
neither interested nor curious. 

In the foreground are two superb figures. An old man has 
sprung to his feet and gazes fixedly at the child. What stirs 
within his breast ? Surely, the intensity of his gaze betokens 
that to him is granted some inner sense of the significance of 
the scene. To the left a young peasant woman, whose spirited 
figure has the grace of Guide's women, is pointing out to her 
child the form of the Blessed Virgin, and of all the assemblage 
she and the old man are the only ones who seem to realize, 
even in a measure, the presence of the Mother of God. The 
pity of it! It is a sad picture, and yet it is a blessed sadness: 

" All beauty makes us sad, yet not in vain ; . 
For who would be ungracious to refuse, 
Or not to use, this sadness without pain, 
Whether it flows upon us from the hues 
Of sunset, from the time of stars and dews, 
From the clear sky or natures pure of stain? 
All beautiful things bring sadness, nor alone 
Music, whereof that wisest poet spake; 
Because in us keen longings they awake 
After the good for which we pine and groan, 
From which, exiled, we make continual moan, 
Till once again we may our spirits slake 
At those clear streams which man did first forsake 
When he would dig for fountains of his own." 



1899-] THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. 773 

" La Sposalizio," or the Marriage of Saint Catherine, is 
one of the best known of Tintoretto's paintings. It hangs in 
the Sala de Colegio of the Doge's Palace, Venice. The story 
of the noble Alexandrian princess is too well known to need 
repetition, and the beauty of this painting lies in its coloring 
and the grace of its figures. Its chief interest lies in the fact 
that the Madonna is supposed to be a portrait of the wife of 
Tintoretto. 

Faustina dei Vescovi was the daughter of a noble house, 
and she showed herself to be a woman of rare good sense in 
that she /was willing to marry beneath her as the world of 
her day called it preferring a man of genius and piety to the 
profligate nobility which surrounded her. The marriage seems 
to have been a very happy one, and their home in the Palazzo 
Camello, a grand old marble palace, carved and pillared in 
mediaeval beauty, still standing upon the banks of the Grand 
Canal, was a more harmonious one than that of many artists 
in those days or since. Tintoretto was devoted to his wife, 
and her oval, thoughtful face, with so much of noble beauty 
in its aristocratic lines, appears in many of the artist's pictures, 
especially when he portrays the Madonna. 

In " La Sposalizio " the Blessed Virgin is upon a dais, 
robed in soft blue draperies, holding in her tender arms the 
Infant Christ and bending over him with much womanliness 
and dignity in her graceful pose. Her face is refined, gentle, 
and far more lovely than that of Saint Catherine. The latter 
kneels before the throne, robed in the rich and rather extrava- 
gant costume of Venetian dames. She is in the act of receiv- 
ing the marriage ring from the hand of the Babe, our Lord, a 
chubby child far from divine, who seems rather amused at the 
performance. He has neither the artless, baby look of Murillo's, 
nor the divinity of Raphael's Child God. The Doge, Nicolo 
da Ponte, Tintoretto's great patron, a venerable-looking man, 
kneels at the left, a devotee near him, while above them 
angels carry celestial flowers. The picture has not the vivid 
life which animates the Saint Agnes, nor the dramatic ele- 
ments of the Saint Mark, nor the tenderness of the Presenta- 
tion, but it has a dignity, a significance, and a beauty all its 
own. 

Emerson in his essay on Humanity in Art says: "All great 
actions have been simple and all great pictures are," and it is 
the calm simplicity of " La Sposalizio " which pleases. It is 
one of the pictures of which one feels that it was painted for 



774 THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO, [Sept., 

one's self rather than for the multitude, and it appeals to all 
those "capable of being touched by simplicity and lofty emo- 
tion." 

Tintoretto painted three " Crucifixions," each one a master- 
piece, but the one now in the Scuola di San Ro'cco is con- 
sidered the finest. It is grandly awful! The most dramatic, 
the most terrible scene in the world's history is portrayed as 
only a master with Tintoretto's vivid action could paint, and 
yet as sympathetically as only his mighty heart could con- 
ceive it. 

There is a subtle darkness over the whole scene, yet figures 
and groups stand out distinctly, each one notable but second- 
ary to the majestic form of the crucified Saviour of men. The 
fear-stricken, grief-laden group of disciples at the foot of the 
cross has a pathos beyond expression, and the soldiery and 
centurions, horses and men, seem crowded in a vast mette, yet 
in the artist's wonderful grouping each has some specific action 
to perform. A radiant nimbus is behind the head of Christ, 
as if the sun dignified what earth so despised. The face of the 
Master is bent down so as to be invisible a master-stroke of 
genius, for who could bear to look upon so awful a sight? 
At the foot of the cross stands the Blessed Virgin, her face 
upraised to her Son, one hand extended pathetically to touch 
the cross : 

" Quis est homo qui non fleret, 

Matrem Christi si videret 

In tanto supplicio?" 

A critic says of this picture : " I pity the Christian who has 
seen the painting without feeling more profoundly .the serious- 
ness of life, and how real and imperative are the obligations 
of religion." To the Catholic the picture means far more than 
this feeling of duty. It means that our hearts swell, our eyes 
fill, and our spirits yearn to spend our lives in atoning by loving 
service to the Crucified Saviour for the awfulness of his death 
for us, and to endeavor to comfort the heart of His Mother by 
tenderest affection : 

" In the shadow of the rood, 
Love and Shame together stood ; 
Love, that bade Him bear the blame 
Of her fallen sister, Shame ; 
Shame, that by the pangs thereof 
Bade Him break His Heart for Love." 



1899-] THE RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF TINTORETTO. 775 

When Tintoretto bent all the energies of his genius to paint- 
ing this wonderful, almost inspired work of the 
" Divine Humanity that hung 

To brutal gaze exposed," 

he portrayed the mightiest dogma of religion, and showed forth 
his own belief clearer than by a Credo in words. He teaches 
that one should 

" Love the Love that did for his love die 

All love is lost but upon God alone." 
And all who are familiar with this great master and lovable 




"ITS CHIEF INTEREST LIES IN THE FACT THAT THE MADONNA IS SUPPOSED TO 
BE A PORTRAIT OF THE WIFE OF TINTORETTO." 

man feel for him that warm glow of affectionate regard which 
one has for a kindly teacher who has led him step by step to 
higher things. Had Tintoretto not lived as he did and been 
what he was he might have been a famous artist, but he could 
not have raised up for us noble and beautiful ideals. 
His life was spent in 

"... raising worship so 
To higher reverence more mixed with love 



776 RAPHAEL'S TRANSFIGURATION. [Sept., 

That better self shall live till human time 
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky 
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb, 
Unread for ever." 

He died in 1594 after a long and useful life, and we think 
of him ever admiringly, tenderly, as one of those rare souls 
who feel 

"... the high, stern-featured beauty 
Of plain devotedness to duty, 
Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise, 
But finding amplest recompense 
For life's ungarlanded expense 
In work done squarely and unwasted days." 





RAPHAEL'S TRANSFIGURATION. 

BY D. J. McMACKIN. 

lEHOLD, no ministering Angels come 

From Thine eternal Home, 
As whilom on the tempter's mountain height, 

Or on that doleful night 
To aid, anon, in dark Gethsemani 
Thy frail humanity. 

Lo! now, Thy visage as the sun aglow, 

Thy vesture white as snow, 
The Prophets and the Law adoring Thee 

Incarnate Divinity! 

So hath expectant Darkness seen the Light 
And human eyes been ravished of the sight. 




1899-] CHRIST THE NEED OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 777 

CHRIST THE NEED OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 

BY REV. MICHAEL P. SMITH, C.S.P. 

ERO AHENOBARBUS, Lord of Rome, wished 
that all his subjects had but one single neck, 
which he might sever at a blow. The ancient 
world grovelled at the feet of this deified mon- 
ster; repulsive beyond belief, he was the epi- 
tome of itself, and his cruelty has found an echo in every land, 
in every age. 

Humanity, struggling for its own betterment since the 
beginning, had devised no better principle of existence than 
the law of intimidation, whereby the life, liberty, and happiness 
of the multitude were immolated to the ferocity of the few. 
Hopeless bondage was the rule ; ruthless despotism, the excep- 
tion that proved the rule. 

MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN. 

Pharao the oppressor ; Nimrod, hunter of men and beasts ; 
Sargon and Cyrus, Cambyses and Xerxes, Darius the Mede 
and Alexander of Macedon all these great names, that make 
the history of half-forgotten times, are writ in the blood of 
human hecatombs on bulwarks reared from the corpses of the 
slain. Deep calleth unto deep. Ameneman, librarian of Rame- 
ses, three thousand years ago asked his pupil : " What is the 
life of the peasant ? All summer he fights against the locusts 
and vermin to save his crops against the autumn, when the 
tax-gatherer comes. This official and his minions are armed 
with clubs. He has negroes with him who carry whips of 
palm-branches. They all cry, ' Give us your grain.' The 
wretch is caught, bound, and sent off to work without wages 
on the canals ; his wife is taken and chained, his children are 
stripped and plundered." 

An Assyrian monarch (Assurispal) wrote on the walls of his 
palace at Nineve : " I took as prisoners men young and old. 
Of some I cut off the hands and feet, others I mutilated on 
the face and head. Of the young men's ears I made a heap ; 
of the old men's skulls I built a tower. The children I burned 
in the flames." The Bible is full of histories that in some sense 



778 CHRIST THE NEED OF THE INDIVIDUAL. [Sept., 

resemble these tales of the pagans. From Agar and Ismael, 
whom Sara cast forth to die, even to Lazarus the beggar, 
whom Dives allowed to die in sight of his bountiful feasts, the 
stamp of a cruel ferocity is placed on many a reference to 
man's inhumanity to man. Experience did not teach modera- 
tion. Suffering did not teach gentleness. But as time ad- 
vanced and the gloom of age overspread history, the light 
of civilization was seen to be a baleful light, rising on new 
lands only to exploit them, attracting from their savage free- 
dom new hordes only that they might pass beneath the yoke 
and exchange manhood for servility, vigor for torpitude, lon- 
gevity for disease and miserable death. 

EVEN IN ANCIENT ROME. 

We have sat at the feet of Rome, and we have received 
from her laws and language and literature. Rome, inheritor of 
all the arts and powers and vices of mankind since the flood, 
is that great city, that strong city, for which the kings of the 
earth, her princes, have mourned, because no one any longer 
buys their freight " freight of gold and silver and precious 
stones and pearl, and fine linen and purple and silk and scar- 
let, and every ivory vessel and vessel of most precious wood, 
brass, iron and marble, and cinnamon and odors and ointment 
and frankincense, and wine and oil and fine flour and wheat, 
and cattle and sheep, and horses and chariots, and slaves and 
souls of men." Shall we, then, look to her ? shall we look to 
the " immensa pacis Romanae majestas " for some alleviation 
of the cruelty of former times ? Nay, rather, it is Rome who 
called two-thirds of her population chattels instead of men. It 
is a Roman senator who wrote : " The tools on my farm are 
of three kinds: vocal, the slaves; semi- vocal, the oxen; and 
mute, the wagons." It was Cato, the Roman paragon of vir- 
tue, who advised the sale of decrepit men "along with the old 
cattle and rusty scrap-iron." Rome adorned her highways with 
crucified bodies; Rome illuminated her pleasure gardens with 
human torches ; Rome amused her populace with the death 
agonies of the innocent, the aged, the valorous, the virgin. 
Rome subdued the lovers of freedom by putting them to death, 
seven hundred thousand in less than three months, sixty 
thousand in a day. Rome decreed for those who sought liberty 
of conscience, " Non licet esse vos." Rome denied to vast 
multitudes under her rule all rights of contract, of marriage, 
of public service, of property, of personal immunity, of justice, 



1899-] CHRIST THE NEED OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 779 

of judgment, of life itself. Every farm was a convict-camp, 
every household a prison, consuming within the average life 
of man a dozen fresh conscriptions of refined and accomplished 
men and women, who passed swiftly from youthful strength 
and beauty to debauched servility and utter ruin. 

Nor were any exempt from the universal negation of human 
dignity. The noblest Romans of them all "did peep about to 
find themselves dishonorable graves." Cato, Cicero, Seneca 
were virtuous, eloquent, and learned in vain. They died like 
slaves at the nod of their imperial master, who was himself 
" The slave of slaves who called him lord, and weak as their 
foul tongues who praised him." 

The great world lay exhausted and deflowered, the victim of 
its own excess. Manhood had lost its honor, womanhood its 
sanctity, childhood its happiness. Judgment had fled to brutish 
beasts ; hope was unknown, and suicide was the only escape from 
the cloyed appetites of passion and pride. 

THE CHRIST VALUED INDIVIDUAL MAN. 

In the midst of this great and darksome horror of life in 
death, a small, still voice arose, the tender, pleading tones of 
the Incarnate God : " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy-laden, and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke upon 
you and learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart, 
and you shall find rest for your souls." 

Then was accomplished that saying of Isaias the prophet : 
" The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath 
anointed me. He hath sent me to preach to the meek, to 
heal the contrite of heart, to preach a release to captives and 
deliverance to them that are shut up ; to comfort all that 
mourn and to give them a crown for ashes, the oil of joy for 
mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of grief, and they 
shall be called in it the mighty ones of justice, the planting 
of the Lord to glorify him." This wonderful " garment of 
praise " is sanctifying grace, the indwelling power of Almighty 
God, who recognized the value of the individual man which 
the world had ignored, and elevated it to a dignity beyond all 
the promises of nature. Jesus Christ saw the nations broken 
and weary, huddled together like sheep without a shepherd 
and looking upon them, he had compassion on them. 

" Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ," and " to 
them who believed in his name, he gave power to be made 
the sons of God." 



;8o CV/A'/.vy riii-: NRED 01- THR IN DIVIDUAL. [Sept., 

lie came in their human nature to raise them to his divine 
nature, lie restored that image first given in the creative act, 
a special, marvellous likeness to his own incomparable self ; he 
washed away all the stains of their sins; he adorned their 
souls with celestial beauty and splendor. Nay, he made them 
members of his sacred body, bone of his bone and flesh of his 
flesh, anil consequently adopted sons of liod and heirs of 
eternal glory. And with this inheritance he gave them the 
consciousness of their dignity; that is to say, Jesus Christ re- 
newed conscience, exalted it, gave it a power it did not possess 
before, armed it with strength to obey (uul rather than men, 
to endure and by enduring to withstand and overcome wrong 
even unto death. 

nil' TASK OK KOKMIM; TIIK IMU\ IDUAI,. 

As the dazzling glare of the noon-day sun to the newly- 
opened eyes of a blind man, so was the revelation of the 
divine truth and will towards the fallen. For two thousand 
years this new light, the light of revelation, has beamed 
steadily on the earth, supplementing the half-garish light of 
Reason. Meanwhile it has, by a slow, unfaltering process of 
accommodation, revolutionized society. The vast machinery 
which hail hitherto spent its force in crushing the individual 
became subservient to his welfare, protecting, nourishing, edu- 
cating him, and revealing to him the infinite capacities which 
lie dormant in himself. 

The sublime idea of human personality and the sovereignty 
of human conscience which man had waited for the Incarnate 
God to teach him, had been in his grasp from the first. St. 
Paul found him inexcusable because he had not known from 
the beginning " the invisible things of (iod, his power also and 
his divinity; that in him we live, move, and have our being, 
and that he is not far from every one of us, for we are of his 
seed." Hut the vain thoughts which had darkened man's con- 
cept of the type had robbed him also of the image, and he 
has crept back to some just appreciation of the image, by de- 
grees so painful that we may well doubt whether it would have 
been possible for him to accomplish what he has accomplished, 
though possessing Revelation, without divinely appointed aid. 
But Christ provided this aid. He entrusted his ideal of ih- 
individual man to the Church, who, with a mother's solicitude, 
undertook the double task of forming the /W/V'/V/W and, for 
his sake, of reforming the world. 



1899.] CIIKIST ////<; NEED or THE INDIVIDUAL. 781 

The first and moat important step towards counteracting 
the abuses of the old world was contained in the exhortation 
of the first bishop, the Vicar of Christ: "Dearly beloved, I 
beseech you as strangers and pilgrims refrain yourselves from 
carnal desires which war against the soul ; having your con- 
versation [manner of living] good among the heathen, that 
whereas they speak against you as evil-doers, they may, by the 
good works they see in you, glorify God in the day of visita- 
tion. Be ye subject, therefore, to every human creature for 
God's sake, for so is the will of God, that by doing well you 
may put to shame the ignorance of foolish men. Servants, be 
subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good 
and gentle but also to the froward. For unto this you arc 
called, because Christ also suffered, leaving you an example" 
(Ep. of St. Peter). 

TIIK KKI-'OKMATION OK TIIK WORM) KKSU I/I'KI). 

Uy heroic adherence to this one principle of cheerful sub- 
mission to tyranny for Christ's sake the Church has from that 
day to this guaranteed freedom to every individual. Under- 
stand me, this freedom has not been of this world, earthy, 
sensual, devilish, but it has been the freedom to develop every 
god-given power according to the supernatural estimate of these 
powers which God has revealed. It is the freedom wherewith 
God has made us free the freedom under his promise, "You 
shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free." 

The gladiators entering the arena where death awaited 
them, turned to C.'usar in the intrepidity of natural ferocity, or 
hardened and coerced by despair, and said, " Tc morituri 
salutamus ; " but the band of Christians, standing in the amphi- 
theatre, raised their eyes to heaven and exclaimed: "We 
give thcc thanks, O Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that thy 
truth raises us above the cruelty of men. We fear not them 
who can kill the body ; we fear only Thee, who hast power 
over the soul." 

Furthermore, every splendid and stable victory of the 
church over the world has been the reward of fidelity to 
this principle. No example more ama/.ing could be offered 
th. in the three centuries of patient, bloody suffering which 
issued in the establishment of every man's "right to serve the 
true God according to the precepts of his incarnate Son. 

l'.i<;anism was vaix | uislird, tin- <.itatoml>s wnr imsr.i led, an<l 
Hie l.aluniin M.i/r.l (MUM lln- summit <>l tin- Capitol, simply 



782 CHRIST THE NEED OF THE INDIVIDUAL. [Sept., 

because untold millions had suffered persecution for Christ's 
sake and had rejoiced, hoping for a reward in heaven. 

Henceforth Christianity and European civilization were iden- 
tified. The labors of the church, guided by the spirit of meek- 
ness, were devoted to the welfare of each. In vain did the powers 
of darkness incite the barbarian invasions. The church retired 
before them to the monasteries, there to lay deep and solid 
the foundations of mediaeval learning. In vain did the virile 
stock she had newly adopted maintain its warlike spirit. The 
church yielded to its ferocity by directing it against the ene- 
mies of God, the Turks, and thence she wrested for her children 
a double blessing the security of Europe and the endowment 
of modern society with sciences and the liberal arts. In vain 
did the feudal system oppress the weak, exalt might above 
right, and defy the law of Christ. The church accepted its spirit 
of independence, engrafted upon it her own marvellous polity 
of representative government, and called forth the modern state. 
In vain did violent and licentious sectaries lead kingdoms in 
revolt against the lenient discipline of the Spouse ,of Christ. 
The movement culminated in the Thirty Years' War, the great 
English Rebellion, and the French Revolution. But the church, 
fleeing before the tidal wave of anarchy in Northern Europe, 
girded her loins afresh, planted the standard of the cross on 
newly discovered continents, and even to-day is consecrating 
conservative Democracy, which her prayers have lifted up from 
the wreck of thrones, and which she recognizes, in part at least, 
as the social ideal set before her when she first began her labors 
under Tiberius Caesar's frown. 

THE FINISHED PRODUCT OF CHRISTIAN TRAINING. 

She found mankind a race of slaves; she contemplates it 
to-day a race of sovereigns. The kings and great ones of the 
earth have disappeared, not because human progress has de- 
graded them, but because human progress has elevated the 
mass of mankind to greatness. 

Behold, then, the finished product of Christian training 
the individual man ! Well and truly does the poet describe him : 
" How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and 
moving how express and admirable, in action how like an 
angel ! In apprehension how like a God ! " 

For nature and art, law and religion, have conspired to 
develop and encourage the exercise of these faculties in ac- 
cordance with his happy destiny of personal perfection and 



1899-] CHRIST THE NEED OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 783 

future fellowship with God. In the fullest meaning of the word, 
life is his own. The all-pervading law of equality is not an 
arbitrary denial of reasonable distinctions, but the reasonable 
denial of arbitrary distinctions. Be his birth ever so humble, 
each individual may aspire to the noblest emoluments of world- 
ly success. His efforts are fostered by a government to whose 
well-being he is an active and recognized contributor. Its laws 
are made at his behest ; their administrators owe the duration 
of their power to his good-will, and they lay no lightest burden 
upon him without his consent. The conservation of his rights 
is the accepted condition of universal liberty ; they cannot be 
infringed without arousing in his defence the mighty energies of 
the world's most imperious dictator, public opinion. 

Nor is the enjoyment of personal liberty restricted for him 
to any particular region ; he has the freedom of the globe, and, 
wrapped in the aegis of his nation's flag, he may defy the 
armies of whatsoever potentate. If labor and frugality, or the 
chance of fortune, make him the owner of property, not only 
is that ownership inviolable, but it is also a multiplication of 
his personality. The ancient saying, " Gravatus sere," does not 
apply to him ; rather he has become another Hermes with winged 
feet. A world-wide system of credit expands his modest capital 
to gigantic powers and lays the resources of all lands in sub- 
jection to his financial genius. 

For his communication with distant peoples the depths of the 
ocean are traversed by the subtle electric fluid ; for his luxurious 
journeys the mountains are pierced ; for his domestic utility brave 
armies grapple with the ferocities of arctic solitude, or carry on 
war against the fierce denizens of the tropics ; the continents are 
severed that a thousand argosies may bring to him more swiftly 
the spices and herbs of Ceylon, the gems of Cape Colony, the 
fabrics of China and Japan. His table is served with viands more 
recondite than the fabled dainties of Lucullus. All the world is 
his market ; and for him, more than for any hitherto, all the 
world is a stage. Its daily happenings pass before his eyes in 
picture and story ; its remotest inhabitants become, in one way 
and another, often in literal truth, his next-door neighbors, and 
their concerns are eventually of vital importance to him. 

This cosmopolitan sympathy, this transformation of daily 
life, by countless devices, for his comfort, instruction, and enter- 
tainment ; this universal co-operation in producing and combin- 
ing the useful, the luxurious, the beautiful for his enjoyment, 
might seem to be, upon first consideration, the tribute of man- 



784 CHRIST THE NEED OF THE INDIVIDUAL. [Sept., 

kind to some world sovereign, or at least to some titled aristo- 
racy ; but in fact nothing is more characteristic of the age than 
the extension of its benefits to all sorts and conditions of men. 
The greatest triumphs of the inventor's skill have been for the 
general public. The state not only provides but insists upon 
education for all; the penny newspapers and magazines of 
literature and art, and the ingenious devices of competitive 
trade, so far complete the education of dwellers in our great 
cities that nothing henceforth can astonish, nothing is completely 
new. 

OVER-REFINEMENT OF INDIVIDUALISM. 

Like the sacred oil which ran down the beard of Aaron even 
to the hem of his garments, the subtle unction of refinement has 
seeped through humanity from top to bottom, and the world is 
teeming with sensitive, susceptible, responsive souls whose 
faculties are keenly alive to all that their environments have to 
give, whether of pleasure or pain, and only from the wilfully 
blind and deaf is the truth half concealed that human indivi- 
duality, in full possession of its prosperous modern heritage, 
has merely gained a new capacity for suffering, amid sur- 
roundings which have a new and tenfold capacity for inflict- 
ing it ; for this is of all ages the most restless and sad. Inven- 
tion, commerce, public and private enterprise, gathering the 
nations into cosmopolitan brotherhood, have taught their 
members new wants and needs, and in doing so have withdrawn 
the possibility of satisfying these needs. From the economic 
point alone, we are justified in repeating the words of Tertullian : 
" Man is become a drug ; the very elements scarcely meet our 
needs ; our wants outrun the supply, and the complaint is general 
that we have exhausted nature." 

The land is filled with young men and young women whose 
aspirations have mounted on the wings of modern culture, un- 
til the distance between laudable desire and possible realization 
has become an abyss. Thousands of hearts that have yearned 
for happy homes, for books, for music, for travel and the 
requisite accompanying leisure, are left to cheer themselves in 
meagre attics, or to find the courage for living on by walking 
penniless through the pomp and splendor of the city streets. 
So cruel is the reckless generosity of society that these unfor 
tunates are constantly being tantalized with the good things 
which are beyond their reach ; and an evening at the home of 
a wealthy acquaintance, or a few short weeks of summer gaiety, 



1899-] CHRIST THE NEED OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 785 

suffice to keep the pain alive, to accentuate the narrowness of 
their lot, and to entice despair. 

From this great army are recruited the most pitiable victims 
of weakness, vice, dishonesty, crime ; and by the prostitution 
of their educated tastes to the intellectual brigandage of the 
stock-market, the hustings, the stage, and, above all, of the 
press, they become a scourge upon society more terrible than 
Attila's hideous warriors. They smite and spare not the privacy, 
the honor, the peace of others ; they organize and voice the 
bitter discontent of mechanics and agrarians ; they promote 
the hostility of political parties ; and, merging at times their 
petty enterprises into one vast conspiracy, disrupt international 
peace. So much power and liberty have been given to the in- 
dividual that, in a sense, the happiness of mankind is at his 
mercy. 

The sphere of human consciousness has become like the old, 
dead moon one side sublimely complacent in the splendor of 
borrowed light, the other black and dismal with its craters and 
abysses scars of primal struggle and defeat. Half of mankind 
is drunk with the complacency of God-given triumphs, half is 
mad with the pangs of frustrated desire. 

THE ULTIMATE PURPOSES IN IT ALL. 

Oh, thrice blind race of miserable men ! to what purpose 
does ancient history recall the horrid griefs of universal slavery? 
To what purpose did God become man, labor, suffer, die for 
the teaching of the truth? To what purpose has God's Church 
persevered through twenty centuries, striking off the chains of 
the slave, educating the ignorant, protecting the weak, moderat- 
ing the impetuosity of the strong ? To what purpose has bene. 
ficent Providence made the twentieth century a golden age in 
comparison with which the golden age of Augustus and the 
golden age of fabled gods are dim, restricted, contemptible ? 
To what purpose are the nations at peace, the oceans filled 
with commerce, the individual man free to make his fortune or 
to mar it ? Do progress, liberty, education lead to nothing 
better than the same old rounds of selfish competitions, carnal 
lusts, aesthetic gratifications, and fierce reprisals which black- 
ened the first pages of human history? Is this the design of 
God? 

What higher purpose does there lie hidden in the creation 
of the individual and his ultimate refinement ? 

Could the publicans and harlots of Galilee, the slaves of 

VOL. LXIX. 50 



786 CHRIST THE NEED OF THE INDIVIDUAL. [Sept., 

Rome, the barbarians of Gaul, better realize the divine presence, 
and better correspond with divine action than we ? Why has 
God exalted the individual in material prosperity, in personal 
liberty, in intellectual enlightenment, except that he might be 
more free to cultivate the supernatural, to live a diviner life? 
But the individual man has ignored the purpose of Christ, has 
perverted his greater gifts. And herein are all found guilty, 
from the anarchist whose greed makes him an assassin, to the 
humanist whose love of the present makes him forget eternity. 

And once more is heard the reproach, the warning of the 
Saviour: "If thou hadst known, if thou hadst known, the 
things that are for thy peace." Peace, O wounded hearts ! 
Peace, ye that wander and are restless and sad, is abundantly 
offered you even in this day of competition, when man is a 
drug and nature gives signs of exhaustion ; but peace to 
be found only in the designs of Him who is the Prince of 
Peace. 

Peace is in the washing away of your sins ; peace is in God's 
favor obtained by prayer and patience ; peace is in likeness to 
His only-begotten Son ; peace is in the dignity of human ac- 
tions elevated by grace ; peace is in the inheritance of truth and 
virtue : " For as many as receive him, he gives them power to 
be made the sons of God, to them who believe in his name." 




1899-! 



ROBERT INGERSOLL. 



787 




ROBERT INGERSOLL. 

BY REV. HENRY A. BRANN, D.D. 

notice this man because of the harm he did and 
tried to do, not because of any great quality 
that he possessed. He had a strong constitu- 
tion and good digestion, and was without nerves 
except on the field of battle. His career as a 
soldier was very short ; while his career as an anti-Christian 
lecturer was too long for the good of his own soul, and for the 
faith of the many half-educated people who listened to his 
speeches or read them in print, laughed at his jokes, and took 
his caricatures of Christian doctrines for solid arguments against 
them. 

He was the type of a large class of Americans, the sons or 
pupils of old Calvinistic clergymen who held with John Calvin 
that human nature is " totally depraved " since the fall, that 
man is incapable of natural good or virtue, and that the im- 
mense majority even of Christians will be damned in virtue of 
a divine decree which takes no account of the good or bad 
actions of individuals ; a decree which singles out a few who 
are called "the elect," not because they co-operate with God's 
grace, do good works, and so merit heaven, but because they 
are foreordained by a blind fate. These old-fashioned ministers, 
like Calvin and Luther, whose heresy was condemned by the 
Council of Trent, denied the existence of free will. They were 
hard, fanatical olfl fellows, like the early Puritans, who seemed 
to think that the great aim and purpose of Christianity was 
to make every one sour-visaged and miserable. The result of 
their teaching and practice was to make even little children 
detest Christian practices and observances, particularly the 
observance of the Sunday, when, to use the phrase of one who 
had grown up among them and afterwards became a Catholic, 
" children were condemned on the Sabbath to sit in solemn 
silence for hours studying Scripture lessons while they kicked 
shins under the table." An early environment of this kind 
helped to make Ingersoll an infidel when he grew up. 

He might have been then saved from agnosticism if he had 
been trained to use his intellect properly in a good Catholic 



7 88 ROBERT INGERSOLL. [Sept., 

college. If some one had taken him when he began to doubt 
and put him through a good course of logic, metaphysics, and 
ethics, as they are taught in Catholic colleges and nowhere 
else, he might have become a solid thinker instead of a mere 
scintillator of flashy phrases. 
Dante beautifully says: 

" Vie piu che indarno da riva si parte, 
Perche non torna tal qual ei si muove, 
Chi pesca per lo vero e non ha 1'arte."* 

There is "an art" in fishing for truth; the one who has not 

studied " the art " does not easily find truth. He speaks, of 
course, of truth in the natural order; of the philosophical 
principles which are the basis of all science, the .pedestal of 
theology, and the preliminaries of faith. That it is hard to 
find these elementary truths without training is shown by the 
whole history of philosophy. Dante quoted Parmenides, Melis- 
sus, and Brissus in proof of his assertion ; we might add the 
whole school of modern philosophers to the list, with few 
honorable exceptions, from Spinosa to Kant, from Locke to 
Herbert Spencer, and from Descartes to Rosmini and Groberti. 
It is only thirty-seven years ago that the church had to con- 
demn the errors of the able Belgian Ubaghs and the Italian 
Gioberti in giving a false definition of what constitutes the 
first element of science an idea! Great as is the genius of 
Goethe, he was not able to rise above the false philosophy of 
Kant and Fichte ; and their scepticism, and consequent panthe- 
ism, taint the whole of an otherwise great poem, " Faust." So 
Ingersoll, without mental training, without having studied logic 
or metaphysics, fell a prey to false philosophy. He read Tom 
Paine's Age of Reason and went a step farther than his mas- 
ter, as the pupil in such cases usually does, for " facilis est 
*descensus Averni" Paine was a Deist; Ingersoll became an 
Agnostic. 

His lack of philosophical training was shown in his abuse 
of terms. I heard him once at a session of the Nineteenth 
Century Club, in a discussion with a Catholic lawyer, use the 
word "necessity" in three different senses in the same argu- 
ment. He confounded moral with physical, and then again 
with metaphysical necessity. If his opponent had asked him 
to define his term, and held him to the definition, the infidel 

* Paradise, canto xiii. v. 121. 



1899.] ROBERT INGERSOLL. 789 

would have been completely bottled up. He never could 
understand the difference between a demonstration a priori 
and one a posteriori. He admitted the possibility of the first, 
but denied the value of the second. He could not see that 
in the demonstration of God a posteriori, or from effect to 
cause, the a posteriori is only logical, not ontological. The 
effect is contingent being, which is first in the order of cog- 
nition, but last in the order of reality. The necessary being 
existed before the contingent ; but the knowledge of the con- 
tingent comes to us first through the senses which excite the 
intellect to action and logical argument. He never made 
philosophical distinctions; yet he must have read Dante, even 
if he never heard of the axiom of the logicians, "distingue 
frequenter." 

" Ch& quegli e tra gli stolti bene abbasso, 
Che senza distinzion afferma o niega 
Cosi nell' un come nell' altro passo." * 

Ingersoll, however, is only one of the many whom Dante 
classes as " fools," because they do not know how to distin- 
guish the different meanings of the same word. This folly is 
the result of the neglect of the study of mental philosophy ; a 
neglect which shows itself in the education of the graduates of 
the most famous American universities when they write on 
metaphysical or ethical questions, either in the press or else- 
where. They do not know the principles which underlie the 
subjects of .which they are writing. They have not what Dante 
calls " I'arte." It is because this " arte " is necessary for the 
thorough training of the intellect that the best Catholic col- 
leges insist on a two years' course of mental philosophy before 
granting diplomas of A. B. to their students. Three years 
would be better still. The Jesuits exact three years of philo- 
sophy from their scholastics before permitting them to begin 
the study of theology, and hence the Jesuits seldom make mis- 
takes in teaching or preaching. 

Ingersoll was not only an untrained thinker, he was also 
ignorant of the theological and biblical subjects which he had 
the audacity to discuss. An incident in his life will show this. 
At the sea-shore, in the same hotel with a Catholic priest, a 
mutual friend tried to get them to discuss questions in Holy 
Scripture. The priest said : " Mr. Ingersoll is a lawyer, and 
therefore he knows that when there is question of the meaning 

* Paradise, canto xiii. v. 115 et seq. 



790 ROBERT INGERSOLL. [Sept., 

of a document, the original or what is next to the original, if 
it exists, is the proper document to discuss. Versions, especially 
unauthenticated ones, are of little account. Let him bring 
here, therefore, the old Hebrew and Greek Bible, and we '11 dis- 
cuss it together." The infidel pretended not to believe in God, 
but he often swore by Him. He swore this time, and said : 
"That fellow has got rne ! I know no Hebrew and little Greek, 
and I am not able to discuss the meaning of words in these 
languages." He was also astonished to learn, as he did, that 
the Catholic Church condemned the " total depravity " theory 
of Calvin. He did not know, and he did not care to learn, 
what the Catholic Church believed or taught. Although he 
answered many ministers who attacked him, he never tried to 
answer the refutation of his false philosophy and shallow theo- 
logy made by Catholic priests. He was afraid of them ; they 
knew too much for him. 

"What do you want! " said a priest to him once at Long 
Beach. " You want us to burn down the hotel, and come out 
and camp on the sand without cover or shelter from wind or 
rain. You do not offer us even the shelter of a bit of canvas." 
He made no answer to this protest against his nihilism. 

He was grossly and outrageously impolite. When he lectured 
on " Robert Burns " in this city the Scotchmen all went to 
hear him, and every one knows that the majority of them are 
Presbyterians and swear by the " kirk." Ingersoll in his lec- 
ture forgot all the proprieties and decencies of life by making 
a most violent and uncalled-for attack upon it, and upon all 
the religious doctrines which the majority of his audience held 
dear. They went to hear a lecture on Robert Burns ; they 
heard instead an infidel's assault on their religion, and went 
away disgusted. 

He had a tenth-rate intellect, much inferior to that of Tom 
Paine or of Voltaire, whom he affected to imitate. Ingersoll 
had some wit, a talent for turning pretty sentimental phrases, 
and for caricature. He had something of the caricaturist of 
the Nast and Keppler order, who by a stroke of the brush 
could change a smiling into a crying face, a pretty into a 
hideous countenance. That's all. Nothing that he ever wrote 
or said will live a decade. 




i 899.] A STUDY IN IDENTITY. 791 

A STUDY IN IDENTITY. 

BY JAMES N. WHITE, JR. 

ONTEAGLE is a summer village, basking in a 
half-cleared forest on the Cumberland plateau. 
Its white soil, pale green foliage, and rare sky 
agree with the lustre of spirit in which its cot- 
tagers experiment with ideals social, educa- 
tional, and religious for which the broader world is not yet 
prepared. I spent a summer there with Chalmers, an old ac- 
quaintance, who was conducting a sketch class. Life centred 
round a hill-side amphitheatre, rudely domed with shingles and 
festooned with morning-glories, but the shelter of many fine 
inspirations. 

A cottage near by was our studio. In front of it the bare 
Mall quivered beneath the sun ; its back windows commanded 
Lover's Walk, deep sunk in ferns, and on the slope beyond 
bees were harvesting. I was not slow to discover that for me 
the beauty of the place culminated in one of the pupils, Miss 
Vaughan. A sense of June on the hill and in the mild, sweet 
air was twin to the sense of her beside me, diligent before her 
easel. I liked her serene ways, and for her sake I came to 
like Miss Malcolm, her close friend, whose powers of fascina- 
tion were conscious and active. 

For her sake, too, I was interested in Hugh Coventry, a 
native, whom we asked to lead us homeward one day when 
the class was on a sketching tramp and had lost its bearings. 
He told such amazing stories of wild-cats and illicit distillers 
that we engaged him to be our guide and protector thence- 
forth. Incidentally he became our favorite model. His feat- 
ures had the massive simplicity beloved by the ancient Greeks; 
he was colored like the dawn ; had frank, blue eyes, yellow 
curls, a downy chin, and was at the best age of the moun- 
taineer, when youth still refines his rustic strength. We pre- 
vailed on him to smoke in the studio after we found how 
much the self-denial was costing him, and he often remained 
on the platform during intermissions, with head gently inclined 
and the pipe-stem barely touching his full lips, while he led 
the conversation, chiefly into wood-lore, where he was easily 



A STUDY IN IDENTITY. [Sept., 

master. Yet he was not at a loss when our topics were un- 
familiar to him. 

" Mr. Coventry" it was Miriam Vaughan speaking "you 
are not saying much to-day." 

"No'm. It 's part natural." Here we laughed. "Besides, 
I was thinking that if you 'd taken them books you 're talking 
about and put them 'long side of what the man says when he 's 
just running on with his home folks, you 'd see what a caym 
and pretty thing living would be if everybody had to write out 
what he's got to say." 

A murmur of applause. " Oh ! Mr. Coventry," cried a little 
school-teacher from Mississippi, " I'm sure that doesn't apply 
to yourself." 

For an instant his pride was alert, then relapsing, " Oh ! 
maybe-so, and maybe-so-not-so, as the fellow says." 

In the course of the summer, Chalmers, Miriam, Sarah Mal- 
colm, and I accepted a general invitation to visit his home, 
several miles distant. Chalmers spent the day sketching. His 
picture has received prizes and honorable mentions at various 
exhibitions ; the garden of cabbages and hollyhocks, the gray 
ash-hopper, the gourded martin-pole, and the mud-daubed hut 
have thus become widely known. A barefooted woman greeted 
us and went to the corn-patch to hail her brother. Inside we 
found the cabin sweet with drying pumpkins, hung in garlands 
from the rafters, and Granny Coventry, smoking a corn-cob 
pipe, chirruped a welcome from her corner beside the clean 
hearth. 

Hugh's entertainment was indefatigable. We compassed, 
during the day, every country pleasure, from eating the wild 
honeycomb to swinging in a grape-vine swing. 

Sarah gathered about herself a troop of half-naked children, 
and Hugh's father, who appeared at noon, conceived a par- 
tiality for me. I was looking at Miriam in the swing. Her 
small hands grasped firmly the rough vines, her diminutive 
pointed boots peeped from a barely visible nest of white lace, 
and her slender frame was steadied for flight, as Hugh lifted 
her high above his head and sent her forward with all the 
might of his powerful arms. 

" Pretty gal," the father said. 

" She is grace itself," I replied, without turning to him. 

"Now you 're talking! Fact is, I kind of reckon it's a 
tolerable good thing for my boy to go amongst you all. I 
didn't take to it first off. City folks is too biggity." 



1899-] A STUDY IN IDENTITY. 793 

" You make an exception in our favor ? " 

"Yes sir-ee! That gal acts just like she was at home." 

Nevertheless, as I told Chalmers that night, I spoke to 
Miriam on our homeward journey of the contrast I had en- 
joyed between herself and these ingenuous natives. " It was a 
topic on which I could talk at length, but she gave the con- 
versation an altruistic turn." 

Chalmers was amused. " First thing you know Miss Vaughan 
will be starting a society with a long name for the benefit of 
handsome mountaineers." 

" Oh ! she doesn't believe in treating them that way. Did 
you hear what Reggie Carver said to his grown sister? He 
was announcing that Hugh had taught Miss Vaughan to hit a 
tomato at fifty paces with his rifle. ' She is truly swell/ he 
said. 'You wouldn't dare have a mountain man come to see 
you.' Of course everybody at the dinner table smiled. No, 
Miss Vaughan told me yesterday that class distinctions are 
like any other bargains, they must be acquiesced in by both 
sides; and the mountaineers will never admit that they are a 
class. The spirit of the Old South is too strong for that. I 
said they never belonged to the Old South. I had always 
heard them called 'po' white trash,' even by the negroes." 

" What did she say to that ? " Chalmers asked with sudden 
interest. 

" Ha-ha! She said, very quietly: 'Did you ever hear of 
one being called that to his face ? ' ' 

Sarah Malcolm lived in a cottage with her mother, who 
was old and pretty as a sea-shell. Miriam was their guest, and 
I almost a daily visitor. One morning in early fall, when the 
leaves were turning their backs to the sharp breeze and we 
were gathered indoors round a fragrant wood fire, Chalmers 
and Hugh entered, bringing consternation as Chalmers ex- 
claimed, "The Coventrys have gone to war." 

"Revenue," was Hugh's reply to our eager demands. "Joe 
Spurrier ketched our old man last week over in Roark's Cove. 
First time his still 's been spotted in four years." 

Chalmers dilated upon the situation as if he were giving 
the recipe for a salad. " All the women and children are hid- 
ing in the pine thickets and every clump of trees is a probable 
ambush." 

Hugh laughed. ";Yes, if any of you fellows in store-clothes 
went down thataways now, you 'd be shot first and they 'd 
ask who you might be afterwards." 



794 A STUDY IN IDENTITY. [Sept., 

"How long has this been going on ?" Miriam asked. "Why 
have we not known it sooner?" 

" Bad travelling for news such times as this," Hugh re- 
sponded with a twinkle in his handsome eyes. But as he 
noted Miriam's pallor he said: "It's all over now, anyhow. 
The old man give them the slip down at Cowan last night. 
We-uns holp. Oh ! don't let that phaze you, Miss Vaughan. 
Nobody was hurt only a nigger." 

" He actually finds it droll," Sarah Malcolm said to her 
mother. 

Hugh was too well assured of Sarah's friendship to flinch. 
"Why. Miss Malcolm," he complained, "who's suffering?" 

" Think of your poor old grandmother," Sarah replied. 

"And your sister," said Miriam. 

"And all those little children, Mr. Coventry," Mrs. Malcolm 
urged with gentle reproach. 

" Shuh ! " the mountaineer answered, half-uneasily, "they 
all's used to it; in ginseng time they sleep with the rattlers 
for more than a month ha ! ha ! " 

He was more concerned with his father's outlawry; for, 
later on : " They say we-uns can't live over a passel of weeks 
off yonder in that Northern jail"; and he added with a tremor, 
" too much pinned up." 

I had once made literary material of Joe Spurrier, whose 
skilful and fearless campaigns, ending finally by death from 
ambuscade, would, in some more conspicuous arena, have earned 
the world's applause. I was thinking now that if Miriam's ex- 
citement further enhanced her beauty, I would gladly venture 
any task for her pleasure, and I therefore proposed to inter- 
cede with the raider. 

Her eyes encouraged me to develop the plan till Hugh was 
converted from suspicion to admiring consent, and the others 
congratulated me as if my undertaking it were a matter of 
course. 

Such a mission to a man of Joe Spurrier's integrity was 
delicate and uncertain, and I was happy to return after an 
absence of three days with the news that his band had 
shifted, without my intervention, to a remote part of the 
district. 

Mrs. Malcolm was alone at the cottage. " The young 
people are having luncheon with friends', at Table Rock," she 
said. " Go ; they will give you a hearty welcome ; it is even 
likely Hugh will be on hand to hear your good news. I think 



1899-] A STUDY IN IDENTITY. 795 

he is more afraid to be seen in the village than he is willing 
to own." 

From Table Rock the mountains billow downward to the 
west in changes of green and blue till the horizon is barely 
picked out by the glint of a stream. The sun sets daily to the 
music of banjos and guitars strummed by romantic tea-drinkers 
on the cliffs, but when I arrived at noon a majestic stillness 
rebuked the gay banter with which my thoughts were em- 
ployed. 

Presently a sound of distant mirth gave me the direction of 
the lunching party, and, before I entered a clearing that inter- 
vened, a person emerged from the bushes on its side opposite 
to me. He glanced about carelessly, then seated himself on 
the turf with hands clasping his knees and face uptilted. It 
was the outward semblance of Hugh, indeed, but marvellously 
changed. His curls had been cropped, his face shaved clean, 
his brow of Apollo had disappeared beneath a cheap yachting 
cap, and his gray homespun, that through long usage had been 
moulded to his vigorous limbs, was travestied by a broad plaid 
of outlandish cut. His very rifle had given place to a freshly- 
hewn walking-stick. 

" The beatitude of ' store clothes ' ! " I said to myself. " I'll 
bet Sarah Malcolm has been trying to sketch him all morning," 
and, screened by a cluster of laurels, I put pencil to paper de- 
liberately. 

No need of admonitions to-day ; lie kept his pose as if mes- 
merized by the amiable blue sky. It was I who saw the bushes 
part again where he had lately passed, and Miriam standing 
there. She was clothed in white, of some quaintly delicate 
texture, as all her dresses were, and she wore, a rare thing for 
the mountains, a bunch of Jacqueminot roses at her waist ; 
one also was fastened in her soft, dark hair, which for to-day 
was unprotected ; and a color more beautiful than roses was in 
her radiant countenance. 

She stood for a moment, smiling and wistful, the picture of 
timid daring, then noiselessly advanced towards the unconscious 
woodsman. She laid her fine little hands on his great shoulders 
and cried close to his ear, " Surrender ! " 

He was on his feet in the instant, holding her hands in his, 
and even in my excitement I admired the grace with which 
nature had fatally endowed him. 

" Silly fellow ! " she said, " with all your bravery to run 
from oking." 



796 A STUDY IN IDENTITY. [Sept., 

Bending, he answered in a whisper ; his back was turned to 
me and her replies were not audible, but in her blushing, joy- 
ous features I read their secret more plainly than words ; nor 
was confirmation lacking, for they began to walk hand-in-hand 
along the path each had come alone and at the edge of the 
copse he stooped again and kissed her. 

Youth accepts without question what a man who has been 
taught his limitations will seek to repair ; I threw the sketch 
on the ground and sauntered back to the village. I was still 
exalted and smiling when, two hours later, I stood on the plat- 
form at Cowan to take the North-bound train on the main 
line. Culloden Jones, with a neck-tie redder and collar and 
cuffs broader than usual, had been talking ever since we left 
Monteagle, but it was only when the train we awaited was 
crowding into the station that I realized he had been telling 
me about the sweetheart he had come down to meet. 

" Culloden," I said with a sudden grasp of his arm, " women 
are hopeless fools ! " 

" Have you just found that out ? " and he smiled his supe- 
riority. " Well, so-long ; I see my people down yonder. You '11 
be back for Sunday, won't you ? " 

A girlish figure and a fluttering handkerchief had signaled 
him, and he pushed forward with a glad " Hello ' " I did not, 
therefore, have to tell him that I purposed never to see 
Monteagle again. 

I did not even hear from the place until more than five 
years afterward. I was then in Rome preparing illustrations 
for a work on Ancient Sculpture which the author, a young 
Chicago gentleman, was publishing elaborately at his own ex- 
pense. Sarah Malcolm came there with her husband, the 
Honorable Bradley Weed, who had been sent by the United 
States on a special mission to the Quirinal. They rented a 
palace, and gossip was aroused by the magnificence of its ap- 
pointments. But the surprise for me was its homelikeness. 
My native land, the past, the might-have-been, were suggested 
everywhere in this oasis of America which Sarah had trans- 
planted to sepulchral Rome. I was grateful to find her likewise 
unchanged, and abandoned myself to a sort of blissful reju- 
venation beneath the charm of her talk. 

She had been to the Vatican that morning, and the solemn 
splendor of the Papal court had impressed her deeply. A 
friend of hers, a certain Lord Bemis, Marquis of Abbeville in 
Ireland, had been made a duke by the Sovereign Pontiff in 



1899-] A STUDY IN IDENTITY. 797 

honor of his having saved an Armenian family while lately 
travelling in the Caucasus. Sarah paused : " May I ask why 
you are smiling ? " 

" I was just thinking how perfectly at home a Tennessee 
girl is with these dukes and popes." 

"Oh! but Lord Bemis is an old acquaintance; he was 
partner with Mr. Weed in the Southern mines. It's strange 
his name is not familiar to you. He is now more of an Ameri- 
can than an Englishman, and I 've just made a discovery about 
his looks he bears a striking resemblance to the Apollo 
Belvedere. I did not feel it till I saw the original." 

" I was sketching the original this very day," I responded. 
" It always reminds me of a very different person Hugh 
Coventry." 

" Poor Hugh ! " she said lightly, not observing the agitation 
with which I had pronounced his name, " he has very little of 
the Apollo about him now." 

"You've kept in touch with them?" 

"Casually. I try not to neglect old friends." 

"And his wife, what of her?" 

Sarah described a visit of the preceding winter. They had 
found Hugh on the rafters in his smoke-house, hanging the new 
bacon his wife lifted up to him. The glamour of youth and 
love was gone. He was broken by hardship and dissipation ; 
his sordid nature lay bare and unadorned, and the one who 
must live in bonds with him till death had not averted her pale, 
tired eyes before they had confessed the battle of the past five 
years, and the defeat. 

I was silent for a time, then I said quietly: 

" I loved Miriam." 

" Miriam ? " 

" Yes, Mrs. Hugh Coventry." 

" Why why Oh, you poor boy ! how did you get that 
ridiculous notion? Miriam is married to Lord Bemis. We 
thought you knew ; we found the sketch you made of him 
don't you remember? at Table Rock, the day they were en- 
gaged." 




BY CLARA SPALDING BROWN. 

HEN travellers take the coast route from 
Los Angeles to San Diego, speeding 
southward for miles on the high bluffs 
at whose feet the waters of the mighty 
Pacific break in long, creste.d rows of 
foam, they leave the fertile Santa Afla 
valley behind, and, passing the ruined 
Mission of San Juan Capistrano, the 
interest of the passengers is centred on 
the broad, blue expanse of waters to their right. There is 
nothing particularly attractive about the small towns on the 
line of the railway, and the country rising gradually to the 
eastward presents little that seems worthy of attention. 

This is another instance of the superficiality with which one 
views a country trom car windows. Few people are aware 
that only a short distance inland lies one of the most pictur- 
esque sections of California, teeming with historical interest 
and exhibiting life to-day as it existed everywhere on the coast 




1 8 9 9-] 



THE MISSION OF SAN Luis REY. 



799 



in the beginning of American occupation. Primitive conditions 
have been retained because the rugged foot-hill country is off 
the line of travel, reached only by private conveyance and the 
United States mail wagon. 

Whoever wishes to investigate this region leaves the train at 
Oceanside, forty miles north of San Diego, and accompanies 
the driver of the mail wagon on his tri-weekly trip, or hires a 
livery team. The road stretches up a bare, .treeless slope for 
half a mile, then descends a long and winding grade to the 
valley of the San Luis Rey River. A scene of pastoral beauty 
is spread out below, as different from that of the mesa border- 
ing the coast as can be imagined. The course of the river, 
here shallow and broad, can be traced by willows and cotton- 
woods. On either side of its low banks are acres of .arable 
soil stretching back to the foot-hills, and covered with wheat 
fields, orange groves, and vineyards. Four miles from Ocean- 
side, on rising ground in the centre of the valley, stands the 
most imposing mission ever erected on the Pacific coast, with 
the possible exception of San Xavier del Bac, near Tucson, 
Arizona. It lends a foreign air to the picture, and does not 
seem to belong to this prosaic land, where the beautiful and 
romantic are too often sacrificed for the utilitarian, and Mam- 




SAN GABRIEL. 

mon is the god universally worshipped. There may be finer 
ruins in Europe, but nowhere can there be an architectural 
pile more in harmony with soft, blue skies, warm, brown hills, 
and the peaceful quiet of seclusion, than this relic of a bygone 
era in California. As we gaze reverently upon it, the bells in 




the crumbling tower, 
brought from far- 
away Spain, tinkle 
softly for some ser- 
vice, and the sound 
lifts us far above 
the sordidness of 
every-day life, near- 
er to Divinity. 

The San Luis 
Rey River valley is 
a long trip of al- 
luvium, with slopes 
of red land leading 
from the mesas and 
rolling hills on either 
side. For forty or 
fifty miles a coun- 
try extends inland 
which, in diversity 
of scenery and fer- 
tility of soil, can 
scarcely be surpass- 
ed. Fruitful ranch- 
es lie between round- 
ed hills, over which 
cattle and sheep 
roam. One of these 
contains six thou- 
sand acres adapted 
to the plough. A 
number of English- 
men have settled in 
the vicinity of San 
Luis Rey, leading 
quiet, comfortable 
lives beyond the 
sound of locomotive 
whistles and the 
noise of the world's 
rush. 

Twenty miles far- 
ther east lies the 



1899-] THE MISSION OF SAN Luis REY. 8or 

charming Pala valley, encircled by purple mountains, with a 
branch mission artistically situated at the head of the valley. 
Beyond are caflons leading upward to higher valleys, the moun- 
tains becoming more lofty, until they attain a height of seven 
or eight thousand feet. 

The population is sparse, and not a modern house is any- 
where to be seen. Large, low adobes alternate with unpainted 
cabins, and in front of many of them is the brush-shaded trellis 
that denotes Indian occupants. A large proportion of the resi- 
dents for miles about are wholly, or in part, of red blood. 
Some of the white men have Indian wives and rear large families 
of half-breed children. There is not a Protestant church, or 
public burial-ground, in all this region. The only religious 
services are those held in the noble old Mission of San Luis 
Rey, the half-ruined branch Mission at Pala and an adobe 
chapel at Pauma, higher up in the mountains, there being no 
resident priest except at San Luis Rey. The missions each 
have their plot of sacred ground in which believers in the 
Catholic faith are interred ; but deceased Protestants are either 
taken to other parts of the State for burial or are laid to rest 
on their farms. 

It is interesting to review the early history of this remote 
part of the United States domain, and the remarkable achieve- 
ments of the padres, who braved unknown dangers and endured 
severe privations that the natives might be converted to the 
Roman Catholic religion, and the revenues of the church might 
be increased by intelligent and indefatigable cultivation of the 
resources of the new land. 

Seven expeditions sailed from New Spain, or Mexico, for 
California between the years of 1526 and 1683, and were failures. 
The Spanish government then decided that the conquest of 
California was impracticable by such means, but offered to 
furnish the Society of Jesus with financial support if it would 
prosecute the work. The general of the Jesuits concluded that 
it would not be best to assume charge of the temporal con- 
cerns of the conquest, though the society would furnish mis- 
sionaries for the religious work. To three dauntless members 
of the order Fathers Rino, Juan Ugarte, and Salva Tierra 
are really owing the establishment of the great chain of noble 
missions throughout Lower and Upper California. 

These men, each eminent in letters and science, met in 
Mexico in 1697, and had many enthusiastic interviews on the 
subject of the unconquered land to the north-west. Father 

VOL. LXIX. $t 



802 



THE MISSION OF SAN Luis KEY. 



[Sept., 




MISSION OF SAN BUENAVENTURA. 

Rino was the first person to discover that Lower California 
was a peninsula, not an island. Father Tierra sailed from 
Mexico across the Gulf of California to Loreto, on the penin- 
sula, where he pitched a tent for a temporary chapel, and 
placed within it an image of our Lady of Loreto, as patroness 
of the conquest. This was the first successful establishment of 
Catholic worship in California. 

Possession of the country was solemnly taken, in the name 
of the Spanish king. The necessities and privations of the little 
band of Jesuits were great, owing to the lack of supplies from 
New Spain and the unproductiveness of the new country ; but 
they kept bravely on with their work, putting up buildings, and 
more than once resisting attacks made on them by the natives. 

Father Ugarte left Mexico on the third of December, 1700, 
and met Father Tierra at Loreto in the spring of 1701. He 
was the first white man who broke ground in California for 
the purpose of raising grain. He imported cattle and breeding 
animals from Mexico, and diligently studied the language of the 
Indians. In the autumn of 1701 he established a mission in 
the Vigge mountains, called St. Xavier. He had the difficult 
task of instructing a fierce and untamed people to live in a 



T.HE MISSION OF SAN Luis REY. 



803 



self supporting way, and to obey persons in authority, besides 
teaching them the truths of a Christian religion. The fathers 
were kind and strove to bind the people together, not to 
destroy or injure them. The Indians were taught to lay bricks, 
build houses, and till the soil the first effort of civilized man 
to develop the agricultural possibilities of California. Vines 
were planted, and crops of wheat, maize, etc., raised, while 
cattle, sheep, and horses increased in great numbers. 

Father Ugarte made a distaff, spinning-wheel, and looms 
with his own hands, and sent away for a master weaver to 
teach the Indians how to make their own clothing. He also 
built the first ship ever constructed on the Pacific coast, and 
named it The Triumph of the Cross. In 1721 he surveyed the 
Gulf of California in this ship, verifying Father Rino's dis- 
coveries and ascertaining the position of the best harbors and 
ports. This wonderful man died at Loreto in 1730. 

The Indians, in their native state, had no chief to whom 
they paid tribute, but each family governed itself. One or 
two, recognized as of superior ability, gave orders for the har- 
vest, headed the tribes in wars, etc. There was none of the 
political intriguing among them that disgraces the present day, 
as they cheerfully recognized the right of the ablest among them 
to govern, when leadership was requisite. They had no temples 

or altars, nor any 
special prayers or 
forms of worship. 
Somewhere, they 
thought, was a 
Great Spirit, and 
a vast universe of 




THE B R U S H-S HADED 
TRELLIS DENOTES THE 
INDIAN OCCUPANTS 

spiritual beings. 
Sorcerers had 
great influence 
over them. These 
men claimed to 
hold intercourse 
with spirits, and 




GRINDING CORN. 



804 



THE MISSION OF SAN Luis KEY. [Sept., 



were the physicians of the tribes. The greatest danger to the 
missions lay in their influence. 

The daily life at this first mission, and all the others after- 
ward founded, was about as follows: The Indians assembled 
at sound of the bell for early Mass, then breakfasted on a 
preparation of boiled corn called atole. They worked until 
noon, hauling stone and timber, making bricks, cultivating the 
fields, or pursuing the various industries that had been taught 
them ; then had dinner of boiled corn, meat, and vegetables. 
The employment of the afternoon was concluded by supper of 
atole, and devotions. The children were instructed in reading, 
writing, singing, and Spanish. All Indians possess a strong 
natural liking for music and a love of bright colors, and these 
tendencies were gratified by the songs and paraphernalia in 
daily use at the mission services. 

The charge has been made against these zealous padres of 
early days that they placed in servitude a simple, harmless 
people who had previously known no masters, and arbitrarily 
employed them for their own aggrandizement and for the 
benefit of the church. As a matter of fact, no men ever 
worked harder and more undauntedly than the pioneer fathers, 
striving not only to advance the cause of their religion, but 
to improve the condition of the natives, and bring forth the 
dormant possibilities of a hitherto uncultivated land. The 
naked Indians were clothed and housed, taught to live regu- 
larly, to marry as in Christian countries, and to do such work 
as they were constituted to perform. The monks who superin- 
tended this gigantic task were highly cultivated men who had 
been statesmen, soldiers, artists, lawyers, engineers, merchants, 
or physicians, in Spain, before devoting themselves to a reli- 
gious life. They worked side by side with the Indians when 
teaching them various arts, and they failed in nothing that they 
undertook, upheld by the most sublime faith and unselfish 
courage. In the face of difficulties such as could not exist at 
the present day, and with only the crudest appliances, they 
.accomplished feats which excite the wonder and admiration of 
all enlightened and broad-minded people. 

By 1745 there were sixteen missions and 25,000 converts in 
Lower California, and the land was rapidly increasing in pro 
ductiveness. The work was actively continued until 1766, when 
the Spanish government became jealous of the influence of the 
Jesuit Order in California, and sent ships with secret orders 
directing the Jesuits to be seized and made ready to leave the 



1 899.] 



THE MISSION OF SAN Luis KEY. 



805 



province. All this was done in one night. The Jesuits never 
yielded or were discouraged when fighting for others, but they 
could not battle for themselves and quietly left the country. 

The Franciscans came in the following year, headed by 
Father Junipero Serra, a scholarly and earnest man; and most 
of the missions in Alta, now the State of California, were 




SAN DOLORES. 

founded by them. The first one was established at San Diego, in 
1769; then followed those at San Gabriel, San Luis Obispo, San 
Francisco, Santa Clara, Santa Barbara, and several other places. 
Each priest was allowed a salary of $400 a year from the 
Mexican government. The communities soon became self-sup- 
porting and then wealthy, each one possessing from 30,000 to 
100,000 head of cattle, besides sheep ; and exporting large 
quantities of hides, tallow, leather, wool, grain, wine, cotton, 
tobacco, and hemp. The wants of the Indians were well sup- 
plied, and an immense surplus remained which the padres mar- 



806 THE MISSION OF SAN Luis REY. [Sept., 

keted to the best advantage. The different missions vied with 
each other in efforts to excel, and everything flourished almost 
magically. 

The San Luis Rey Mission was established under the au- 
spices of the Marquis de Branciforte, Viceroy of Spain, and of 
Governor Diego de Borica, by Father Fermino Francisco de 
la Suen, on the I3th of June, 1798. There were present at its 
consecration Father Antonio Peyri, its first minister ; Father 
Juan Norbetto de Santiago, minister from the Mission of San 
Juan Capistrano ; Don Antonio Grajira, captain of cavalry, with 
a guard of soldiers ; and a large number of neophytes from 
the missions of the southern part of the present State. The 
writer is indebted to Rev. Father Joseph J. O'Keefe, the Fran- 
ciscan priest now in charge of this mission, for information 
regarding it. This was the eighteenth mission in Alta Cali- 
fornia, and was dedicated to God under the invocation of 
St. Louis, King of France. Over fifty children were baptized 
on the same day. Father Peyri was a man of wonderful energy, 
and taught the Indians by both word and example, treading 
the adobes and moulding the clay himself. A vast amount of 
work was necessary on the mission buildings, for they covered 
six acres. The walls of the church were 6 feet thick, 37 feet 
high, 177 feet l on g and 42 feet wide, and the transepts 70 feet. 
Tiles were made for the roofs, bricks burned for the columns 
and arches, and active work of many kinds prosecuted. 

The neophytes became so numerous that it was deemed 
best to establish a branch mission at Pala, in 1816. This was 
done under the patronage of St. Anthony of Padua. 

In 1832, when Father Peyri left the San Luis Rey Mission, 
it owned 70,000 head of cattle, 2,000 horses, 68,000 sheep, fields 
yielding 13,000 bushels of grain annually, the largest church on 
the coast, and a complete set of buildings ; and this prosperity 
was chiefly due to his wise and unremitting exertions. Yet he 
took with him only sufficient funds to enable him to join his 
convent in Mexico, and threw himself on the charity of his order. 

It was a pity that such monumental work throughout the 
coast should have been destroyed by the secularization of the 
churches, which took place in 1833. Mexico became indepen- 
dent of Spain in. 1825 ; California was called upon to submit to 
the Mexican government, and the Franciscans were requested 
to take the oath of allegiance. The head of the order was un- 
willing for them to do it until the Spanish king had abandoned 
the sovereignty of California. For this hesitancy he was ar- 



i8 9 9.] 



THE MISSION OF SAN Luis REY. 



807 




THE CLOISTERS OF SANTA CLARA. 



rested and banished to Manila. Echuadra, the governor-general 
sent to California from Mexico, told the priests that their an- 
nual stipends of four hundred dollars would be withheld from 
them, and that they would be relieved of their temporal bur- 
dens, and lands would be set aside for the Indians who had 
been employed on the missions. Government officials, called 
administr adores, took charge of the missions ; and so the priests 
lost the powerful influence which had been theirs for sixty five 
years. Some of them went to Mexico, some sailed for Boston 
and for Spain, and others were laid in the consecrated ground 
of their missions. 

During those years of almost unexampled activity probably 
65,000 converted Indians died and were buried in the Campos 
Santos. More than 20,000 whites afterwards embraced the 
Catholic religion, as there were no other churches in existence 
during the early occupation of the land by Americans. The 
missions were resorted to by all who felt the need of divine 
worship and sacred rites. The altars, vestments, etc., remained 



8o8 THE MISSION OF SAN Luis KEY. [Sept., 

scattered over a length of seven hundred miles ; and the regis- 
ters of births, marriages, and deaths, extending back for one 
hundred years, have proved of inestimable value to the State. 

There was no resident priest at San Luis Rey after 1846 
until 1892. All the missions were considered parish churches, 
under the jurisdiction of the bishop, and there were few priests 
for so large a territory. The mission was occupied by General 
Fremont and his troops in 1847, and the buildings remained in 
good condition until 1860, when vandals began to carry away 
the tiles and rafters from the roofs, to blow down the beauti- 
ful arches in order to get the brick, even to appropriate the 
doors and windows to their own uses. 

A community of Franciscans took possession of the property 
in 1892, and have expended eighteen thousand dollars in put- 
ting the buildings into habitable condition. They are estab- 
lished there for the purpose of training young men in the holy 
vocation of their order, that they may be in readiness to fill 
the vacancies from time to time occurring on the Pacific coast. 
The present community consists of three priests, six clerical 
students, six novices and lay brothers, in charge of Father 
Joseph J. O'Keefe, O.F.M. 

The one hundredth anniversary of the founding of this mis- 
sion was celebrated last summer, both at San Luis Rey and at 
Pala. It brought together all the residents of the country 
for many miles around, a large proportion of them being 
Indians. The writer was present at the Pala festivities, and 
found them most interesting. Through some mischance no 
priests were sent from San Luis Rey to Pala, and the only 
religious services were those held over the remains of an Indian 
baby one morning, in the adobe chapel. It was a noteworthy 
scene, one which probably never has been duplicated in the 
religious experience of white people; for the long ceremony 
was conducted by girls, in a correct and dignified manner. 

These young people of a dusky race sang hymn after hymn, 
in the Latin, Spanish, and English languages, accompanied on 
a parlor organ by one of their number. The voices were some- 
what nasal, but excellent time and tune were kept. The 
Catholic ritual for the dead was then intoned by one of the 
girls, the others responding, first in Latin, then in English. A 
prayer was offered for the soul of the departed infant, followed 
by a silent prayer, then the Lord's Prayer; and the service 
concluded with solemn marches, played by Indian men, on 
drums and violins. 



1 899.] 



THE MISSION OF SAN Luis REY. 



809 



The bereaved mother crouched on the floor, her face con- 
cealed by the black shawl thrown over her head. Once her 
grief burst the bonds of native stoicism and of custom, and 
she sobbed convulsively. It is a religious tenet of these Indians 
not to betray emotion until the last sad rites are over. The child 
lay in a pine casket covered with white cotton, and bedecked 
with rosettes of gilt paper, with the emblem of the cross on 
the lid, and a gilt crown on its head. It was borne by 
four little girls to the burial-ground, so thickly crowded with 




CLOISTERS OF SAN JOAN CAPISTRANO. 

mounds, on which were pieces of bright china, glass, and sim- 
ple ornaments. After the casket had been lowered into the 
ground, each -man, woman, and child took up a handful of 
earth, kissed it, and threw it on the coffin. It was an impres- 
sive sight, and convinced us that not all the fine and delicate 
customs belong to the white race. 



8io 



THE MISSION OF SAN Luis KEY. 



[Sept., 




OLD GATEWAY, SAN ANTONIO. 



The fiesta continued for four days and nights. Spacious 
remathas, or booths, had been erected in the open space beside 
the church, of tules and willow boughs over a framework of 
timber. Here, shaded from the sun, the hours of both day 
and night were spent in dancing, the playing of games for 
stakes, as the Indian is an inveterate better, and eating tamales, 
tortillas, and other delicacies dear to the hearts of Indians and 
Mexicans. In all this time of mild revelry there was no in- 
toxication nor lawlessness. It would be hard to find as order- 
ly a gathering of the common people, for purposes of pleasure, 
in any Eastern community. Horse-racing took place each after- 
noon, and the joy was intense when a horse owned and ridden 
by an Indian proved the winner in every race, as there were 
several good animals entered by neighboring English residents. 
The ancient game of Indian foot-ball caused much sport, and 
a game of base-ball was played against the nine of a town some 
twenty miles distant ; but in this the Americans won. 

These Indians are very superior to many of the tribes seen 
in the West. They are cleanly, well dressed, industrious, intelli- 



1 899.] 



THE MISSION OF SAN Luis REY. 



811 



gent, and of fine physical appearance. The civilizing influence 
of the Catholic Church, which has ever been about them, is 
manifest in many ways, and they win the respect of all who 
are familiar with them. The lace and needlework of the wo- 
men is exquisitely fine, equal to that which has become so 
famous in Mexico, and evidently emanating from the same 
source the early teaching of the nuns. The children are sent 
to the public schools, and are docile pupils. Afterward they 
attend the industrial schools maintained by the government 
in several parts of Southern California, but under Catholic 
supervision ; or they go to the cities to be instructed in ac- 
complishments by the sisters. The men till the soil, shear 
sheep, and otherwise support themselves in simple comfort. 
There is a reservation in the Pauma valley, half a dozen miles 
beyond Pala, where substantial Indian homes are surrounded by 
cultivated fields and orchards. The rest of the broad valley is 
owned by Bishop Mora, of Los Angeles. 

Not one tourist in ten sees, or even hears of, this beautiful 
section of California, so full of historic interest, and contrasting 
so peculiarly with the progressive conditions and the con- 
ventionality of the portions of the State which are traversed by 
railways. The student of human nature, the lover of history, 
the respecter of zealous Christian work of whatever creed, the 
admirer of rugged, diversified scenery, may well turn aside 
from the beaten paths and devote a leisurely period of time to 
a study of the San Luis Rey valley and its inhabitants. 





8i2 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [Sept., 



REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS IN 
ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 

BY REV. C. L. WALWORTH. 

VII. 
CONVERSIONS AMONGST THE ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 

i 

'NOUGH has been said for the present concern- 
ing the conversion to Catholicism of persons of 
rank in England ; that is, of persons belonging 
to the English gentry, not only of peers and 
their families, but commoners. These two classes 
often rank together in social life. The Commoner, if he derive 
descent from an ancient family, may outrank the Peer in im- 
portance and influence. This is not only so in fact, but should 
be so. In the author's deliberate opinion it would be a very 
dangerous change, and perhaps a fatal one to England's pre- 
eminence, to abolish the House of Peers. Still, being an 
American citizen and sincerely attached to the republican form 
of government .under whose eagle he has grown up to old 
age, he values as much and sympathizes more with the English 
peasantry, for whose conversion he labored much during his 
term of residence in that country. The little pony which he drove 
so often along the highway leading from Hanley to Upton-on- 
Severn and which passed through Hanley Castle, was well 
known along that road to the small farmers and the laboring 
poor. He believed in his youth that princes and peers may be 
unmade and made again. History teaches us this lesson : 

" But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 

These humble people, often badly neglected by those of 
higher rank in religious matters as well as in social and political 
affairs, when once they present themselves to receive religious 
instructions, give their attention and their hearts to it with a 
humility of spirit and a simplicity which needs less time to 
mature into faith. Why not, when the ground is so much less 
occupied by prejudice ? 

As a specimen of humility attaching to the poorer class in 



1899.] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 813 

England my memory recalls a man named John Handy, to 
whose unfloored but comfortable cottage I was a not unfrequent 
visitor. 

" Good morning, Mr. Handy," said I one day. 

" Don't call him mister," said his wife, interposing at once. 
" He's nothing of the kind. He 's plain John Handy and never 
was anything else." 

Many other virtues grow easily upon the foundation of 
humility ; first, and above all, simplicity. One of my earliest 
converts was another John, whose family name was Rogers. 
Rogers was a pedlar. He supported himself and his family 
by selling such wares as he could carry about in a dog-cart. 
He had no assignable religion, but his wife and some four or 
five children were Catholics. John looked up to his wife with 
profound respect. This respect she did not return, unless the 
constant scolding to which she subjected him may be considered 
as respectful. John found no fault with it, but always declared 
that no man in England had a better wife. I took an interest 
in this man and determined to exert myself to bring him into 
the true fold. My superior, who had already tried his hand 
upon Rogers, gave me no encouragement. When, however, I 
found that his treatment of John's case was very similar to the 
wife's, I determined to persevere in my purpose and try a dif- 
ferent method. My method was to avoid humiliating him and 
try to lift him up to some sentiment of self-respect. I learned 
that he was notable amongst his companions as a man of ex- 
traordinary muscular power, and that no man known to Upton- 
on-Severn was able to stand before him when it came to 
blows. 

Walking out one day on the highway, it was my good 
fortune to be overtaken by John. He looked sheepish on 
recognizing a priest, and would gladly have passed me with a 
respectful salute. This I did not allow, but stopped him and 
soon began to feel of his arm. 

" Why, my good man," said I, " this is a most extraordinary 
arm ! " 

" Yes, sir," said John. " It is allowed to be strong. But 
don't think I am a good man. Nobody that I know of allows 
that." 

"A strong arm," I replied, "is a good thing for a good man 
to have. St. Christopher was more than a good man. He was 
a holy man." 

John looked at me with some surprise and with an interro- 



814 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [Sept., 

gation mark in his eye. Being alone together on the road, I 
asked him to take off his coat and let me see his arm. We 
stopped, and John took off his coat at once and I proceeded to 
roll up his shirt sleeve. 

"What an arm!" said I. "Did any one ever see the like 
of it ! Now close your fist," I continued, " and lift it up. 
This he did. It was as hard as a hammer. I was delighted at 
the same time to see my new friend straighten his neck and 
give me a look of satisfaction and confidence, which I returned. 

" You must come and see me, John, as often as you can. 
Come alone sometimes. I know your wife. Bring her with 
you when you care to, or bring one of the children. By and 
by, when we know each other like a book, I shall expect to see 
you at our convent with your dog-cart and your four dogs to 
draw it. You 're a big man," I said. " Can they draw you 
along when you have your wares in it, or must you walk? 
Why you '11 make a good St. Christopher when you can carry 
such a weight as he did on his own shoulder." 

"I don't know of any man hereabouts," said John, with a fire 
of exultation in his eye, " that can carry more on his shoulder 
than I can. But you shall see what my dogs can do. By 
George! I'll come some day to the convent and bring my 
wife and all my children, and we '11 all sit together in that 
cart and drive my four dogs as fast as a horse can draw a 
light wagon. And then you '11 see the dust fly ! " 

His confidence then forsook him all of a sudden. He 
dropped his head and said, mournfully : " Father, I must begin 
by telling you something about my bad ways." 

" No," said I, " I know enough about them for the present 
purpose. Let me do the driving now. I '11 not leave anything 
undone that I think ought to be done. Wait till the good time 
comes. Here, take my hand. Don't squeeze it too much. 
Good-by ! " 

This interview was the beginning of a long contract of 
friendship. It is a specimen of the most joyous part of my 
life in England, and introduced me to many friends among 
the poorer class who will always remain dear in my memory. 

Another convert of the industrious class, sincerely humble 
but not, so far as I know, often humiliated, unquestionably 
simple but* none the less wise for that, was by trade a shoe- 
maker at Upton. By some chance, the cause of which I do 
not remember, he was present one Sunday at the Vesper ser- 
vice, early in the afternoon. All was new to him, for he had 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 815 

never before been witness to anything like Catholic worship. 
He could not, of course, therefore, have much understanding 
of the details of what passed before his eye. One thing, how- 
ever, he saw which made a profound impression upon him the 
use of incense. That he took in at once. It was an emblem 
of prayer. Walking home to Upton with some Catholic friends 
of the Leys family, he told them that he wanted to see me the 
first time I should come to Upton. On my next visit, there- 
fore, to that station I went directly to his house and was re- 
ceived with a joyous welcome. He told me frankly that he 
was convinced that Catholics had the true Christian worship, 
and that he wanted to join that church. I asked him, very 
naturally, what had brought him to that conviction. 

" It is the incense," said he. " When I went to your chapel 
at Hanley the other day and saw the incense rising in front of 
the altar and curling up, up, up towards heaven, my heart went up 
with it. I was brought up to read the Bible, and I love to do 
it. So much, you know, is said everywhere in the good book 
about the use of incense that I always said it was the right 
thing. I wondered that the Baptists didn't have it, nor any 
church that I knew of ; but I saw it in your church at Hanley, 
and my whole heart felt at home at once. You can count on 
me. I want to be a Catholic." 

I found him willing to wait and to be instructed, and accord- 
ingly and without hesitation I put his name down on my list 
of catechumens. Whenever I said anything to him, in order to 
test his patience under the necessary delay, his simple answer 
was : 

" All right, father. Fix it all your own way. But you can 
count on me, you know." 

I did count on him and I found him an apt scholar, willing 
to learn and quick to learn things far more valuable and essen- 
tial than the use of incense in public worship. 

I cannot, however, resist the temptation to leave on record 
here, in connection with my reminiscence of this good man, 
an anecdote which goes to show how variously men of one 
and the same faith may be affected in regard to matters of 
devotion. 

I was occupied one day in teaching my class of converts, or 
convertibles, the four marks or notes which distinguish the 
true Church of Christ from false churches. I then asked one 
of them : 

"These marks being the natural and reasonable marks of 



8i6 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [Sept., 

the true fold of Christ, has the Anglican Church the mark of 

Unity?" 

The answer was given : " No, father," and the right reason 
assigned. To another, who was a Presbyterian, I said : 

"Has your Presbyterian Church this mark of Holiness?" 

The answer was : " No, father," and the true reasons speci- 
fied. Of a third I inquired : 

" Have the Methodists this note of Catholicity ? " 

"No, father." 

"And why not ?" The true answer was given. I then 
asked the shoemaker, the latest pupil in the class : " Has the 
Baptist Church, in which you were brought up, this note of 
being Apostolic ? " 

" No, father," said he ; and then, with a merry laugh, he 
continued : " They haven't got the incense, neither ! " 

All my scholars laughed at once, but none laughed so 
heartily as the maker of the joke. This simple-minded convert 
of mine, being a Baptist, or, as Catholics would call him, an 
Anabaptist, had never yet received baptism of any kind. I 
deferred baptizing him until he should be regularly received 
into the fold by a regular profession of faith and abjuration 
of all the heresies attaching to his former sect. This brought 
on a great misfortune in this case. He was suddenly attacked 
in the night with a bowel complaint which carried him off 
before morning. He urged his wife and friends in the house 
to send immediately for me to give him baptism, but these 
being Baptists, and attaching no value to baptism as a means 
of grace, refused to do it, saying that it would be simply 
a folly to wake a clergyman at night to come four miles 
merely to give baptism. He died, therefore, without being 
christened, except such christening as the Holy Ghost gives to 
a faithful and earnest heart's desire. 

We gave the good man a Christian grave under the walls 
of Hanley Church, and many a Catholic prayer mingled with 
the incense which rose up in front of our altar bearing the 
name of this good catechumen to heaven. 

Let me record here another instance of conversion where 
the motives assigned at first were insufficient to warrant so 
great a change, but which, as it turned out, gave to the holy 
Faith two earnest and intelligent converts. These two were 
also of Upton, and nominally engaged themselves to each other 
by promise of marriage, but having, as they thought, some 
good cause of offence against the pastor, they felt unwilling to 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 817 

be united by him. They came, therefore, for this purpose to 
me. I told them that it was against the law of England for 
me to marry them, neither of them being Catholic, and that I 
might be made to suffer for it. If, however, they were willing 
to join our communion after having received the necessary 
preliminary instructions, I would marry them. They declared 
themselves willing to be instructed and to wait as long as I 
should think right. I found them most promising disciples. 
Both became well versed in the differences between Prot- 
estantism and the true Faith, and keen-witted combatants in 
all the controversial contests which every convert is doomed 
to encounter. 

A Baptist minister, newly imported from Ireland, an Orange- 
man of the deepest hue, hearing of their conversion, entered 
boldly into their house and soon engaged them in a dispute. 
He accused them of having bound themselves to a faith under 
which they would be forced to become idolaters and to wor- 
ship images. This they denied. They said they did not wor- 
ship the image, a thing of mere bronze, or brass, or wood. 
When they saw the figure of Christ their Saviour sculptured 
on a cross they kneeled down before it. They worshipped the 
living Christ crucified for them, but not the~ figure on the cru- 
cifix, which was, therefore, no idol. Its only value was that of 
a religious memorial. 

" We know what we mean to do very well, better than you 
who cannot read our hearts." 

"It makes little difference," he replied, "what you mean. 
The thing is wrong in itself and you must be held accountable 
for it as idolaters." 

" I suppose, sir," they said, " that you say prayers before 
getting into bed at night." 

" I do," he said. 

" Do you do this standing up, or sitting down, or kneeling 
down ?" 

" I kneel down," he replied. 

" Does it make any difference which way you face east, 
west, north, south ? " 

" Not a particle," was the reply. " I generally face towards 
the bed and lean on it." 

" Ah, then, you worship the bed-post." 

" No, indeed, I don't. My prayers are meant for God and 
to God they go, without the intervention of any creature." 

" But don't forget, sir, what you have already asserted. It 

VOL. LX1X. 52 



8i8 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [Sept., 

makes no difference what you mean, but what you do. You 
kneel before the bed-post in worship. The act is in itself 
idolatrous, and you are responsible for it." 

The minister could make no points in disputing with these 
young neophytes, and so gave them up. 

This same minister, a Baptist and an Irish Orangeman, 
made a special point of opposing himself to the conversions 
going on at Upton, and haunted my footsteps there. I had 
been invited to visit a family consisting of a man and wife 
with a large number of children. They desired instruction 
with a view of uniting themselves to the church. On my first 
visit, when I had been in the house only a few minutes, I was 
startled by the sudden appearance of this reverend gentleman. 
He accosted me at once, taking little notice of the family, who 
were assembled together in one room, and soon drew me into 
a controversy on the worship of images. 

I pleaded that a cross, and especially a crucifix, made in- 
tentionally to represent the sacrifice of Christ for our redemp- 
tion, must necessarily command the respect of a Christian. 
This he denied. " You, yourself," I said, " must necessarily 
feel this in your heart." This again he positively denied. 

" I think," said I, " that I could prove this by your own 
confession, and before these witnesses." 

" Try it," said he defiantly. 

I drew out a small crucifix which I wore upon my breast 
concealed under my coat, and showed it to him. 

" Now then," said I, " suppose I lay this crucifix upon the 
floor, would you be willing in presence of this family to place 
your foot upon it, to show that you have no respect for it ? " 

" I would," was the answer. 

" No, you will not," I said indignantly. " I will defend this 
sign of my redemption against any such insult upon your 
part." 

Every eye in the room was fixed with horror upon my 
opponent, and he saw that so far as our little audience was 
concerned his cause was lost. There had been all the while a 
gathering of interested observers of this interview outside the 
house. They stood on the sidewalks, and some looked over 
from windows opposite. My good man, the catechumen, told 
me afterwards that when he went out upon the street his 
neighbors gathered around him, eager to learn the issue of 
this contest between the minister and the priest. He told 

V r as nowhere. 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 819 

"What!" they said, " couldn't he help himself out with 
the Bible ? " 

"No"; so he told them. "For every text he could think 
of the priest had two to match him." 

This was not a very appreciative statement of the merits of 
the whole combat, but it made a strong impression on the 
crowd, who wondered at it greatly. 

VIII. 

FAMISHED IRISH WANDERING THROUGH ENGLAND IN 
1848 AND 1849. 

It would be to leave out of this record something strongly 
recorded in my memory to overlook the unusual flood of im- 
poverished Irish people 'cast upon the shores of England during 
the great famine which was at its height in 1848 and 1849. 
History cannot afford to forget this famine so long as history 
has a heart to feel for human woe. The famine prevailed 
chiefly in Belgium and Ireland, and was caused by the failure 
in those countries of the potato crop. Either the failure of 
the potato to come to maturity was more complete in Ireland, 
or the unity in government and the bond of a common 
language made the misery prevailing in Ireland better known 
in England. In my home at Hanley I was thus brought face 
to face with two miseries from poverty. The first was the 
existing misery amongst the English peasantry, poor enough, 
God knows. The second was a destitution bordering on death 
which cast a crowd of famished Irishmen and Irishwomen upon 
the shores of England, many of whom passed along the high- 
ways of Worcestershire and rapped at our convent door. This 
crowd did not ask for alms alone. They asked also for a 
kindly hand to send letters home to friends they had left be- 
hind them. They asked also to receive the sacraments of their 
church, and such help as a Catholic seeks from a priest of his 
church, and which he can get nowhere else. 

In asking alms, in asking spiritual aid and counsel, in ask- 
ing help to correspond with absent friends, in all these appli- 
cations there was something very peculiar and characteristic in 
these poor wanderers which can only be well known to those 
in whom they place implicit confidence. For this reason I ask 
permission of my readers to dwell awhile on matters to which 
my heart leads me, and if thereby I shall give them any plea- 
sure also, I shall be glad to know it. 



820 REMINISCENCES OF A CATHOLIC CRISIS [Sept., 

We begin then. It is not probably known to many that 
there was a certain secret intelligence prevailing amongst this 
multitude of petitioners for alms by which, although constantly 
separating from each other, they knew how to find each other 
again, and by which they kept open a way of communicating 
among themselves. There was no Freemasonry about this, 
no binding together by means of constitutions or by-laws, or 
mysterious gripping of hands. It was something that grew up 
out of ties both natural and supernatural, and could be de- 
pended upon better than potato crops or anything that can 
grow out of that sort of philosophy which goes by the name 
of social science. Will it be believed that these simple-hearted 
people, when kindly received, were accustomed to leave a little 
chalk-mark near the door, a very little mark indeed, and yet 
sufficiently observable to be a guide to some other eager eyes 
whose circumstances of want were similar? This kind of mark 
was enough to say: "Rap here. It is a good place"; or, on 
the contrary, it said, " Go by ; no use." Sometimes the marks 
made in this way must have carried the authority of an auto- 
graph, and could be recognized by friends who did not know 
how to read or write and were by no means expert in proving 
signatures. 

Messages could be passed along from wanderer to wanderer 
which reached their destination with a wonderful speed. If, 
for instance, I said to one of these foot-passengers : 

"Do you happen to know a man by such a name?" (giv- 
ing it). 

"I do, father," would be the answer; or, perhaps, "I know 
of him." 

"Can you get a message to him that I want to see him?" 

" I could, father." 

" The sooner he comes the better." 

"It won't be long, father, before he comes to you." And 
so the issue proved. 

What shall we say of these secret chalk-marks which dotted 
the gates and doorways throughout England ? There is a sort 
of literature in it which people seldom stop to think of. Is it 
not a literature which belongs to the earth? Yet, is it not 
also a scenery which belongs to the skies ? Is it not some- 
thing for the eyes of angels to look at? Poverty is gifted 
with a sort of quick intelligence which is a mystery to those 
who are not poor and who do not care to trouble themselves 
with the study of poverty. 



1899.] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 821 

I saw enough of these poor wanderers from Ireland to know 
that they did receive in England a great deal of charity, and 
my impression is very strong that the charity shown to them 
came mostly from that part of the English people whose con- 
dition in life was not much elevated above their own. 

Who that lived in England at the time when this distress- 
ing famine was filling the roads and byways with tracks of 
strange feet from Ireland, would not be interested to know of 
the jottings " by the wayside " that indicated their route ? Who 
would not also be glad to know that their own fences and 
gates and steps had been favorably noticed by these sorrowful 
pilgrims from " the green Island of Erin " ? I do not wish to 
forget all that a reasonable prudence should suggest while 
dealing with the poor when they ask alms at our hands. 
Still it is true that God does send the poor, and that they 
often come to us in his name without being backed up by 
documents which tell us everything at first sight. True 
Christian charity requires something more than a full purse. 
It requires a patient listening to the pleadings of want and 
woe. The poor are always writing our histories for us ; and 
small chalk-marks written by unlearned hands will do more for 
us when our life's calendar shall be written up and completed 
than can be penned out in fair copy or set up in good, type. 

The industrious English peasantry, who depended on the 
labor of their own hands for a living, were the chief bene- 
factors of the suffering poor in this famine. Yet I know of 
others in the neighborhood of Hanley, belonging to the class 
of landed gentry, who felt deep sympathy for these poor way- 
farers and helped them generously. It is always hard, however, 
to know much about the poor when one does not mingle with 
them constantly and freely. English gentlemen, as a rule, do 
not know much about their own poor. How can they know 
much about the poor of other lands ? 

My memory here calls up a case of great want which hangs 
as visibly before me as a framed picture done in strong colors 
and hanging on a bright wall. I was sent for to bring the 
sacraments to a sick woman from Ireland. I found her under 
a woodshed belonging to a small farmer and sheltered in a 
nest of hay. It was a veritable nest, but large enough to hold 
her and her whole family. I climbed upon the hay and looked 
down upon this family circle. The husband was there and so 
were a group of children. The husband and one or two of the 
children got out in order to make room for me. After having 



822 REMINISCENCES OF A CA THOLIC CRISIS [Sept., 

administered to her spiritual wants, I climbed out again from 
the nest and got a view of the surroundings. I was much 
struck with the charity of the inhabitants of this farm-house. 
It certainly could not have been a convenient thing to give a 
shelter like this to a poor family of strangers. There was 
danger in it as well as inconvenience. This hay chamber was 
a very combustible one, and the occupants were unquestionably 
very much in the way. The charity, however, was most freely 
and cordially given, and it was really the very best thing they 
had to give. Enough of such kind acts took place within the 
reach of my own observation to show me how largely and wide- 
ly such kindly shelter was given to the victims of this famine 
in England. 

The same evidence is furnished by the large amount of 
money which these poor creatures brought to our convent to 
have it sent home to their suffering friends in Ireland. They 
were mostly women ; for the men landed in great numbers at 
Liverpool and other ports, with scythes and other implements 
of labor, seeking to get money by their work. These did not 
find their way so readily into our part of Worcestershire. 

Here let me go back to the chalk-marks. It must have 
been something like this instinctive intelligence which we were 
delineating a little while ago that brought so many Irish wan- 
derers to our Hanley convent who hailed from a parish on 
the sea-coast near Cork, called Clonakilty. These Clonakilty 
wanderers found at the door of our cloister a friendly recep- 
tion, and received aid in more than one way. This very natu- 
rally brought others to the same door, hailing from the same 
parish. It got me into a correspondence with the pastor of 
Clonakilty, whose name, if I recall it right after so many long 
years, was Father Morgan Madden. 

It was a very noticeable fact that these footsore wanderers, 
collecting charity as we have described, did not spend upon 
themselves the alms they received in money. This went mostly 
back to Ireland. They lived only upon what was of a perish- 
able nature and could not be kept; sometimes, of course, good 
meat, hot or cold, but oftener bread and butter and vegetables. 
Economy in saving money could not be carried farther. It 
was, of course, difficult to carry money with them, and keep it 
safe while it accumulated. They had, however, little deposit 
banks of their own, sometimes in the bosoms of their dresses, 
sometimes still more secretly concealed under their petticoats. 
There is a great deal of wisdom in true love as well as in the 



1899-] IN ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 823 

frauds of business, and it is pleasanter to tell of it because a 
blessing belongs to it. It is a pleasure now after so many 
long years to recall how, from time to time, some ragged 
petitioner in want of an amanuensis received my consent to 
write home for her and become her banker. Then was repro- 
duced in real life the fairy tale of Cinderella. The pleading 
lips put on a smile of happiness. The applicant withdrew for 
a few moments to some woodshed or other place of conceal- 
ment, and came back again with a hoard of money ; and I 
became a banker. The business between us was soon trans- 
acted. It would take the eyes of a spirit to count the foot- 
steps which make up the true statistics of transactions like 
theirs. But the items to which I have access are soon made 
out. A money order through the post-office, a letter to Father 
Morgan Madden, or some other priest in Ireland, and a letter 
back again, all this is quickly set down. 

The part of amanuensis is the principal difficulty in matters 
of this sort. I found it hard to understand a great deal of 
what my dictators wanted me to write. The money transaction 
was not all. I was expected to make inquiries about the 
friends at home. What these inquiries really meant was alto- 
gether beyond my understanding. I soon found out, however, 
that it was not necessary for me to understand anything about 
them. When I said, " I don't rightly understand what you 
want me to say," the answer was, " Never mind, father, he 
will know what I mean when he hears the letter read." And 
so it always proved to be. I give the following as an ex- 
ample : 

After the proper address to Father Morgan Madden, of 
Clonakilty in the County of Cork, with the names of the par- 
ties interested and all that was necessary to identify them, 
came the circumambient questions which to me were as good 
as very hard Greek. This I made no account of except to 
spell the words right. When I had got to the end of the 
letter, and signed my own name to it, I said to my fair dic- 
tator : 

" Now, before I close this letter, just think a moment and 
don't leave out anything that you really want to know about, 
and then I will close it up with a postscript." 

"Well," she said, "give me a little time to think. Oh, yes, 
there is one thing more ! " 

" Well, then," I said, " let me have it quick, and I will put 
it in." 



824 REMINISCENCES OF A CA THOLIC CRISIS. [Sept. 

" Ask him how it is wid the pig." 

I put the words down in the same way she gave them to 
me, and when Father Morgan sent back the answer, he took 
no more trouble about it than I had done: "It is all right 
wid the pig." 

It may seem very trivial to the reader to introduce inci- 
dents that belong to the life of the lowly, the ignorant, and 
the uninfluential into a series of reminiscences that profess to 
grapple, after a sort, with a great religious crisis in a great 
country. 

Such things, however, do have an influence with educated 
and thoughtful minds. They are even necessary in order to 
make a right impression upon men whose thoughts are much 
engrossed with business or with the pleasures of society. Such 
men are accustomed to ride through books and conversations 
as passengers travel over the land in railway coaches, scarcely 
noticing the landscape which opens before them and closes be- 
hind them. They see very little of what is to be seen in a 
world teeming with life, and their memories hold nothing of 
what is worth remembering. 

I recounted once some of these incidents to a small party 
of gentlemen to whom it was all new. One of these was my 
old friend Squire Hornyhold, and another was a Catholic 
bishop. They were very much impressed with what I told them. 
It was like the revelation of a new and unknown life a life 
that is to be found only among the poor. The bishop" said : 

"This is something that ought to be better known, and 
more thoroughly studied into." 

The squire said: "I shall never dare hereafter, without a 
very strong and special reason, to refuse to any of these poor 
wandering people anything they ask for. It will trouble my 
conscience hereafter." 

This must be my apology for introducing into these pages 
such sketches from the wilderness of lowly life. I am not 
satisfied with apologizing to the reader. I feel it my duty to 
ask pardon also of the poor. I cannot put them on paper as 
they ought to be represented. It is like the effort of an artist 
who endeavors to represent green hills at a few miles' distance. 
The only way to do it and to make it look natural is to keep 
his brush free from all green paint and color the hills blue. 
There is only one large Eye that sees poverty as it really is, 
and they that would study it rightly must see it by the light 
of that Eye. 



IN 




BY VIRGINIA OSBORNE REED. 



WHITHER art Thou leading, my God? 
My eyes are growing dim. I cannot 

see ; 
For now the light of Heaven, once so 

bright, 
Is darkening to me. 



I listen ; but no longer from the skies 
Faint strains of angel music do I hear, 

And e'en my heart, erstwhile so full of love, 
Grows faint and cold with fear. 

My spirit chafes midst the surrounding gloom ; 

I question why I 'm left thus stumbling on, 
And wonder that Thy gleams of heavenly light 

Are seemingly all gone. 

But hark ! I hear a voice within that says 

The faith that is quite blind is the most blest; 

And so I go unseeing in the dark, 
Obeying Thy behest. 

And still it seems that ever midst the night 

I note the whisperings of that voice most clear 

It tells me that when near my journey's end 
My star shall reappear. 





826 THE ASSOCIATION OF ST. CAMILLUS. [Sept., 

THE ASSOCIATION OF ST. CAMILLUS. 

BY JOSEPH IGNATIUS MAGUIRE. 

I 

'URING the scholastic year of 1894-5 several of 
the students at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, 
Md., commenced the visitation of the sick and 
poor confined in Bay View Asylum, the city 
almshouse. The object of their weekly visit, 
made on the afternoon of the holiday, was one of mercy 

" . . . . mercy that saves, 
Binds up the broken heart, and heals despair." 

They visited all, irrespective of creed or nationality, and tried 
by a hearty greeting, friendly conversations, and kindly acts to 
make each individual whom they met feel that the one with 
whom they spoke was a friend. Actuated by the love of God 
and the love of neighbor for his sake, these young men soon 
discovered how true it is that sympathy and kindness can 
lighten the burden of misfortune, and that they give to their 
possessor a strong personal influence over all with whom he 
comes in contact. To acquire this influence, and to exert it 
for the good and happiness of those visited, was their en- 
deavor. Finding that their labor was not without good result, 
and wishing to give permanence to and enlarge the scope of 
the work thus undertaken, there was formed in September last, 
with the approbation of the reverend faculty of the seminary, 
the Association of St. Camillus, in honor of him who saw in 
each of the sick for whom he did so much the person of 
Jesus Christ. In the following pages will be sketched a brief 
outline of this organization, as well as a short record of some 
of the work accomplished during the past months. It might 
be well to state here that the association numbers at present 
fifty four members, and that different bands of students regularly 
visit each of the following institutions : Bay View Asylum, the 
Little Sisters of the Poor, as also the City, St. Joseph's, Balti- 
more Charity Eye, Ear, and Throat, University, Maryland 
General, Marine, St. Agnes', Baltimore University, and Good 
Samaritan hospitals ; about an hour and a half being spent in 

each plar^ ] Each band is under the guidance of a member of 

"^ V 



l8 99-l THE ASSOCIATION OF ST. CAMILLUS. 827 

the Board of Directors, and he is supposed to manifest a very 
special concern in the work immediately under his control. 

The board is composed of as many directors as there are 
places visited, and in it is vested the governing power of the 
association. 

Every band is composed of as many members as there are 
wards in the hospital visited, one student being assigned to 
each ward. As he always goes into the one place, he soon 
becomes, as a result of his weekly visits, intimately acquainted 
with his "patients," who soon come to look forward to his 
visits with real pleasure. 

This last has been the experience of almost every member 
of the association, and it is largely to be attributed to the fact 
that the methods of the seminarians differ so entirely from 
those of the avowed missionaries who, full of zeal, are found 
in large numbers in all public charitable institutions. They 
mostly visit these places with the explicitly avowed purpose of 
aggressively attacking the unconverted by the use of pious 
phrases, tracts, and hymns. 

There are some exceptions to this mode of procedure, but 
they are not numerous. As a general thing the average mis- 
sionary so styled ignores too much the human and social 
element in man. They meet a sinner, and immediately they 
want to make a conquest. They " go for him " in the approved 
style, and are too fatally ready to promise all sorts of things if 
the one in question will proclaim himself or herself converted. 
Some good results are occasionally met with, but generally 
speaking experience confirms the logical consequences of such 
a system, consequences so apparent that they need not be 
pointed out. The member of the St. Camillus Association does 
not go among the sick and outcast to talk religion, ex professo. 
For Christ's sake he loves those whom he visits for their own 
sakes ; he tries to love them with a disinterested human love, 
and to treat them with as much of human kindness and con- 
sideration as he would a dear friend or brother. These young 
men want to give the best that is within them of heart and 
brain ; they seek to put themselves in closest touch with the 
personality of the individual, striving, like St. Paul, to be all 
things to all men, hoping thereby to lay the foundation for an 
elevating influence by which they can impart Christian character 
to the morally feeble and infirm, Protestant as well as Catholic. 
Moral reinforcement, soul and spirit, is what is wanted, and this 
comes only by personal contact between the helper and the 



828 THE ASSOCIATION OF ST. CAMILLUS. [Sept., 

helped a contact that will inspire self-respect and love both 
for God's law and God's minister. It has been conservatively 
estimated that over one thousand persons have each week, as a 
result of these visits, a chat with one of the seminarians, and it 
must be borne in mind that the majority of these people are 
either Protestants or religious indifferentists. A large number 
of Catholic papers as well as other reading matter is distri- 
buted, procured from the students and various newspaper offices 
in the city. Some of the members have had shipped from their 
homes boxes of old magazines, and in this respect the faculty 
of St. Charles' College have been very generous. Through the 
kind donation of his Eminence Cardinal Gibbons, the reverend 
members of the faculty of the seminary, and some Baltimore 
priests, we secured quite a large number of good Catholic 
books, which were variously distributed in such of the hospitals 
as contained book-shelves. There has likewise been distributed 
a large number of prayer-books, scapulars, and rosaries, as also 
copies of Father Searle's Plain Facts, and of Cardinal Gibbons's 
work, The Faith of Our Fathers. A copy of this last-named book 
was given to an old man, an inmate of Bay View, who having 
read it during the week, handed the following acrostic poem to 
the young man on the occasion of his next visit: 

" C onscience bids us believe with our fathers 
A nd honor their truth in our lives, 
R emembering the days of the martyrs, 
D oing just what they died to advise : 
I n Christ and His cross first to glory, 
N ext reverence the Virgin and saints, 
A nd thus record the inspired story, 
L eaving all for His loving embrace. 

G reat honor his Eminence, the writer, 

I n all Christian lands has entailed, 

B y proving the true Church the mightier, 

B ecause, built on the Rock, it prevailed 

O ver all persecutions from men, 

N ow with fire, now with sword, now with pen, 

S afe in God, saecula saeculorum. Amen." 

It is almost needless to add that the reading of this book was 
the cause of the author's conversion. 

Since last September there have been in all seventeen con- 
versions, among which the following are worthy of a little 



1899-] THE ASSOCIATION OF ST. CAMILLUS. 829 

mention : H , an unusually intelligent man, nearly sixty 

years of age ; a good mechanic, but addicted to occasional 
"sprees." On his first meeting with the seminarian he was not 
inclined to talk much, and, as in all cases like this, the St. 
Camillus visitant respected his mood and simply expressed in 
a friendly way the hope that he would soon be better. Next 
week he was sitting up and disposed to be friendly. After 
the usual inquiry about his health, a near-by building in pro- 

cess of erection started a topic of conversation. H , it 

seems, was a carpenter himself, and commenced to talk about 
his share in the erection of some of the more prominent build- 
ings in Baltimore. After a chat of about ten or fifteen minutes, 

as the student was leaving, H was very cordial in inviting 

him to call again. His visitor had noticed that he had on a 
very heavy and uncomfortable-looking pair of old shoes, and 

on his next visit presented H with a pair of slippers. 

Upon receiving this trivial present he seemed much moved, 
and after a little while said that no one had ever unasked 
given him anything since his mother died " years and years 
ago," and the old man's eyes slowly filled with tears, tears 
that he tried hard to hide at first, but they would come, and 
then he began to sob like a little child. A slight act of disin- 
terested kindness had softened a heart long a stranger to 
gentle impulses. The seminarian tried to show what he felt 

sympathy, and soon he was listening to the story of H 's 

life. Born a Methodist, he had not entered a church for over 
forty years, and, to use his own words, he had all his life long 
been a wicked man in heart and act. On the occasion of the 
next visit he said he would like to become a Catholic ; he was 
baptized in the course of several months, and during his in- 
struction and since has lived up to the good resolutions that 
he took. 

In dealing with Protestants, the subject of Catholicism is 
left to be introduced by those visited ; they frequently, how- 
ever, have some question to ask, and in the case of most of 
the conversions made the parties have themselves solicited in- 
struction. A short time ago one of the students who visits a 
ward in Bay View Asylum received a letter from a man to 
whom he had been speaking for over a year. This poor fel- 
low, who at the time when he was first met professed no 
religion, was, it seems, somewhat timid about requesting in- 
struction, and so he wrote asking the young man if he would 
not bring him a catechism the next time he called, as he 



830 THE ASSOCIATION OF ST. CAMILLUS. [Sept., 

wanted to become a Catholic. Recently, in another hospital, 
the seminarian was asked by the one in charge of the ward to 
speak a word to a patient then dying, a result of the morphine 
habit. He did so, found the young woman had never been 
baptized, and was anxious to receive the sacrament. He im- 
mediately sent for a priest, and by the time of his arrival had 
her instructed. She was baptized and anointed, death occurring 
a few hours later. The chaplain of this hospital is so well 
pleased with the result of the work done among the patients 
that he recently made a handsome donation to the society, 
and it is gratifying to be able to record that the chaplains of 
the various institutions have regarded the work of the associa- 
tion as an adjunct to their own, and that they have given it 
every possible encouragement. 

Very many Catholics have been induced to approach the 
sacraments. Once it is known that the party is a Catholic, at 
the first opportune moment the advantage of this is urged 
upon him, and in nearly all cases the person has been induced 
to attend to his duties, and to make at least an effort to do 
better. Lack of space excludes many interesting details, but 
mention must be made of the case of a young woman who, 
having fallen under the power of a man, had remained from 
confession for a considerable time. She was induced to return 
to her religious practices, a position was secured for her, and 
she is now doing remarkably well. Another case was that of 
a nineteen-year-old boy who had left his home and native 
land some years before. For a long time he had abandoned 
all religious practices, and was on the high road to trampism. 
Both clothing and a position were secured for him ; some time 
afterwards he voluntarily approached the sacraments, and is 
now leading a good and useful life. There was also the case 
of two Protestant young men, both under twenty-one years of 
age, who had left their homes and had since descended very 
low in the social scale. Positions and clothing were procured, 
and both particularly one of them have reformed their lives 
and are giving satisfaction to their employers. An attempt is 
made to obtain situations for those whom it is thought will 
profit by them ; this is made feasible through the kindness of 
a gentleman in the city. By the collection of such articles of 
apparel as the students have no further need of, quite a num- 
ber of unfortunate men were provided with clothing. Financial 
aid is sometimes given to those who are judged deserving, but 
under certain conditions laid down in the constitution. Help 



I8 99-1 THE ASSOCIATION OF ST. CAMILLUS. 831 

in the shape of food and lodging has frequently been granted 
for a few days, in order to give the one recently discharged 
from a hospital a chance to secure employment. One young 
man out of work had been obliged to pawn his clothing to 
supply the necessaries of life. He came to the seminary one 
day during the late blizzard, asking for help. His clothing 
was redeemed and he was put in the way of securing work. 
A woman in one of the hospitals, entirely destitute, was clothed, 
and more recently a poor young man was sent to Philadelphia, 
in accordance with his wish that he might die at home. 

During the Christmas season a little treat was given to the 
aged poor in Bay View and at the Little Sisters of the Poor, 
as well as at some of the more neglected hospitals. 

The association depends on the contributions of such priests 
as wish to become honorary members, and upon a collection 
that is annually taken up among the students. Among the 
honorary members are his Eminence Cardinal Gibbons ; the 
Right Rev. P. J. Donohue, of Wheeling, W. Va.; the reverend 
members of the faculty of St. Mary's Seminary and St. Charles' 
College, as also about fifty priests, ex-students of the house, 
both in this and in other dioceses. The association hopes to 
increase this membership. 

The fact of the existence of the society has already become 
known in one or two seminaries, and it is most encouraging to 
learn that there is some talk of its introduction next year in 
both of them. The experience which has -been gained since 
the first inception of the work among the students of St. Mary's 
makes it seem certain that the work is a practical one, one 
from which at the cost of a little self-sacrifice much good can 
result. Finally, in this connection there is a point that has 
not been touched upon in these pages, but which is worthy of 
consideration. The work is one that is calculated to infuse in- 
to the seminarian a true sacerdotal spirit. It besides acquaints 
him with the condition of the destitute, and the not unfrequent 
disappointments that are to be met with in any work that seeks 
to benefit others. It is a work that arouses in him an interest 
in all that tends to elevate and reclaim the suffering and un- 
fortunate. It teaches him how to console, cheer, and judiciously 
aid the needy ; it enkindles in his breast love for God's poor 
and ready sympathy for the afflicted. 




832 "NEW YORK CATHOLIC TEACHERS' MANUAL" [Sept., 



NEW YORK CATHOLIC TEACHERS' MANUAL" 

i 

HE Archdiocese of New York has a Catholic 
Board which is composed of men who are 
thinking and doing. A dainty little book in 
gray binding, bearing upon its first cover the 
title that appears at the head of this article, 
tells us that a committee has revised the course of study for 
the schools of the Archdiocese of New York, and that the mem- 
bers of that committee are : Right Rev. Joseph F. Mooney, 
V.G., LL.D., Rev. M. J. Lavelle, LL.D., Rev. Thomas McMil- 
lan, C.S.P., Rev. M. J. Considine, Secretary. Truly a repre- 
sentative body of men who are keenly alive to the importance 
of work in Catholic schools and to their needs in the present day. 

The preface gives us the key-note of the work. We quote 
the following : 

" The scope of the present Manual, which has been prepared 
under the supervision of the School Board of the Diocese of 
New York, is intended to cover the existing grades of the 
Primary and Advanced Departments of our Schools, or equiva- 
lently, the existing grades of the Primary and Grammar De- 
partments of the Public Schools. Its object is two-fold : first, 
to rearrange the course of studies of the various grades, so 
that it may be in actual accordance with the advancement in 
educational matters of late years ; and, secondly, to afford our 
teachers, in the exercise of their calling, a number of useful 
hints and suggestions, gathered from observation and experience. 

'" It prescribes, then, as definitely as possible, the amount 
of work to be accomplished in the various grades of the said 
departments. It must be observed, however, that such a rigid 
adherence to the course outlined as would cramp the natural 
development of the pupil or suppress the spontaneous initiative 
of the teacher is not demanded ; but only such a practical 
compliance with the directions of the Manual as, in the judg- 
ment of the superintendent of the diocesan schools, reasonably 
may be expected. 

' The pedagogical instruction which is given in the Manual 
and the spirit which is sought to be infused into it are in- 
tended to impress teachers with a deep sense of their obliga- 
tions to impart to the children entrusted to their care the 



1899-] "NEW YORK CATHOLIC TEACHERS' MANUAL" 833 

benefits not only of a good education, but especially of a truly 
Catholic education. A Catholic atmosphere, therefore, should 
pervade and a Catholic spirit should reign throughout the 
whole life of the school. The school that is not pervaded by 
such an atmosphere or not ruled by such a spirit does not de- 
serve the name of Catholic. Truth and Catholic teaching alone 
can give it that title and justify the sacrifices made in its be- 
half." 

We have here placed before us a clear statement of the 
scope and object of this Manual which invites examination. 
One thought found in the preface must be borne in mind as 
we proceed in the work of studying this little book : " It must 
be observed, however, that such a rigid adherence to the course 
of study outlined as would cramp the natural development of 
the pupil or suppress the spontaneous initiative of the teacher 
is not demanded." It would be well were these words put into 
the preface of every course of study adopted by every school. 

The first 'part of the Manual gives us the " Rules of the 
New York Catholic School Board." These rules mean much. 
Teachers must have certificates signed by the president and 
secretary. They should have access to a library of standard 
works on pedagogy, read current educational journals, attend 
to the ventilation of school-rooms and the regulations and re- 
quirements of the Health Board. 

After the " Rules " we find the " Christian Doctrine Course." 
The work is outlined for each half-year for the primary and 
grammar grades, and the wisdom of the committee manifests 
itself at once in this portion of the Manual. A reasonable 
amount of matter is assigned for each grade, and the value of 
development work receives due consideration. The necessity of 
having the children memorize carefully the ordinary prayers, 
to tell in their own words the stories of the birth, life, and 
death of Jesus, and the leading incidents in the lives of the 
saints, is emphasized. 

From the second year to the sixth year inclusive the work 
of each grade is divided into three parts: (i) Review of the 
work of preceding grade, and then the prayers to be taught in 
this grade ; (2) Work from the catechism ; (3) Oral instruction. 
The work of the seventh or last year in the grammar school is 
a review of the previous work, oral instruction "adapted to 
the present mental development of the children on man's origin, 
original condition, destiny, obligation, failure, God's merciful 
VOL. LXIX. 53 



834 "NEW YORK CATHOLIC TEACHERS" MAN UAL:' [Sept., 

promises of a Divine Redeemer, and the Types and Prophecies 
of a Redeemer." 

This " Christian Doctrine Course " recognizes the child's 
needs and limitations as well as his growth and development. 
The work assigned for each year is suited to the mental status 
of the child. The oral work designated by the course is re- 
markably strong. The child who leaves the grammar school 
with even a fair knowledge of the sacred characters named in 
this course will have embedded in his heart and mind models 
in every way worthy of imitation. 

The " English Language Course " embraces the work usually 
given under the headings, language, grammar, composition, 
reading, and literature. The science of grammar begins in the 
fifth year. The work is correlated with that of " Christian 
Doctrine," particularly reading and composition. Suggestions 
are given as to the methods that might be employed, but the 
brevity of the directions sometimes leaves one in doubt as to 
the actual meaning. 

The course as a whole indicates so much attention to peda- 
gogical methods and values that we hesitate to criticise ad- 
versely. On page 30 the instructions would lead one to 
suppose that in learning new words, in first steps in reading", 
the old method of copying was considered better than the 
present one whereby children are asked to form mental pictures 
quickly and then reproduce them. Stress is laid upon natural 
reading, neatness in written work, good English in speaking 
and writing, and correctness and clearness in composition. 

The outline for Arithmetic is concise and well graded. The 
teacher is told what to do in each grade, but the value of the 
course is not enhanced by telling her what not to do, as 4, 2 r 
on page 48 ; 4, 2, 5, on page 49, and similar limitations on other 
pages. The general plan is excellent and the amount of work 
assigned for each subject is about what the average child can 
accomplish. The nature of the work outlined shows that the 
child's environment was taken into consideration. 

The " Course in Geography " is not as clear as we would 
wish. The history and geography are treated as one, although 
there is a separate course in " History." These two subjects 
should be closely correlated in teaching. When they are given 
separately in the course, it would be well to keep them separ- 
ate except where correlation was especially mentioned. 

The usual ground considered in primary and grammar grades 



1899-] "NEW YORK CATHOLIC TEACHERS' MANUAL" 835 

is covered, and valuable additional work is outlined in the 
geography of the lands in which lived Jesus, Mary, Joseph, 
and their friends. We fear the geography work will not stand 
the test of the school-room, but we prefer to leave it to that 
test before deciding that it is lacking in clearness. 

The course in " History " covers the United States, and in 
the seventh year a brief history of the church. When we 
recall that the biographies of many saints and other noted 
people are given in the Christian Doctrine work, we can readily 
see that the children are well prepared to consider that portion 
of Church History that is assigned to the seventh year of school. 

Under "Course in Penmanship" some excellent things are 
mentioned, the object of teaching writing, the necessity of 
having the children take natural positions in writing, the fact 
that the angular style of handwriting should not be presented 
to children " because it is not sufficiently legible and is un- 
suited to rapid business writing," and several other good, strong 
points. 

Drawing and Music are given merited places in the Course 
of Study, and the teachers are asked to give these subjects a 
proper amount of attention and not regard them as optional. 
Physical Training and a "Course in Needle-work " have, wisely, 
been outlined. Thirty-three hymns are given to "be learned 
by all the children of all the schools for use in congregational 
singing." 

The Manual is valuable; it contains many excellent sugges- 
tions, it gives a fair outline of work for the primary and 
grammar grades, it suggests a good line of literary work, it 
gives the best " Course in Christian Doctrine " found in any 

o 

similar "Course of Study," and, on the whole, teachers not 
only of New York but of all the Catholic schools of the 
country owe a debt of gratitude to the committee for giving us 
the present " New York Catholic Teachers' Manual." 

To keep in mind the yearning for the absolute good, undy- 
ing hope, the love of the best, the craving for immortality, the 
instinct drawing us all toward things eternal, is the solemn 
duty of every man who plans that which is designed "to lead 
souls back to God." He who has the faculty to give to truth 
its divinest form, and to lift the hearts of the nation to the 
love of heavenly things, will surely merit " a seat among the 
elect"; but if his vision be not clear enough to see "the all 
in all," he will have the reward assured to those who have 
been faithful unto the Light given to them. 



8 3 6 



A BALLAD OF NOXMANDY. 



[Sept., 



if! BALLAD OP HOI^MANDY, 




BY ROB LEAR. 

HE climbed a hill in Normandy, 
A hill that lowers to the sea ; 
Big tears were in her mother eyes, 

Her watching eyes, 
That held in quest the far-off west, 
Where ocean trims the falling skies. 



" O mother! with your Norman wail, 
Those tears, I trow, may tell a tale ? " 
" Ah, stranger, mourn my little Jacques, 

Mon cheri /acques t 
Who sailed away; ah, woe the day 
He sailed beyond that sky-sea track! 

" The brightest of this world was he, 
And joy stood mate to him and me ; 
But telling five and ten his years, 

His summer years, 
He begged to roam the ocean foam, 
To court to wife the sailor's fears. 

" He loved the sea, the seaman's ways, 
And oft at home he sang the praise 
Of wave and land where he had gone, 

My Jacques had gone ; 
And how he railed the sea he sailed 
When army gales came battling on. 

" Oh ! how the folk were good to Jacques, 
Who used to tell when he came back 
The show of love they gave to him ; 

They lavished him 
With stories old, and bits of gold, 
And orchards made his basket brim. 



1899.] A BALLAD OF NORMANDY. 

" All these were mine when he came home 
To rest him from his ocean's roam ; 
And coming to my cottage light, 

His beacon-light, 
I felt his kiss my only bliss, 
His farewell was my only night. 

" Ah, stranger, off he sailed one day ; 

I saw his ship go down the bay, 

I saw the clouds bring up their black, 

Their deadly black ; 
I recked no word that day I heard, 
That never more I '11 see my Jacques." 

And still she climbs in Normandy 
The hill that lowers to the sea ; 
Big tears are in her mother eyes, 

Poor, hoping eyes, 
That hold in quest the lonely west, 
Where ocean trims the falling skies. 



837 




drr 




A melancholy interest is attached to The Roman 
Primacy * on account of the death of its author 
having taken place very shortly after its appear- 
It will thus be, we fear, the last of the ser- 
vices rendered by him to the church, and to the 
cause of truth to which since his conversion he so completely 
and successfully devoted himself. Believing exposition to be, 
when possible, the best form of controversy, the object of Dr. 
Rivington in writing this work was to give a detailed account 
of a definite and crucial period of the church's life in order to 
bring out the relation in which the pope then stood to the 
church. The period chosen is a very important one, embrac- 
ing the (Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus and of Chalcedon, as 
well as the Robber Synod of Ephesus. The questions whether 
of the truth revealed by Christ there Avas by his appointment 
an authorized guardian, who was this guardian, and where was 
he to be found, were raised by the events which occurred at 
this time, and these questions received clear answers. " The 
guardianship of the faith was entrusted to the Episcopate of 
the Catholic Church, of which the head was the successor of 
Peter in the See of Rome, and this by divine institution. The 
relationship of that See to the universal Church cannot be seen 
anywhere more clearly than in the records of the Council of 
Ephesus in 431 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Here, 
when the hour of supreme trial was come, the Primacy of the 
Bishop of Rome comes before us as a well-established provi- 
sion, of divine institution, for the welfare of the churches." The 
absence of full records for the antecedent period is, Dr. Riv- 
ington rightly holds, the reason why an equally clear manifes- 
tation of the authority of the Holy See is not made before: 
moreover, the fact that it is found fully established then is an 
evidence that it had already been long in existence. The prin- 
ciple of interpreting the earlier by the later, the more obscure 

*The Roman Primacy, A. D. 430-431. By the Rev. Luke Rivington, M.A., D.D. Lon- 
don, New York, and Bombay : Longmans, Green & Co. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 839 

by the clearer, is in itself entirely reasonable and has long 
been urged by theologians. Nor is its recognition confined to 
theologians ; for, according to a writer quoted by Dr. Riving- 
ton, to the adoption of this principle the great advance re- 
cently made in the study of Roman constitutional history is 
due. To those who recognize, as many Anglicans do, that the 
undivided church was divinely guarded from error, the inference 
is easy that the recognition of the divine institution of the 
Primacy, if made at this period, involves the fact that it had 
been in like manner recognized antecedently to that period : 
for it would be incompatible with the divine protection of the 
church from error should she have erred at any period on so 
vital a matter. 

Dr. Rivington has taken Dr. Bright, the professor of eccle- 
siastical history at Oxford, as the representative assailant of 
the Pope's Primacy. He has also given an answer to Profes- 
sor Harnack's treatment of the Councils of Ephesus and Chal- 
cedon. Dr. Bright is an antagonist fully qualified by learning ; 
with the full conviction, too, of every Englishman, that absolute 
power must necessarily be despotic and unlimited, and that of 
all government, human and divine, the English constitution is 
the type. The pope's authority is undoubtedly supreme. He 
is, strictly speaking, under no church law ; and of the divine 
law, natural and positive, he is/ when speaking ex cathedra, the 
infallible interpreter, as well as of supernatural revelation. Yet, 
as a matter of fact, no one is more rigidly controlled and less 
able, even if he so willed, to pull down and to destroy by 
deviating from the old ways. Whatever power is possessed by 
the pope is recognized by him as in its entirety derived from 
God, and is a trust for faithfulness in the use of which for 
the good of the church account has to be rendered. He is 
surrounded by counsellors permeated with this same conviction. 
Ignoring, however, these obvious and elementary considerations, 
Dr. Bright endeavors to excite the instinctive, if not reasonable, 
aversion to control which characterizes his countrjmen: a 
course hardly worthy of an Anglican ; hardly honest, we may 
say; for the control which is not to be submitted to when ex- 
ercised by the divinely appointed and protected Head of the 
Church is to be handed over if the efforts of Dr. Bright's co- 
adjutors succeed to the Anglican bishops, educated and culti- 
vated and refined gentlemen, indeed, but not (according to 
their own profession) divinely protected from error ; and so 
the true liberty from error, guaranteed by submission to the 



840 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept., 

pope's teaching, is to be sacrificed for the sake of a control 
illegitimately usurped by authorities not so protected. This is the 
only alternative, unless all church teaching is thrown aside and 
the mere private judgment of the individual substituted, a thing 
hardly contemplated by Dr. Bright and a result which would 
annihilate any claim to authoritative teaching made by the 
Anglican bishops. 

A detailed criticism of so large a work would carry us be- 
yond our limits, and so we can only direct attention to a few 
points. The questions raised by Dr. Bright depend for their 
solution not only upon an exhaustive acquaintance with the 
documents to be interpreted, but also upon the most accurate 
and perfect knowledge of the finest points of Greek. How 
Dr. Rivington meets these requirements may be seen as to the 
former by his note on the meaning of tupos on pages 21-3; as 
to the latter by the note on page 15. 

Even more important, perhaps, than these qualifications is a 
readiness fairly to recognize and receive just as it stands any 
evidence adduced, together with all that it involves. An ex- 
ample will be found on pages 9-19 of the way in which Anglicans 
appear to be lacking in this respect, and to be thereby led to 
minimize and empty of real meaning the evidence for the 
pope's authority. Upon a reader without preconceptions (if 
such exist) an exalted idea of the recognition then existing of 
that power must, we think, be irresistibly forced. How easily, 
yet how unfairly, a different meaning may be read into these 
documents is seen by the way in which this evidence is treated 
by Bishop Wordsworth and Dr. Bright. 

On pages 39 and following Dr. Rivington deals with a more 
pardonable misapprehension on the part of Anglican writers, 
that, namely, as to the relation which exists between the pope 
and the bishops, who, while they are really co-judges with the 
pope, and not mere agents, and have a right to examine even 
definitions, yet have no right to correct or reform these defi- 
nitions. 

On the whole, this is a book which deserves the study both 
of the defenders and of the adversaries of the Roman Primacy. 
To the superficial reader from its avowed aim and object an 
appearance may be presented of special pleading due to the 
fact that Dr. Rivington takes pains to bring out clearly all that 
is involved in support of the primacy in the actions and the 
utterances of the bishops. But this is only an appearance due to 
the expository character of the work. All of Dr. Rivington's 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 841 

authorities are accessible to all theological students. The only 
new matter brought forward, and that is new only to the English 
reader, is the recently discovered Latin copy of the letters writ- 
ten to Rome by Flavian and Eusebius. These letters confirm 
the arguments of the supporters of the Primacy and weaken the 
case of its opponents, showing that the appeal made to Rome 
by these prelates was not to Rome as the see of the " first 
patriarch," as Dr. Bright and Anglicans maintain, but to Rome 
as the see of the Apostle Peter, the Apostolic Throne. It 
will be hard for a fair-minded man to resist the evidence ad- 
duced by Dr. Rivington, and for such the book will be very 
useful. 

Mr. Wright is one of the Commissioners of Labor, and his 
reports are well known to all who are interested in that de- 
partment of social science and, by the way, our own use of 
the term social science and Mr. Wright's comment * on that 
term remind us of a consideration with which we shall begin 
this notice. It is admitted that strict definitions, and the con- 
stant use of terms with regard to the express meaning of the 
definitions, are necessary to all sound speculation and to the 
conveyance of the thinker's ideas to his readers. We say dis- 
tinctly the phrase social science is the proper term by which 
to embrace the subjects which constitute the science of society. 
Mr. Wright's objection is that we say " social sciences " when 
speaking of the group, so that, as we understand him, history 
is a social science, jurisprudence, political economy, and so on, 
are social sciences, and accordingly the term is not so compre- 
hensive as sociology. We reply, the departments of knowledge 
mentioned are branches of social science, just as chemistry, 
electricity, and so on are branches of experimental physics. 
Herbert Spencer, who, if uncertain or inconsistent in the em- 
ployment of scientific terms in the sense in which he first 
defines them, is at least a master of language when he ex- 
presses the thought then burning in his mind, uses the term 
social science as an equivalent for sociology, and also as we 
have used it, namely, the science of society. 

Comte, as we said on a former occasion, employed the word 
" sociology " for the first time, and, as we pointed out, to ex- 
press what used to be understood by the phrase " philosophy 
of history " ; but there is another objection to the term pace 
Mr. Wright's effusive adoption of it ; namely, that it is on a 

* Outline of Practical Sociology. By Carroll D. Wright, LL.D. New York and 
London : Longmans, Green & Co. 



842 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept., 

level with the barbarous jargon used by quacks and barbers 
for the nomenclature of their remedies and restorers. Be this 
as it may, we are most ready to acknowledge in Mr. Wright 
a valuable laborer in the active fields of the statistician. 
Without the assistance of men of that kind the thinkers, pre- 
vious to the use of "political economy" as an English term 
to express an art and science of society, would not have 
material by which to verify their deductions. Of course we 
are almost at issue with him concerning the value, respectively, 
of what he would call practical sociology and theoretical soci- 
ology ; but a difference of opinion on the point is not impor- 
tant this hot weather. We shall, therefore, content ourselves 
with saying that a man might as well contrast the value of 
applied mathematics with that of pure mathematics as the in- 
vestigation of social x facts and the tabulating of them with the 
scientific form in which the motives and influences underlying 
all social activities are presented as fundamental principles. 
Moreover, the inductions from ascertained social facts of vari- 
ous times and countries, carefully tested and compared, must 
be part of the constituent elements of the science. These and 
those, the generalizations from induction and the conclusions by 
deductive processes, form the science and the art; so " that 
such a phrase as practical sociology, if the study be a science 
at all, has no meaning. No one regards Giffen as a science 
man, though he is the greatest statistician of the day. 

We are aware that there is an objection among a certain 
class of professors and teachers against what they are pleased 
to call theory ; and the objection is repeated ad nauseam by 
their pupils in the ministry of the different denominations, and 
in the conceited stage, the untried stage, of the learned pro- 
fessions. The objection arises from a misunderstanding of the 
meaning of theory. Mr. Wright, we dare say, will admit that 
his collection of facts, his mode of testing the value of facts, 
his system of classification, have all an origin in some principle 
as distinguished from a use. In other words, the classification 
is regulated by affinities, even though the purpose for which 
the statistics were directed to be taken was purely with a view 
to particular legislation. We find in his own statistics of labor 
a very clear reverence for scientific system, and this is a proof 
of the value of sound speculation a term constantly meant 
when the word theory is employed by the tyro or the end-of- 
the-century man. 

But speculation of the kind must be used, since students 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS 843 

and thinkers worthy of the name have at length recognized 
the force of psychic influences in accounting for the phenome- 
na of society. As a consequence the statistician, so far as he 
is not an original thinker, will be relegated to his proper place 
as the collector of materials for verification of deductive pro- 
cesses, or materials for the expression of new empiric laws. 
Nothing sounder in principle can be found than the & priori 
conclusions of Aristotle, who combined in himself in the most 
remarkable manner the power to think out and to test by ex- 
perimental method what he had thought out. We do not think 
he can be superseded. The biological analogy which in modern 
times led to such curious results was never used by him as 
anything more than an illustration of social processes, but all 
the same the principle that society had a life in which intelli- 
gence and responsibility were factors of the highest moment 
was never for a moment lost sight of. 

We do not think, then, that the system which begins its 
teaching by setting the student to collect unrelated facts for 
such they must be if he be turned loose into a town or a jail to 
observe and note down what he sees or hears will make him 
a man of science, though he is sure to be catalogued as a 
41 practical sociologist," and his reports listened to with acclaim 
in the mutual admiration society of which he is a member. 
Indeed, we are inclined to think that we would obtain the 
assent of Mr. Wright for many of the views we have expressed, 
notwithstanding that his work seems written under some idea 
of the superiority of active to speculative exercise in the pur- 
suit of this study. 

He recognizes that the science comprehends the study of 
the origin and development of social institutions, but this 
means not merely the history of the race in the largest sense 
but an inquiry into the laws of thought, the power of what 
are called the affections in drawing men together, and that 
necessity of defence which must have existed since men first 
stood upon the earth. Perhaps one part of the discredit con- 
fronting the change from the method of biological analogy to 
the suggestion that psychology affords some explanation of the 
influence which impels men to social forms is to be found in 
the fact that only a small part of the psychic forces operating 
on mankind are taken into account by the new school. When 
Professor Giddings concludes that the motive which draws men 
together into society is the " consciousness of kind," he gives 
a reason for gregariousness; but he does not tell us why the 



844 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept., 

vast empires of antiquity held men together in a blind obedi- 
ence, or why the passions of a presidential campaign sink to 
rest after the election is over. 

We have no doubt of our position, that the history of the 
race and the knowledge of man's nature are the real sources 
of a science of society. Statistics are excellent for legislation, 
but this is only an instrument in the living out of the life of 
society. Laws are a means to an end, so is political liberty, so 
are all the forces, civil and religious, which hold society to- 
gether. We have stated elsewhere that the problems which 
vex society to-day, in one shape or another, disturbed it in the 
past. They are incidents of its growth, they will continue to 
the end. Our author takes this view to some extent ; and in 
doing so he unconsciously recognizes that Comte, Baldwin, 
and Ward, biologist and psychologist alike, confirm the Evan- 
gelists, just as the despairing philosophers of Greece and Rome 
had borne outside testimony to their teaching. 

The Acts of the Martyrs formed the principal spiritual 
reading of the early church ; * and perhaps if they were more 
widely read now, a more robust spiritual vitality would exist and 
less of the worldly spirit be manifested ; for these Acts bring 
home to the reader, more clearly perhaps than it is in any other 
way brought home, the conflict which is going on in one form 
or other at all times between the church and the world. The 
present volume contains translations of the Acts of some of the 
less known martyrs ; namely, the Acts of SS. Julian and Basilissa ; 
of SS. Marius and Martha, with their Sons, and the Martyrdom of 
St. Valentine ; the Martyrdom of St. Martina ; the Acts of SS. 
Montanus and Companions ; the Martyrdom of SS. Philemon, 
Apollonius, and the rest ; the Acts of SS. Felix and Adauctus ; of 
SS. Adrian and Nathalia, as well as the Lives of St. John Caly- 
bite, of St. Euphrasia, and of St. Julian Saba. The Invention of 
St. Stephen, Proto-Martyr, the Captivity of St. Malchus, and the 
Passion of St. James Intercisus, together with Anecdotes from the 
Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, interspersed in order to 
avoid monotony between the Acts and Lives complete the list 
of contents. Authenticity has been taken into account in choos- 
ing these particular 'Acts out of so many others. The aim of 
the translator has been to make the translation extremely sim- 
ple and literal, and in our opinion he has succeeded admirably 
in presenting the record of the glorious confession of the faith 

* Gems from the Early Church. Compiled by E. F. Bowden. London : Art and Book 
Company ; Catholic Truth Society. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 845 

by these martyrs of old in language perfectly in harmony with 
the subject and sure to bring it home to the minds and hearts 
of the reader. To the same result the way in which the book 
is printed will not fail to contribute. 

The Exposition of Christian Doctrine* is the companion 
volume to the Exposition of Christian Dogma which appeared 
not long ago, and forms part with it of the Intermediate 
Course of Religious Doctrine taught in the schools of the 
Christian Brothers. It would be hard to give too high praise 
to this part of the work, and were it to be found in every 
household and studied and mastered, a most efficacious step 
towards this country's conversion would have been taken, for 
it would make Catholics so intelligent in their hold upon their 
religion that every one would be a source of light. It is not, 
like so many similar works, a dry compendium, a collection of 
bare bones without life, but is pervaded by a spirit of piety 
and unction due to a constant and apt citation of Holy Scrip- 
ture. The definitions are clear and theologically exact. The 
chief excellence, however, seems to us to be its completeness. 
For example, in the section on Moral Education the Letter of 
Pius IX. to the Archbishop of Friburg, Leo XIII. 's Encyclicals, 
and the Decisions of the Congregations of Propaganda and of 
Rites are incorporated. The teaching of Leo XIII. on the 
duties of Civil Magistrates, of Workmen and Employers, on 
the Right of Property, and on the Condition of Labor, is fully 
set forth. The work is, in fact, more complete than the smaller 
manuals of moral theology, when these are stripped of their 
technicalities, and will be very useful to the preacher and even 
the confessor. We may add that the translation has been made 
with great skill and judgment ; it is by no means an easy matter 
to find the exact English equivalent for the terms of moral the- 
ology. It is not in every case, however, that the translator has 
succeeded in finding the exact equivalent ; for example : slander 
cannot be considered as the true rendering of detraction. In 
the common acceptation of terms it means the same as calumny. 

* Exposition of Christian Doctrine. By a Seminary Professor. Moral. Philadelphia: 
John Joseph McVey. 



8 4 6 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept., 

I .ST. FRANCIS DE SALES* MISSIONARY DISCOURSES.* 

It sometimes happens that a master of ascetical and mystical 
doctrine is also a master missionary. Such is the case with 
St. Francis de Sales. He led all his contemporaries in the 
number of his converts, and he has left methods of making 
converts hard to be equalled. Let it be realized, too, that 
his converts were made in the enemy's country, and almost 
single handed and alone, and that the enemy was Genevan 
Calvinism, an alliance of clever dialectics and fanatical fury far 
more formidable then in its early era than now in its decline. 

The subjects treated of in this volume cover the whole field 
of Church authority, though grouped for the most part under 
the head of the Rule of faith. The reader will find a full though 
concise argument for the divine mission of the church, her 
human and divine sides compared and adjusted, a very able 
statement of her divinely given marks, her relation to the 
Scriptures and to divine tradition, and a valuable series of 
arguments in proof of the supremacy and infallibility of the See 
of Peter. To this ecclesiastical part of his book, which forms 
the bulk of it, are added a treatise on the harmony of faith 
and reason, and others on the sacraments and purgatory. 
Everywhere the holy missionary delivers heavy blows at the 
Protestant errors contradictory and contrary to the truths he 
propounds. 

St. Francis did not strive after any new departure in Catho- 
lic apologetics, having been a very practical character, though 
so high a teacher of Christian perfection. But if there is no 
novelty even of treatment, yet there is much freshness, bold- 
ness, and withal kindliness in these vigorous discourses. The 
fearless missionary and the kindly persuader are thoroughly 
blended in St. Francis de Sales, and these discourses are good 
evidence of this happy condition. The old and well-known 
truths, identical with Christian missionary utterances since the 
Apostles, are put in a fervent way, are driven home with the 
insistence of loving interest in the souls of men, the fervor 
and the zeal of the apostle being a notable help to his success. 
Any of us can use these same arguments, and some of us can 
do it clearly, and the inherent force of truth carries some con- 

* Library of St. Francis de Sales. Works of this Doctor of the Church translated into 
English. By the Very Rev. H. B. Canon Mackey, O.S.B , under the direction of the Right 
Rev. John Cuthbeit Hedley, O.S.B., Bishop of Newport. III. The Catholic Controversy. 
Edited from the autograph MSS. at Rome and Annecy. Second edition, revised and 
augmented. London : Burns & Gates ; New York, Cincinnati, Chicago : Benziger Brothers. 
1899. Price $1.60. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 847 

viction always, or rather conviction to some to the rarer kind 
of spirits who are independent characters and fearless and pure 
of heart. But who will convert his thousands and his tens of 
thousands like St. Francis ? Only the one who learns the divine 
art of persuasion, as he did, in the divine school of humility and 
obedience, patience and prayer and love. A sling is at hand, 
and the brook has as many limpid pebbles as you desire ; but 
have you the arm and eye and heart of David? When Francis 
began in the Chablais he was indeed the David of the Lord's 
missionary host, being only twenty-seven years of age and but 
recently ordained priest. 

How St. Francis came to print these discourses he tells us 
himself in his preface to them as first published. He appealed 
to the eyes of those who would not lend him their ears. He 
took refuge from his empty benches in the Apostolate of the 
Press, for even St. Francis was not always a " drawing card," 
since he dealt with a blood-thirsty Protestant nobility and clergy 
and a deluded or terrorized people. 

" Gentlemen," says the Saint in his preface, " having prose- 
cuted for some space of time the preaching of the word of 
God in your town [Thonon, in the Chablais, a totally Calvinis- 
tic community], without obtaining a hearing from your people 
save rarely, casually, and stealthily, wishing to leave nothing 
undone on my part, I have set myself to put into writing some 
principal reasons, chosen for the most part from the sermons and 
instructions which I have hitherto addressed to you by word of 
mouth, in defence of the faith of the church. I should indeed 
have wished to be heard, as the accusers have been ; for words 
in the mouth are living, on paper dead. . . . My best 
chance, then, would have been to be heard, in lack of which 
this writing will not be without good results." 

Among the results was an increase of hearers at the saint's 
meetings, which sign of success was accompanied by the yet 
better one of attempts to murder him. He feared neither man 
nor devil in his Apostolate, and was rewarded, as we know, by 
a marvellous success. Having never grudged a sermon to a 
miserable failure of an audience, he finally was forced into the 
open air to accommodate the vast throngs who would not be 
denied. Once, on a stormy day, he had but seven hearers. 
"It is not worth while preaching to that little group," said 
some one to him. But he said, "One soul is as precious to 
me as a thousand," and he forthwith began a carefully pre- 
pared discourse on the invocation of the saints. Among his 



TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept., 

seven hearers was a prominent gentleman of Thonon. St. 
Francis was speaking doctrinally and made no effort at pathos, 
but this man began, after awhile, to sob with such violence 
that Francis was forced to interrupt his preaching. After the 
sermon this man came to Francis and assured him that he had 
been the means that day of saving his soul. " When," said he, 
in effect, " I heard your bell ring, and saw only four or five 
persons going in, I said to myself, now if M. de Sales preaches 
only for the love of God he will give us few people a sermon 
all the same ; but if he preaches for his own glory, he will 
despise so humble an audience, which will prove to me that 
he is an impostor and teaches lies. Your zeal in teaching these 
few humble peasants edifies me greatly, and I am so affected 
at my own miserable state of error that I could not help weep- 
ing." This occurrence was soon spoken of everywhere, and 
helped the saint to larger audiences. 

Francis de Sales attacks Calvinism with merciless severity, 
and the reasons for this aggressiveness are plain. They are 
local and contemporary reasons; firstly, the anti-Catholic vio- 
lence of the Calvinistic ministers demanded a defiant attitude 
on the part of the Catholic missionary. The defeat and hu- 
miliation of the champions of error was a necessary prelimin- 
ary to obtaining a hearing for the affirmation of the positive 
claims of the true Church of Christ. And, secondly, the 
absolute belief of the people in the validity of the Protestant 
claims called for forcible and detailed assault on them to 
begin with. It is easily seen that in our day the Catholic 
missionary, confronted with a timid heretical ministry and a 
decadent Protestant faith, should, as a rule, follow the shorter 
and directer road to persuasion, ignoring, as far as possible, 
the Protestant errors (and who can tell what they now are or 
what they are not ?), but preaching straight-out, thorough-going 
Catholic doctrine. St. Francis did the like when in other 
localities and in later years he had, either in an audience or 
an individual, conditions similar to our own. But when he 
conquered the Chablais he was literally bearding the lion in 
his den. He never faltered, he never was discouraged, he 
worked and waited month after month, in deadly peril of his 
life, without any visible fruit, till he broke the spell by resort- 
ing, as is here shown, to the Apostolate of the Press. 

In the preface to his book the saint sweetens his medicine 
with characteristic kindliness, closing as follows : " Receive 
favorably, I beg you, gentlemen of Thonon, this work, and 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 849 

though you have seen many better made and richer, still give 
some little of your attention to this, which will, perhaps, be 
more adapted to your taste than the others are ; for its air is 
entirely Savoyard, and one of the most profitable prescriptions, 
and the last remedy, is a return to one's native air. If this 
profit you not, you shall try others more pure and more 
invigorating, for there are, thank God, of all sorts in this 
country. I am about, therefore, to begin in the name of 
God, whom I most humbly beseech to make his holy Word 
distil sweetly as a refreshing dew into your heart. And I beg 
you, gentlemen, and those who read this, to remember the 
words of St. Paul : ' Let all bitterness and anger, and indigna- 
tion and clamor, and blasphemy be taken away from you, 
with all malice. Amen'" (Eph. iv. 31). 

A lesson is here given of the worth of a gentle manner in 
overcoming prejudice ; likewise the occasional opportuneness of 
"waving the flag" of one's country in the interests of its citi- 
zens' religious betterment. 

We are indebted for this new and perfect edition to Dom 
Mackey, O.S.B., who is making a new English version of all 
the Saint's writings, having already given us four volumes, in- 
cluding a much-needed translation of the golden Treatise on 
the Love of God. This learned English Benedictine is at the 
same time bringing out a complete edition of the Saint's en- 
tire works in French, revised and corrected from the original 
MSS. by his personal labors. 

2. INDUSTRIAL CUBA.* 

As we look back over the scenes of a year ago and calmly 
study their real nature apart from the passion and deep feeling 
that enveloped them at that time, we are made quite certain 
that the Hispano-American War was entirely an industrial re- 
volution. The issues between Spain and the United States 
may have been complicated with and colored by certain century- 
long racial antipathies, or even some very deep religious antago- 
nisms, yet substantially and essentially it was the deep-toned 
cry of the people for bread and the necessities of life that pre r 
cipitated the war. It has been called a war for humanity's 
sake, and such it was. The American is so constituted that if a 

* Industrial Cuba. Being a Study of present Commercial and Industrial Conditions, 
with suggestions as to the opportunities presented in the Island for American capital, enter- 
prise, and labor. By Robert P. Porter, Special Commissioner for the United States to Cuba 
and Porto Rico. With maps and 62 Illustrations. New York and London : G. P. Putnam's 
Sons. 

VOL. LXIX. 54 



TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept., 

neighbor in the next yard is inflicting bloody cruelties on his 
children, is starving them into subjection and beating them unto 
death, so that over and over again the cries reach him in the 
quiet of his home, and frequently messengers come and tell 
him of the dreadful cruelties that are going on next door, the 
American is so constituted that he cannot close his doors 
and windows to keep out the sounds, and deafen his ears 
or steel his heart to the piteous cries of the helpless ones, nor 
sit down contentedly and let the persecuting miseries go on. 
He must do something to rescue the children even if they are 
not his own, or save the poor wife even if it is none of his 
business. Anyhow, public decency requires that the good name 
of the neighborhood be protected, that standards of morality 
be enforced on those who outrage them, even to the police- 
man's club and the cannon's shot. It was just this sentiment and 
no other that lay at the bottom of the Spanish-American War. 

America's real motive was to relieve distress and to lift up 
a poor naked, etiolated slave, who with famished body and 
emaciated frame piteously appealed to her for protection and 
succor. 

The providence of God, by an almost bloodless war, has 
banished the cruel taskmasters from the island as a plague ~from 
Egypt, and it will not be many years before the rich vitalities 
of the country will assert themselves. 

There is no reason why Cuba should not be the garden-spot 
of the world. It is a country of wondrous vitality ; so fertile 
that there is nothing that grows within the tropics that will 
not grow there, and so productive that crop after crop has been 
gathered and still the soil has not been worn out. Its well- 
known wealth and productiveness only made it a prey to the 
rapacity of a horde of alien officials. How it has been de- 
spoiled of its riches, how it has been paralyzed in its energies, 
how it has been debased in its ideals, how it has been pro- 
stituted in its mental, moral, and physical standards, the world 
knows now only too well. 

The process of regeneration has been started in a prudent, 
healthful way. In the first place, the island has been cleaned 
up. As a breeding pest-hole of yellow fever it was a constant 
menace to the United States. A few years of correct sanita- 
tion will effectually stamp out the fever germs. In the next 
place, all the legitimate industries have been nurtured. During 
the past year the growing of the cane, the fostering of the 
tobacco, the cultivation of a line of tropical fruits to these 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 851 

projects the people have turned their attention. It will not be 
many years before the immediate demands of the people will 
be satisfied. They will have nourished their starved bodies, 
they will have built again their homes, they will have accumu- 
lated some little wealth, and then Cuba will look for an open- 
ing in the markets of the world. 

By a prudent provision Cuba has been protected from the 
speculator and the adventurer. Wild-cat schemes of investment 
or booms on the American plan would have been as fatal to 
the island's welfare as a rich banquet to sailors famished 
through a week's exposure and starvation on the sea. Any 
large investments for the purpose of improvements just now 
might create a top-heavy system that some day or other would 
collapse. What is wanted is to begin at the bottom and let 
the nation's main resources thrive. It will not take long to put 
the agricultural interests of the island in a healthy state of 
prosperity. Then will follow the industrial development. 

The position of the United States towards the island is 
merely as pacificator. In the beginning this country disclaimed 
"any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdic- 
tion, or control over said island," except for the " pacification 
thereof." The people are tired of warfare. They would be 
glad to blot out the memories of a generation of deceit, rob- 
bery, and oppression. They are glad to have the strong arm 
of vigorous America stretched out over them in protection and 
support. The people have fought and suffered for freedom. 
They love it profoundly. But just now the freedom above all 
others that they want is industrial freedom to go back quietly 
to the plough and the fireside. 

As for the future, it may be too soon to prognosticate 
what will be the ultimate political condition. There is no 
doubt as to the almost unanimous sentiment of the people 
from top to bottom. It is to have the United States stay 
just where she is. No greater calamity could befall the island 
than to have the United States troops withdrawn and permit 
the restless elements to awaken an internecine strife. With 
quiet, peace, and the proper encouragement of industrial activi- 
ties the future will take care of itself. 

We have carefully refrained from touching on the religious 
situation. It is a subject all by itself, and in order to com- 
prehend it, it needs the statement of many facts fearlessly and 
truthfully made with all their proper qualifications. .This can 
not be done within the limits of a short article. 



852 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept., 

We profoundly believe that the events of the last year have 
been the dispositions of a very wise Providence overruling 
matters in church as well as in state so that the greatest 
good may be the outcome. 

3. FROM ECONOMICS TO LEVITICUS.* 

Not a great while ago an attack on all definite forms of 
Christianity was published by a distinguished gentleman con- 
nected with one of our great universities. It was remarkable 
for impartial hostility to all creeds, rather than for general 
fairness, and bore more evidence of wide, indiscriminate read- 
ing than of conscientious analysis. The work was divided into 
chapters meant by their titles sharply to emphasize the con- 
trast between superannuated religious faith and modern science. 
Among others, the legend " From Leviticus to Political Econo- 
my " headed an expose of the weaknesses in theocratic social 
regulations traditional since the days of Moses, and summed 
up the satisfaction more or lest prevalent among contemporary 
scholars at having been emancipated so successfully from the 
Egyptian thraldom of simple faith. 

And still there are many among us who would fain demur, 
who cannot refrain from declarations of belief in the truth, 
utility, and indestructible vitality of social principles traceable 
back to the first definite instruction of man by God. The 
growing confidence and power of such as these, their successful 
interference and forceful control in the trend of contemporary 
intellectual movements cannot be hidden. Suggestion, nay, pal- 
pable demonstration of their widening influence among the think- 
ers of this closing century, is brought home to us by the memory 
of John Ruskin's name, activities, and still surviving power. 

Ethereal Ruskin ! Surely entitled to, and gladly accorded, 
our undying admiration that with Promethean fire he galvanized 
our generation into new being. Honest and fearless and untir- 
ing, straitened with the travail of a message, whose inspiration 
was Sincerity and burden Truth, born into a Philistine world 
lackey-spirited and school-boy minded, great man he lived and 
died yes, died many times and over again, and was buried 
almost, long time before the spirit left him. Broken with work 
and weight of years, begloomed by disappointment and meagre 
fruit and wasted health and fortune, to Philistines he would 
seem a mournful illustration of the " might have been." Those 
who weigh his words and read his work realize that he is not 

*John Ruskin, Social Reformer. By >. A. Hobson. Boston : Dana, Estes & Co. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 853 

yet dead ; and though he were, that the work thus far accom- 
plished might nigh suffice for immortality. 

Boy-poet, art-critic, painter, professor, economist, prophet, 
and heretic ; in public view for half a century ; writer of almost 
matchless activity and unexampled versatility ; loved, revered, 
suspected, wondered at and scorned ; man of his day, antiqua- 
rian, far younger than the generation whose quickest advance 
he had outstripped ; brother to Carlyle and Tolstoi, yet once 
under surveillance for tending Romeward Ruskin can find no 
portrait in these few lines of ours. Only we owe a tribute to 
him whenever his name appears ; and an ardent student of 
Ruskin has just favored us with a summary account of the 
Master's views on Social Reform. 

Proper appreciation of the volume demands far greater 
equipment than the reading of it will supply. Only those who 
have loved Ruskin long since will get full value for their efforts, 
and to such we commend its luminous and thorough exposition 
of Ruskinism as a social theory. Other readers if such there 
be we would not discourage from the work, but suggest pre- 
vious reading of books like Collingwood's Life, Prceterita, Fors 
Clavigera, Unto this Last. But perhaps little commendation of 
these books is required, the study of Ruskin being frequent and 
full of interest. Would that it came the way of some barren 
intelligences we know, who waste time nursing their talent, and 
sigh for "something to read"! 

One will appreciate the necessity of preparatory reading if 
the details of that long life, the variety of work, and the style 
of execution be recalled. Ruskin, like Matthew Arnold, was 
no system-maker. Despite his grasp of social needs and at- 
tempts at restorations, no conscious detailed and scientific 
resum^ of his socialism is discoverable among his own writings. 
Yet rank is claimed for him as the great social teacher of his 
age, and is justified by the number and variety of his doctrines, 
his thorough comprehensive grasp, and his ardent and forceful 
propaganda of novel ideas novel to his hearers, at least. The 
very gifts that have earned him fame, his mastery in art, his 
superb, impassioned rhetoric, his " fanatical," or rather heroic, 
advocacy of ideals, these not infrequently prevent serious con- 
sideration of his claim to be an economist and deep student 
of society, as well as a leader in measures of practicable re- 
form. For the gaining of true perspective, therefore, careful 
and slow must the reader be. In this Mr. Hobson's work will 
prove of immense service; but it cannot, nor would its author 
wish it to, replace the study of originals, the critical judgment of 



854 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept., 

Ruskinian thoughts as they stand entwined among foliage and 
played upon by glittering sunbeams, just as the Master left them. 

Thus far as to the volume.* It is tastefully, even hand- 
somely bound. The style befits the subject and the treatment. 
The writer thoroughly justifies Ruskin's claim advanced for 
position as a great teacher of social science. But we would not 
close without a further word on what is to us the most strik- 
ing, most admirable, most characteristic feature of John Ruskin's 
socialism. f May we not thus qualify that deep, all-embracing, 
all-pervading sympathy, wide as the world, that saw man's 
whole nature beautifully one, that dreamed of continuous pro- 
gress to ideal perfection consisting in full development of body 
and mind, imagination and soul the crowning with destined 
glory of all things ideal and actual, living and inanimate ; ex- 
pressed by himself thus succinctly in the last volume of Fors : 

" ' Modern Painters ' taught the claim of all lower nature in 
the hearts of men, of the rock, and wave, and herb, as a part 
of their necessary spirit life in all that I now bid you do, to 
dress the earth and keep it. I am fulfilling what I then be- 
gan. The ' Stones of Venice' taught the laws of constructive 
art, and the dependence of all human work or edifice, for its 
beauty, on the happy life of the unknown. ' Unto this Last ' 
taught the laws of that life itself, and its dependence on the 
Sun of Justice ; the ' Inaugural Oxford Lectures,' the necessity 
that it should be led, and the gracious laws of beauty and 
labor recognized, by the upper, no less than the lower, classes 
of England ; and lastly, ' Fors Clavigera ' has declared the rela- 
tions of these to each other, and the only possible conditions 
of peace and honor, for low and high, rich and poor, together 
in the holding of that first Estate, under the only Despot, God, 
from which, whoso falls, angel or man, is kept, not mythically, 
nor disputably, but here in visible horror of chains under dark- 
ness to the judgment of the great day: and in keeping which 
service is perfect freedom, and inheritance of all that a loving 
Creator can give to his creatures, and an immortal Father to 
his children." 

What, now, shall we think of those to whom Mr. Ruskin 
seems like an antagonist of the teaching that Faith is Art's 
Life ? True, this axiom needs broad interpretation ; but under- 
stood, it is but the crowning of that high and true Idealism 
for which Ruskin stood. 

* We cannot omit mention of a most unfortunate accident in binding, whereby pages 
226, 227, 230, 231, 234, 235, 238, 239 are missing in the present edition. 

t Socialism: word used here etymologically and clear in the context-wV/., realism, ani- 
malism, somnambulism. 



1899-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 855 

Ruskin, like any subject of meditation, must be considered 
as a whole in order to be accurately appreciated. There is 
plain and continuous development in the history of his growth 
from Nature to Art, through Art to Human Life, and through 
Human Life to the ever-deepening sense of Eternal Law, 
shining through and vivifying every visible creature. Thus con- 
ceived, his life shows harmonious through apparent discord. It 
was matter of course that under existing circumstances his youth 
should be that narrow, unsympathetic thing it really was. So, 
too, was his later awakening quite in the to-be-expected order. 
Given his characteristics and certain social conditions, contact 
of these would almost necessarily produce the reaction that 
occurred. 

So Mr. Hobson's volume helps to a clear understanding of 
what we would have postulated as antecedently probable that 
Ruskinism is the result of a certain definite and scientific view 
of phenomena, and not a mere sentiment. It makes for an 
integral grasp of human life, and its moral character is grand. 
The crowning that it lacked the wedding with the faith of 
Dante, Angelico, Raphael, Gregory, More, Leo, this we can 
contrive ourselves, and mark how the whole shines beautifully 
true and strong, proving the dead Master, as far as he went, to 
have been a veritable Prophet to the modern, narrow-minded, 
low-lived world. 



4. KEY TO THE STUDY OF GAELIC.* 

The above is the first of a series of three parts, two of 
which are still to be published, and devoted to the gram- 
matical analysis of the Irish language, " with exercises and 
vocabularies" for the aid of those who desire to acquire a 
knowledge of the Irish language through the medium of the 
English alphabet. The first part before us takes up the ques- 
tion of the etymology of the language, and within the com- 
paratively small compass the writer has allowed himself it must 
be said that he has given a fairly clear and concise statement 
of his subject. It is to be regretted that owing to the neglect 
which our language has suffered, and still suffers, no thoroughly 
scientific grammar has as yet been issued, if we except, perhaps, 
Windische's, which to the student is to a great extent a closed 
book, unless he be already an adept in philology. O'Donovan's 
grammar, though a marvel in its way, considering the fact that 
its author was unable to bring the knowledge of comparative 
philology to bear on his subject, as philology had as yet 

* Key to the Study of Gaelic. By John O'Daly. Gaelic School, Boston. 



856 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept. 

scarcely emerged from an inchoate or formative condition to 
the perfection of a science as we behold it to-day, is entirely 
inadequate to the requirements of even a partial knowledge of 
the wonderful system of phonology which underlies our lan- 
guage, and which proves the extraordinary degree of culture 
to which our ancestors attained. It may be said, without minc- 
ing matters, that very much of what has been written in our 
grammars heretofore on etymology and grammatical forms in 
general is largely empirical, and must be rewritten, when the 
scholar who is competent to do so can be found. That scholar 
must bring to bear on his work a thorough knowledge of the 
phonology of the language, and in addition a knowledge of 
philology, as far as that science has progressed. He must, 
moreover, from the very nature of things, have a traditional or 
natural, and not a merely acquired, knowledge of the Irish lan- 
guage ; otherwise we shall have a new example of "the blind 
leading the blind." It may not be too much to hope that 
Ireland under the present stimulus to Celtic studies may shortly 
be able to produce such a scholar. At all events, it is a hope- 
ful sign of the times to see a young man like Mr. O'Daly take 
up the work of writing a text-book for beginners, and all such 
efforts should be encouraged by those who have the welfare of 
the Irish language at heart. The writer, moreover, shows that 
he possesses a very extensive knowledge of Irish, which is sup- 
plemented by conscientious research and painstaking, and we 
are very much mistaken, or he is a natural Irish speaker. He 
would do well, however, to avoid designating as corrupt any- 
thing that still exists in the spoken language ; the safer way is 
to regard any difference of idiom or pronunciation in any par- 
ticular district as a natural development, till the contrary is 
clearly proven. We cannot at all agree with him that the 
diphthongal sound given in Munster to a, o, and i, coming 
before //, nn, m, ng, etc., in monosyllables is a corruption. In 
fact the contrary seems to be the case. Take, for instance, 
the word poll, a hole ; we have Welsh pwll, Manx powl, Old 
High-German pful, Breton poull, and English pool. Again, take 
the word im, butter, Old Irish imb Latin, unguentum, ointment 
and the Munster pronunciation, eyme, would seem to be um- 
lauted from the Indo-European root. 

Aside, however, from these considerations, we can cordially 
recommend this little work to beginners, especially to those 
who think tjtey can make better progress in studying the lan- 
guage fron. ^ English rather than the Irish character. 

/mlisrffo 




No greater calamity could happen to the pres- 
ent administration at Washington than to permit 
the impression to go abroad in any of our newly 
found colonies that the spirit of the American government is an- 
tagonistic to the religion of the people. Yet some of the official 
acts give color to such sentiments. At best the government has 
all it can do to suppress the insurrection. We are continually 
reading of how the insurgents were beaten here and defeated 
there, but they will not stay "beaten " or " defeated." We sin- 
cerely hope that the war will be brought to a speedy and vic- 
torious issue. 



We have no sympathy with the editorial policy of some 
papers that at this juncture take occasion to denounce the 
administration for certain imperialistic tendencies it is supposed 
to possess. It was just that policy last spring in Congress that 
kindled the fires of revolt, and a continuation of such an 
attitude is giving comfort to the enemy while their forces are 
engaging our soldiers in battle. The only way out just now is 
for the government to quell the insurrection, and do it quickly. 
Then, when the peace propositions have been signed, we can 
discuss the evils of an imperialistic policy. The other course is 
constructively treasonable. 



It is indicative of the best progress that the Temperance 
movement is choosing to work along educational lines. The 
Catholic Total Abstinence Union has lately finished the delibera- 
tions of its Twenty-ninth Annual Convention, and we gather 
from the published reports that the organization is now the 
largest Catholic fraternal organization in America, and is con- 
stantly growing. This convention reports a membership of 
80,373 ; but what is more hopeful for the future life of the 
organization is the good work it is doing among the children. 



858 WHAT THE THINKERS SAY. [Sept., 



WHAT THE THINKERS SAY. 



Editor of The Catholic World. 

REVEREND FATHER : The article by Rev. George McDermot in the August 
CATHOLIC WORLD MAGAZINE brought forcibly to my mind a personal incident 
which might be of interest to your readers in connection with " The Man with 
the Hoe." The enclosed poem embodies my thought, but perhaps a little ex- 
planation will not be amiss. 

While at the Columbian Exposition I had set apart three days for the art 
gallery it was all I could afford to give and I found when nearing the end of 
the allotted time I had not seen the famous picture. A young girl, not a Catho- 
lic, a former pupil, was with me. She was an adept at wedging her way through 
a crowd, being a Chicago girl. So at last we reached the spot and were trying 
to guess the inner thought of the picture. Of course she declared it hideous, 
stupid, but I recalled to her remembrance an old Bohemian who did chores 
around the convent in her school dajs, and for whom the " Man with the Hoe " 
might have stood for portrait, and said : " Well, now, you know old Kravonich 
was not so dull as he looked, and when appealed to through his religious feelings 
was really grand. Surely he would not have done a sinful thing for any money." 
She assented and we drifted on, talking of the peasantry of Christian countries 
and how the cultivation of the religious element raised them to heights not 
drean ed of in countries where material ideas held sway. I quoted Carlyle's 
estimate of the highest type of humanity, the ."peasant saint," the man who 
willingly bears the burdens without sharing the joys cf humanity, and we con- 
cluded that Fathtr Damien would have filled his ideal. While lingering thus a 
set of young men, art students we found out later, sauntered along. After cast- 
ing a hasty glance at " The Gleaners "one exclaimed: "Oh, say. here is 'The 
Man with the Hoe ' ! " Instantly they all gathered around, and one remarked : 
" I must say I do not fancy Millet ; his pictures are all so sad." " Sad ! " echoed 
the next one. " That lout hasn't enough soul to feel sad. He 's all rig! t ; he '11 
go home, fill up, and go to sleep without a thought." 

Somehow my companion had fallen in love with " The Man with the Hoe," 
and she resented the slander, and with the bohemiani<m born of the subject, the 
persons, and the place, she flashed back : " That man may not be so dull as you 
think; you should remember that is a French peasant." A smile flitted across 
the faces of the students, and even I was surprised at her enthusiasm. One gen- 
tleman politely interposed : " But I do not see the point. What has his nationality 
to do with it ? " 

" Why everything," she answered. " In France every hill-side has its mon- 
astery or its vil'age church ; just let its bell ring out a call to prayer, and you will 
see ' The Man with the Hoe ' turned into the ' Angelus.' " It was like a lumi- 
nous shaft entering our minds. We all had seen the " Angelus " and knew its 
elements were identical with " The Man, etc.," and all that changed its spirit 
was indeed the call to prayer. 



1899-] WHAT THE THINKERS SAY. 859 

I have tried to embody this in the following, with what success I must leave 
you to judge : 

THE MAN WITH THE HOE. 

Bowed by the weight of labor's curse he leans 

Upon his hoe and gazes vacantly ; 

A seeming emptiness o'erspreads his face, 

And on his back life's heavy burden lies. 

Is he all that his vacant features tell ? 

A being dead to rapture and despair, 

A thing ihat grieves not and that never hopes, 

Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox, 

Within no power to lift the brutal jaw, 

No power to forward curve the slanting brow, 

No breath of life to stir the narrowed brain ? 

By Nature's law is matter shaped by soul, 

This clod-like thing is man in outward form, 

Begrimed and roughened by unending toil 

To semblance in expression of a brute. 

And yet a human soul must dwell within : 

What fiend-like power has marred this God-like work? 

This crowning glory of the world, reduced 

To be the fellow of the beast he feeds? 

Eternal curses light on those who dared 

Debase the thing the Lord God gave and made 

To have dominion over sea and land, 

To trace the stars and search the heavens for power 

To feel the passion of eternity ! 

Restrain, my friend, thy noble wrath, and think 
Perchance 'tis spent in senseless railing 
Against the roughened shell that holds the pearl 
And gives no outward gleam of treasured light. 
No gulf between him and the Seraphim 
May lie, save in thy earth-bound fantasy. 

Lo ! from a village spire slow tolls a bell ; 

It strikes upon his idly listening ear, 

And straight the pearl of soul within him shrined 

Gives forth a gleam, proclaiming him a man, 

A being made for reverence and for love ! 

The brow is raised or lowlier bent to earth 

In adoration's mute appeal to God ; 

The lips their oft repeated Ave ! form, 

A gleam of light his patient spirit stirs, 

A grander gleam than swing of Pleiades, 

Than Plato's guesses of the Infinite. 

" Long, long ago, my cure told me so, 

The God who made the world was such as I, 

And toiled and sweated for the sins of all, 

Albeit he did no evil thing Himself. 



86o WHAT THE THINKERS SAY. [Sept., 

Eh bien ! I am a guilty sinner ; moi, 

But toil will be my way to Paradis, 

With the bon Dieu to rest for evermore." 

And shouldering hoe he peaceful turns him home. 

See now, the tinkling of the vesper bell 

Has touched with gleams of Immortality 

This monstrous thing, distorted and soul-quenched; 

For the hard lines by daily toil inwrought 

Touch not the seraph nature of the man. 

Just such as he, mayhap, were Juda's men 

Who watched their flocks when chanting angels came 

To call them to the Stable and the Crib. 

SISTER M. AUGUSTINE. 




1899.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 86 1 



THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 

T^RANCIS L. PATTON, the president of Princeton University, admits the 
1 value of the small college, and that many of the great universities are 
indebted to small beginnings. He contends, however, for the special benefits 
of the university course, and proves his case very well, as follows : 

" This specialization of function, \\hich is going on so rapidly in our Ameri- 
can universities, is of great advantage to the professors, for it enables them to 
become investigators and not merely teachers of the body of accepted truth. 

" It would not be impossible for the same, man to teach logic, ethics, and 
metaphysics, and also to lecture on English literature, international law, and the 
evidences of Christianity. But he could hardly be expected to do original work 
in all of these departments, and it would be strange if he succeeded in teaching 
any one of them well. And it is a distinct advantage to the student when the 
professor's teaching schedule is so reduced and his area of professional responsi- 
bility is so limited that he can give his whole time to the study of a specialty. 
For there comes a time in the life of the undergraduate when he feels that his 
days of learning lessons and of reciting from text-books are over, and that if he 
is to have any fresh inspiration for study he must get it by contact with men also 
who are acknowledged masters in the departments with which they deal, and 
by independent study in a chosen field of inquiry. 

" It will be universally conceded that for a student to engage successfully in 
original research he should have the advantage of access to large libraries, the 
use of well-equipped laboratories, and the guidance of professors who have 
made certain fields of inquiry in a very special sense their own. And these ad- 
vantages ordinarily cannot be enjoyed outside of the universities. The only 
question is, whether a student may profitably engage in work of this kind during 
his undergraduate career. I see no reason why he should not begin work of 
this kind during the last two years of his course, and why a very considerable 
part of time in senior year should not be devoted to it. 

" It is not denied, however, that much can be said in behalf of the old- 
fashioned curriculum and the small college, though what is commonly said of 
them in contrast with and to the disadvantage of the university could be im- 
proved by the infusion into it of a more judicial temper. It may easily happen 
that in the college the freshman comes into direct contact with a professor, 
while in the university he is very frequently brought into relation with a tutor or 
an assistant professor. But this is not necessarily a disadvantage." 
* * * 

The officers of the Ozanam Reading Circle, New York City, are : 

President, Miss Mary F. McAleer ; Vice-President, Miss Helen A. Walsh ; 
Corresponding Secretary, Miss Mary I. McNabb ; Recording Secretary, Miss 
Frances B. McAleer; Treasurer, Miss Jane C. McCarthy. Director, Rev. 
Thomas McMillan, C.S.P. The president of the Circle presented at the closing 
meeting, season of 1898-9, the following outline of the year's work: 

It is my privilege to present to you the twelfth annual report of the Ozanam 
Reading Circle. The first regular meeting was held October 3, Father McMillan 
presiding, for on that night the annual election of officers was to take place. The 
interests of the club are well attended toby a president, a vice-president, a record- 



862 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Sept., 

ing secretary, and a treasurer. These officers, with the ex-presidents and the Rev. 
Director, constitute the council, whose work is mainly advisory. Special meet- 
ings are held by this body for the purpose of determining the yearly programme. 
The, particular work of the Director is that of recommending books for 
home reading. Once a month he outlines a work which he thinks of especial 
value. Among those so discussed by him the past year are : The People for 
whom Shakspere Wrote, author Charles Dudley Warner, and that old English 
classic by Sir Thomas More, Utopia, which, in contrast to Bellamy's Looking 
Backward, might well be styled Looking Forward. 

The points in this book particularly noted and commented upon referred to 
passages bearing upon present municipal questions. Quoting from the book: 

" Utopia is an island protected from invasion by nature and art. Its capi- 
tal, Amawrote, resembles London in position ; in arrangement it is what Lon- 
don might be. It has broad, clean streets and well-built houses, each with a 
fruit and flower garden. The magistrates are elected by the whole community. 
They in their turn elect by ballot a prince from four candidates sent up, each 
from a quarter of the city. Laws are few, so as not to be a stumbling to the un- 
learned. Religious questions may be discussed, but violence in argument is 
treated as a crime." 

In our own country municipal changes have caused a revival of interest in 
the book, which deserves a more careful perusal than is generally acceded to it. 
Current topics have entered largely into our Director's plan of study for 
the year. The month of October was devoted to a study of one of the works of 
George Eliot The Sad Fortunes of Amos Barton. This induced home study 
of the book, which prepared the way for discussion at the regular meeting. - 

The latter part of the present century has been remarkable for the great 
number of literary productions totally lacking in the spiritual sense. Brother 
Azarias, in Phases of Jhought and Criticism, has laid particular emphasis on 
this defect in modern literature. With a view to learn how to combat the mod- 
ern spirit that is abroad, certain evenings were devoted to the subject The Cul- 
ture of the Spiritual Sense. The Imitation was selected for a study. Its lit- 
erary structure was first presented. 

It was interesting to note the traces of authorship running through it. 
Scarcely a sentence but does not recall some passage now in the Old, now in the 
New Testament. The author drew from St. Gregory the Great, St. Bernard, 
St. Francis Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas. He also laid the pagan classics under 
contribution. He quotes Aristotle, Ovid, Seneca, and there are some remarkable 
coincidences in expression between himself and Dante. 

This presentation was followed by a paper on the " Spiritual Sense " of The 
Imitation, Brother Azarias being again taken as an authority. He says : 

" For the student 7 he Imitation is laden with beautiful lessons. Thomas a 
Kempis continually reminded his scholars that great words do not make a man 
holy and just. He lays down the condition under which study may be pursued 
with advantage. He shows the greater responsibility attached to human knowl- 
edge, and counsels the student to be humble : 

' The more thou knowest and the better thou understandest, the more 
strictly shall thou be judged, unless thy life also be the more holy. Be not, 
therefore, elated in thy own mind because of any art or science, but rather let 
the knowledge given thee make thee afraid.' " 

The book has always been a consoler in tribulation. Louis XVI., when a 
prisoner, found great comfort in its pages, and read them day and night. La 



1899-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 863 

Harpe thought the book beneath his notice, even as the humanists before him 
had regarded St. Paul. La Harpe, in the prison of Luxemburg, met with the 
book, opened it at random and read lines that made him fall on his face and 
weep bitterly. Ever after The Imitation was one of La Harpe's most cherished 
books. 

And again, read George Eliot's tribute to the small, old-fashioned book, for 
which you need only pay sixpence to-day. Poor Maggie Tulliver! trouble and 
misfortune have come upon her, and she has not \et learned the lesson of Chris- 
tian patience and suffering. An accident puts her in possession of 7 he Imita- 
tion. She reads the book. It thrills her with awe, as if she had been wakened 
in the night by a strain of solemn music telling of beings whose soul had been 
astir while hers was in stupor. It is to her the revelation of a new world of 
thought and spirituality. And so with many others. 

Emerson and Newman also furnished a theme for comparison. Newman's 
poem, " The Dream of Gerontius," formed an excellent contrast to Emerson's 
" Sphinx." The Spiritual Sense of Tennyson's " In Memoriam " concluded this 
analysis, which has opened a new field of thought for many of us. 

Those who had the great pleasure of attending the lecture on Coventry 
Patmore know what a debt of gratitude we owe the Rev. Henry E. O'Keeffe, 
C.S.P., who on December 6 so ably introduced to the friends of the Ozanam the 
late poet, whom " only the elect may read." 

The remainder of the year of 1898 was devoted mainly to critical readings 
of works of fiction. Vanity Fair produced two papers, one discussing, Was 
Lord Rawdon justified in condemning his wife ? Another arguing, Had Becky 
Sharp any redeeming qualities ? I think we never settled that question. We 
all agreed to disagree on that point. 

Among the new books of the year Helbeck of Bannisdale has corrie in for its 
full share of criticism. The opinions, both pro and con, have been many. St. 
George Mivart was referred to as one authority in Masher's Magazine whose 
critical comments were much enjoyed by the members of the Circle. Sien- 
kiewicz, the great realist, has been the means of many a pleasant hour's diversion 
in the busy home-life of our members. 

February 22 brought round again the annual At Home of the Ozanam, 
when we gladly welcome all our friends, both old and new. Among the latter 
it is our privilege to number Mr. John Jerome Rooney, well known for his poems 
on the recent war, who that day introduced to us Apples Finkey, The Water 
Boy, with several other of his war ballads. 

Those who were with us on Washington's Birthday know what a rare treat 
we enjoyed in listening to these readings of Mr. Rooney, followed as they were 
by Father Doherty's reminiscences of his experience at Manila, which kindled 
our interest to enthusiasm, particularly when he informed us he had met Dewey 
and Aguinaldo. 

The past two months have been months of profit and enjoyment. Thanks 
to the Board of Education we were able to attend a course of lectures in this 
hall on Shakspere and general literature, that have well repaid our faithful 
attendance. The year has drawn to a close. For many things the Ozanam is 
very grateful. To the Paulist Fathers we owe deep gratitude for the kind 
interest that has led them to provide us with a large, warm, and well-lighted 
room, and what is still better, for the spiritual and intellectual help we have re- 
ceived from them. While ambition urges us onward and upward, we sometimes 
have to cry a halt in our pursuit and check the too eager aspirant for higher 



864 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Sept., 1899. 

realms. \Ve have learned not to expect too much of the humble delver, but to 
remember that 

" Who does the best his circumstance allows, 

Does well, acts nobly ; angels could no more." 
* * * 

George H. Baker, who resigned from the Columbia University Library on 
July i, has been succeeded by Dr. James H. Canfield, late president of Ohio 
State University, who has begun his work. 

The additions to the library in the last college year, ending June 30, were 
25,404 bound volumes, of which 18,283 were derived from purchase or exchange, 
5,141 volumes from gift, and 1,975 from the incorporation into bound volumes, 
either singly or by subjects, of pamphlets and other material received unbound 
in the year, or already in the library in unbound form. This is the largest 
annual growth which the library has made, the nearest approach to it having 
been in i894-'95, when 24,839 volumes were added. 

It may be interesting to give in brief the additions to the library of the 
University in the last fifteen years. . There were added to the library in the five 
years ending June 30, 1889, 35,836 volumes; the additions for the following five 
years, ending June 30, 1894, were 80,931 volumes, while the number added the 
third period of five years, ending June 30, 1899, was 98,502. 

The number of books in Columbia University Library in 1883, when the 
various libraries belonging to Columbia were consolidated in what was then the 
new library building, under Melvil Dewey, was less than 50,000 volumes. In 
May, 1889, when George H. Baker, after about a year's service as acting libra- 
rian, was chosen librarian in chief, the library numbered a little above 90,000. 
It now contains more than 275,000 volumes, and is thus exceeded in numbers by 
no university library in America except that of Harvard, unless the undeter- 
mined and undeterminable extent of the Chicago University Library should be 
thought to exceed the above figure. 

Many additions have been made in the year in French and German history, 
together with more than 2,200 volumes in philosophy and education, with large 
developments in many other directions. Among other special purchases was a 
collection of more than 1,100 pamphlets issued in the French Revolution, con- 
sisting of reports and other official and semi-official documents addressed to the 
legislative bodies in France in the years 1789- '91. Also a large body of disser- 
tations in Greek literary history and archaeology was acquired. Following the 
interest and importance which the subject has assumed, an unusually rich col- 
lection of material on the Philippine Islands has been formed, including many 
Spanish works and books printed in Manila. 

There have been made and added to the general catalogue in the year 
61,034 new cards, and the number of cards incorporated with the catalogue for a 
number of years was an average of 50,000 annually. The growth and the use cf 
the library indicated by the loans of books to be used out of the building have 
shown a great increase from year to year in the last ten years. The number ot 
books lent in 1888-89 was ll >32S> the following year it rose to 16,004, and it has 
annually increased until the record for the last fiscal year is 77,260 volumes lent, 
or between six and seven times that of ten years ago. 

Columbia University Library now consists, as far as the public is concerned, 
of a general reading room, the law reading room, the Avery architectural read- 
ing room, eighteen special reading rooms in the library building, and twenty de- 
partmental libraries of greater or less extent, each with certain reading room 
facilities. 



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